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Fringe Shows

HFF16 – Day Eight (part 2)

The second half of the day began with my most anticipated show, Gilda: A Tribute to the Beloved Comedienne Gilda Radner.  Like many of you, I fondly remember Gilda and the greatness she brought to the founding cast of Saturday Night Live, including those amazing and memorable characters Judy Miller, Emily Litella, Baba Wawa and Roseanne Rosannadana.

Gilda

Helena K. Cosentino embodies the memory of Gilda and truly brings her back to life again in what is the most beautiful and loving tribute I have ever witnessed to a Hollywood icon.  In addition, she embodies the soul and spirit of Gilda by donating the proceeds from the show to the Cancer Support Community and Gilda’s Club of Kansas City in honor of Gilda.  You can also make donations by clicking here.

I was very fortunate to catch her final Fringe show before she heads home for the Kansas City Fringe Festival.  Hopefully she will share her gifts with us at the Zootown Fringe Festival in August.

My next show was Sexy Maus at the Studio portion of Sacred Fools Theatre.  It is wonderfully written and delightfully performed by Andrea Schell with superb directing from Wade Gasque.

SexyMaus

This show takes the audience on a thrilling trip around Europe as Schell tries to escape the real life hell of helping her parents by going on a whirlwind tour of some of Europe’s hot spots, all the while looking for love in all the trendy places.

Schell tells a very compelling story, complete with breathtaking slides documenting her trip.  Her storytelling is first rate, and kept the audience engaged throughout.

We recommend you take a little trip with the Sexy Maus, and live vicariously through her story.  Her final performance is scheduled for June 25 at 10 p.m.

My sixth show of the day was a special appearance by New York premier actor Khalil Mhammad who brought his new solo show Pryor Truth to the Fringe for a two day stint.

Pryor

Muhammad has crafted a finely tuned one-man show that felt just like a performance by the late comedian Richard Pryor.  His performance was spot on, from his vocal delivery to his constant sweat wiping and colorful language.  I felt like I was in the presence of greatness as I thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity I never had to hear Pryor live.  It was a fitting tribute to the man proclaimed as one of America’s greatest comedians.  The entire house became engrossed in the show and gave him a rousing ovation at the end.

Unfortunately this was his only appearance at HFF16, but we can only hope that Muhammad will return with another show in the future.

My final show for the night (and, as it turned out, HFF16) was Erica Flor’s provocative tale Bloody Beautiful. 

Beautiful woman with red tissue around her waist

The show centers around the story of one of the world’s most prolific serial killers, Countess Elizabeth Ba’thory, the Blood Countess from Hungary, who allegedly killed more than 650 young women between 1585 and 1610.

In her performance, the evil spirit of the Countess is seeking to take over the mind and body of Flor so that she can once again be free to kill.  While the concept is not new, Flor makes a valiant effort to show the constant struggle as she fights off the Countess’ attempts at possession.

While it was neither my favorite nor least favorite Fringe show, it was definitely memorable and compelled me to look up the story online to find out the rest of the gory details.  For that, I thank Flor for bringing such an interesting character to the Fringe.

Tomorrow I will post my HFF16 wrapup, which includes my top 10 favorite shows.  Until then, happy fringing.