KC Fringe 2017 Print Program

All 2017 Shows

I Can Rap ‘The Raven’, and Other Things I Probably Shouldn’t Brag About

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Breakneck Julius Caesar

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The Respectful Prostitute

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A Picture’s Worth Five Dollars

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Blackmail, Murder & Other Ways To Say I Love You

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Shelter Shorts: A Play About Shelter Pets and the People Who Love Them

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Rhythm and Boobs: Let’s Duet

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KCIC Classics

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Fountain City Sketch

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The Wendigo

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QUACK & Rules We Live By

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The Art of Magic

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IFCKC Presents: Film @the Fringe

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Variations on a Scene by Tara Varney

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Images

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A Dinner Party

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All-Star Detectives

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Clockstoppers: How to Build a Railroad Empire

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Cody Clark: A Different Way of Thinking

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Louder Than A Sound 2

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The Immaculate Big Bang

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My Favorite Things (A Musical Review)

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Dirty Birdie Story Hour 2

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Downtown Replay

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Arc of Joan

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Sun of the Revolution

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BLADDER INTERRUPTED. A Self-Story About Cancer

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Liminal State: A Travelers’ Guide

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Striking Beauty

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There Aint No More: Death of a Folksinger

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Variations on a Theme by Tara Varney

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Militant Showgirls

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The Caduceus

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Down the Urinal Hole and Around the Corner

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Neighborhood Goons

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The Cat Meme-ologues

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Another Year Closer to Death

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Jelly Rose Live n Concert: Relationships, Resolutions, Spirituality, & Potpourri

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Dust Bowl: American Stories

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Snowed Inn

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On the Road to Verona

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Well, He’s Dead

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The Epic Epic

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Lucy and the Circumstances — Chapter 1

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Walls Suck

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Belly Dance on the Fringe – Rhythm & Moves

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The Yellow Wallpaper: A Dance Into Madness

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Finding You, Losing Me

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Barre None

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Take Flight: An Adventure in Cirque

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Marie Antoinette

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Geography for F*cking Idiots. Plays About Places I’ve Never Been

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Incognito

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The Taming of the Poo

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From Alphabet Street to When Doves Cry: 99 Haikus About Prince

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HEY HI-DE-HO MAN; ATribute to Cab Calloway

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Here Lies Joyland

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Beginnings from an End

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Boomer Momma Mommyisms…Wonderland Adventure

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The Adventures of Crazy Jane and Red Haired Annie: New Fairy Tales for the Playful, Witty , and Wise

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Suzette Woods/ A Tribute to Anita Baker, featuring Samara Smith

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The Chronic Single’s Handbook

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Write to Me

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The Mosquito Radio Hour III. Third Times the Harm…

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Prove Me Wrong

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Ella, July 21 & 28 OR Improvisations, July 24 & 26

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Right Between the Ears

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Ready or Not

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Radio Free Puppets

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Mama’s Boy

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KCKCC #333: Poultry In Motion, or The Land of Oohs and Aahs

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The Devil on the Wall or, That Time I Got Kidnapped

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Will The Circle

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Dances of India

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Summerfest is for the Birds

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Altus

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Gallery of Dreams

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Check Mate

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Lookin’ For A Fight

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Play That Funky Music, White Boy!

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House of Bernarda Alba

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World Burlesque Federation: Stripdown

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Caution! This Play Will Kill You!

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My White Son

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S.N.M.

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In Their Own Words

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Yiddish With Dick and Jane

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Huck Finn and the Quest for the Winding Wind

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All 2017 Reviews

Hey Hi-De-Ho Man: A Tribute to Cab Calloway – Robert Lee Brown Fringe Reviewer

Perennial Fringe favorite Br. John channels Cab Calloway in this year’s offering. The artist is supported by a three-part combo. The music is excellent, as is the original interview-style writing. The choreography leaves something to be desired, but how could it not? It’s a tribute to singer and bandleader Cab Calloway. There is some excellent…

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The Cat Meme-ologues – Hephzibah Dutt, Fringe Reviewer

Shari Wassergood gathers together a slew of Kansas City writers and performers for a facetious monologue-review. Laughably paralleling The Vagina Monologues, The Cat Meme-ologues articulate the mental landscapes of some familiar felines– cat memes that have purveyed the internet over the last several years. Audience members who may recognize memes such as ‘IT’S PURFECT” and…

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Bright Spots in “Sun of the Revolution” – Teresa Leggard, Fringe Reviewer

I’m an 80’s baby and a former “Hip-Hop head”, so I have an immense appreciation for both the origins and the innovations of the rap genre. Cynthia Hardeman and MCStorm’s collaboration, “Sun of the Revolution,” at Phosphor Studio is a classic “oldschool versus new school” story—an intergenerational dialogue remixed. Casting was on point. Treyvon Wainwright…

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“The Respectful Prostitute” Makes You Feel a Little Dirty – Teresa Leggard, Fringe Reviewer

She&Her Productions revived and adapted Jean-Paul Sartre’s “The Respectful Prostitute,” and the result was a show that hits in the gut and the groin. All of the actors were so strong they were unnerving—especially watching Lizzy (Jennifer Coville-Schweigert) grapple with moral responsibility while having no material power at all, as Winifred (Cori Weber) revels in…

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The Wendigo – Hephzibah Dutt Fringe Reviewer

For those of you who come to the Fringe seeking excellent solo performance, you are in for a treat. Artist and educator Mike Speller offers a carefully adapted and intricately performed show that–much like a favourite campfire tale– will captivate, thrill, and leave you walking away with tendrils of wonder and horror still twined about…

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“Variations on a Theme” a Proven Fringe Formula – Teresa Leggard, Fringe Reviewer

There are those who create theater and produce it during KC Fringe, and then there are those who create theater for KC Fringe—Tara Varney is clearly the latter. The crafty festival veteran is back this year with “Variations on a Theme” at Musical Theatre Heritage in Crown Center. In 50 minutes, 4 actors perform 9…

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Dust Bowl Stories – Kelly Luck, Fringe Reviewer

Some time back, Grant Maloy Smith wrote a song that got him thinking about the Dust Bowl, the multi-year drought that ravaged the midwest during the 1930s. He dug into its history, and over time created an entire album’s worth of songs on the subject. It is this album that forms the core of his…

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“Breakneck Julius Caesar” – Hephzibah Dutt, Fringe Reviewer

Veteran performer Tim Mooney returns to the KC Fringe Festival with another one of his lighting-paced distillations of Shakespeare—this time, the historical tragedy, Julius Caesar. For those not familiar with Mooney’s brand of Shakespeare performance, know that he not only adapts and condenses the play, but scribes helpful and often hilarious expository asides: he narrates…

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“Write to Me” – Robert Lee Brown, Fringe Reviewer

Slow Burn Productions presents “Write to Me,” by actor and writer Stephanie Roberts, with musical accompaniment by cellist and composer Alex Williams. What a pleasure, especially if you find yourself thinking that open communication is at risk in this moment of postmodernity, even as new literacies spring up all around us.  This show “pushes the…

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“Clockstoppers” – Hephzibah Dutt, Fringe Reviewer

Lil Theatre Company out of Orlando, FL claims in its tagline, “We make big projects out of lil’ ideas.” With “Clockstoppers”, they have indeed attempted a vast project: a two-person, 60-minute historical survey of late 19th century personages and emerging technology, geographically chaptered from New York to San Francisco via Kansas City, in the format…

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Here Lies Joyland – Kelly Luck, Fringe Reviewer

If abandoned amusement parks have not fully supplanted Victorian mansions as the premier venue for haunting, it is not through lack of trying. There is something about the empty leavings of a place meant for fun, over and above the melancholy of abandoned places in general, that really goes straight for the hindbrain. In WMC…

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“There Ain’t No More” Offers Plenty – Teresa Leggard, Fringe Reviewer

In There Ain’t No More: Death of a Folksinger, Willi Carlisle uses 5 different instruments to tell one interesting story, and he does it all at a dizzying pace. The small stage at Phosphor Studio was strategically littered with props, set pieces, and instruments. From the moment he walked on, Willi Carlisle expertly darted in,…

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 “Cody Clark: A Different Way of Thinking” Presents Magic as an Emotionally Expressive Art – Robert Lee Brown, Fringe Reviewer

The lights were still out in the Crossroads Arts District as I parked my car, not really knowing what to expect. Cody Clark had agreed to perform at the Phosphor for the night rather than the Outburst down the street because the Phosphor had a generator. Yet, Cody Clark was in his element. A high…

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“Take Flight” Soars  – Teresa Leggard Fringe Reviewer

Using clowning, aerial silks, and the basic elements of storytelling, Take Flight: An Adventure in Cirque by Chicago’s Byrd Productions Physical Theatre captivates with humor and pathos. Bumbles (Gabriel Faith Howard), Fink (Genesee Spridco), and Kiki (Kathleen Hoil) spin a lovely tale and unfurl simple truths. The venue, City Stage at Union Station, has great…

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A Chronic Single’s Handbook – Hephzibah Dutt Fringe Reviewer

Based on his newly published novel, God Bless Cambodia, Randy Ross’s The Chronic Singles’ Handbook offers an enjoyable, occasionally-awkward, but ultimately good-humored narrative of one man’s failures in dating—at home and away. At first, it looks like the show is going to be predominantly travel narratives that bear witness to Ross’s attempts to find the…

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Checkmate – Kelly Luck Fringe Reviewer

There are two things to bear in mind when going in to a David Hanson play: that he will play with the roles of player and audience in new and unexpected ways, and that you will never get the whole story from a single performance. In this year’s production, the audience finds itself actively taking…

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The Immaculate Big Bang – Hephzibah Dutt Fringe Reviewer

Comedian Bill Santiago delivers a witty, engaging stand-up show that blends religion, grief-triggered existential musings, and the confounding joy of being father with a layman’s grasp of Quantam Mechanics. He opens with a question, “where do you fit on the spectrum of belief?” only to immeidatley dismiss the query and all possible answers: “I don’t…

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“This Is What It Sounds Like:  From Alphabet St. to When Doves Cry: 99 Haikus About Prince”  – Teresa Leggard Fringe Reviewer

The Westport Coffeehouse stage is lightly decorated: album covers, a curly wig, a table tennis paddle with a 5 written on one side and a 7 on the other. When Michael Shaeffer walks on—saunters, really—with his curly hair, purple suit and tie and suede shoes, he is instantly likeable. The violet troubadour journeyed all the…

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Here Lies Joyland a Bumpy Ride – Teresa Leggard, Fringe Reviewer

In Here Lies Joyland, written by Mitchell J. Ward and directed by Hannah L’Abri Miller, three friends meet in an abandoned theme park for a séance that goes sideways. Part suspense-thriller, part teen drama, think Dawson’s Creek meets Tales from the Crypt. The play opens with H. (Darrington Clark) narrating from the rear of the…

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Crazy in Love for “Walls Suck” – Robert Lee Brown, Fringe Reviewer

Resist. Resist walls. Resist heteronormativity. Resist any event on your calendar that prevents you from seeing “Walls Suck,” a charming play by Emily Swenson that is enjoying its world premiere during the 2017 KC Fringe Festival. It sings and delivers. Given its title, you would be forgiven for assuming “Walls Suck” is about polyamory. It…

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Down the Urinal Hole and Around the Corner – Kelly Luck, Fringe Reviewer

The Cult Next Door styles this show as a “#QueerCultHorror loosely inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s Masque of the Red Death”. In fact, it just barely borrows a couple of top-level elements from the Poe work, the rest reading like a sort of cargo-cult Rocky Horror. The show seems to lean mostly on the not-actually-all-that-controversial…

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Another Year Closer to Death – Kelly Luck Fringe, Reviewer

Kzany hails from Yukon, an Oklahoma City suburb best known for Garth Brooks and Grady the Cow, who got stuck up a silo for four days in 1949. Kzany’s offers poetic ruminations on her hometown, love, babysitting, etc, complete with illustrations by the author (Ms Kzany is of the ballpoint-pen-during-home-room school). There are also a…

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I Can Rap ‘The Raven’ – Kelly Luck, Fringe Reviewer

I’m not sure quite what I was expecting from Taylor Kay Phillips’ one-woman performance, but what I got was an hour of rapid-fire stand-up autobiography that got the laughs going right from the start and kept them going all through the show. Ms Phillips was born and raised in Kansas City, went off to Harvard,…

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On the Road to Verona – Kelly Luck, Fringe Reviewer

The Minnesota SkyVault Theatre–the troupe of young people presenting this imaginative condensed version of Shakespeare’s “Two Gentlemen of Verona”–have filled their version with rapid-fire gags, physical business, audience interaction, and near-constant music (several performers are multi-instrumentalists). And yet, what may be the most truly unique part of the performance is that they not only allow…

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