Hollywood Fringe 2024 Archives - NoHo Arts District - Theatre, Food, Bars, Shopping and a buzzing community. https://nohoartsdistrict.com/category/hollywood-fringe-2024/ NoHo Theatre Guide, Restaurants, Nightlife and Vegan Street Fair Mon, 08 Jul 2024 20:02:40 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.1 https://nohoartsdistrict.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/nohoLogo-100x100.png Hollywood Fringe 2024 Archives - NoHo Arts District - Theatre, Food, Bars, Shopping and a buzzing community. https://nohoartsdistrict.com/category/hollywood-fringe-2024/ 32 32 Mercy https://nohoartsdistrict.com/mercy-review/ Mon, 08 Jul 2024 19:58:39 +0000 https://nohoartsdistrict.com/?p=26532 A NoHo Arts theatre review of Mercy at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024.

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[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of Mercy at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024.

It is not an easy task to describe the play, Mercy, which was performed on the Main Stage at The Broadwater Theatre for the Hollywood Fringe Festival. As I sat in the audience of a sold-out performance, the stage was populated by seven actors seated around the stage where a Persian rug was laid.

A NoHo Arts theatre review of Mercy at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024.
Photo by Artin Mardirosian

The lights dimmed and the few remaining patrons took their seats. An actor takes center stage and announces to the audience that this play is not a performance, but a rehearsal. He takes his seat and the adventure begins. One by one we are introduced to the characters.  Danny, played by the very believable and angst-driven Sam Golzari. Sol, the father of Danny is played by the remarkable Bernard White. The delicately crafted character of Danny’s wife, Terri, played lovingly by Julia Frith. Together they show the marriage of two diverse cultures joined by tender love. Danny’s sister, Yaz, who is wickedly brought to life by a convincing and biting Afsaneh Dehrouyeh. The Police Inspectors, Taylor and Surgeon, played by William Charlton brought an atmosphere of calm and confidence when he took the stage.

To not spoil the main plot points of this beautifully written and directed play, I shall not give you a blow by blow,  needless to say, that the relationships of every character to one another are brought together in a symphony of deft and poignant dialogue.  I must say that when the actress, Shila Ommi, who plays Sol’s strong-willed wife, Amireh, takes the stage, my eyes, ears, and heart were captured by her endearing and heartbreaking performance. Not to say that there isn’t any humor in the play. In one particular scene where the good Dr. Van BenSchotn, played with playful delight by, Jeff Sugarmen sits between Sol and his pleading wife, the magic lifts the energy and the stakes to its highest points.

I sat in a darkened room amongst strangers and all of us united by the sublime performance of the cast felt as if we were somehow included in this family’s most personal and private world. This particular subject of dignity of a human being to choose their own fate rang a personal chord with me. I watched as my heart broke with Amireh. Sol’s desperation was my desperation. The cluelessness of Danny and Yaz’s knowledge of what was happening to their mother became my concern for them. And feeling like the outsider of a family bonded by grief was mine as well. That is the magic of theatre. Being in a collective and feeling like the play was specifically written for me to watch and feel on this night alone.

To the cast and crew, producer Gary Copeland, and the writer-director Mandi Riggi, thank you, merci, متشکرم.

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You Can’t Be Serious https://nohoartsdistrict.com/you-cant-be-serious-review/ Tue, 02 Jul 2024 20:09:10 +0000 https://nohoartsdistrict.com/?p=26480 Disarming, charming, and alarming are the words that come to mind when I think of Andrea Parson’s (that’s Parson, not Parsons), solo show called, You Can’t Be Serious. After my many years attending this festival, I have seen some lovely shows full of pathos, magic, and brilliance. But, Miss Parson brings that element of performance that can only be seen, heard and felt in person.

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[NoHo Arts District, CA] –  A NoHo Arts theatre review of Andrea Parson’s solo show You Can’t Be Serious at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024

Disarming, charming, and alarming are the words that come to mind when I think of Andrea Parson’s (that’s Parson, not Parsons), solo show called, You Can’t Be Serious. After my many years attending this festival, I have seen some lovely shows full of pathos, magic, and brilliance. But, Miss Parson brings that element of performance that can only be seen, heard and felt in person.

The 75-minute show went by in a flash and yet was filled to the brim with such intimacy and care for proper storytelling, that one is immersed and felt safe. Whether the subject was the Titanic, the boat and the movie, cookies, or cancer, every word, facial expression, and physical movement was perfectly choreographed. Speaking of physical movement. Miss Parsons (whoops, I mean Parson) was incredible to watch. Her melding of dance and emotions was as important as sound is to film.

A NoHo Arts theatre review of Andrea Parson’s solo showYou Can’t Be Serious at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024.

The show began with one of the most original ways to start a show. She began but didn’t really begin until she was ready to actually begin and even that had to wait for her to begin. You had to be there. The whole stage was her playground and by adding dance moves to coincide with dramatic points, was a stroke of sheer beauty. I must warn you though that a great many cookies were harmed during the performance. I was kept guessing throughout the show, not in the sense of what she was going to do, but in the matter of how she was going to do it.

There were times, during the show, that I could swear she was looking right at me and was brought on stage with her accompanying her along the journey. At this point, I must congratulate Katherine Murphy Lewis, whose direction never got in the way of the story and flowed beautifully in sync to the dialogue. The humor that was a big part of You Can’t Be Serious came in the form of the Chaplinesque manner of Miss Parson.

It was her unabashed sincerity that kept my eyes on her from ‘lights up’ to ‘black out.’ What a grand way to close out my Hollywood Fringe experience of 2024. Andrea Parson is an award-winning performer, but I suspect that this show and this performance just very well might put her on the map. She is definitely on my map of performers to keep track of. 

A NoHo Arts theatre review of Andrea Parson’s solo showYou Can’t Be Serious at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024.

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Love on The Other Side of Death https://nohoartsdistrict.com/love-on-the-other-side-of-death/ Sat, 29 Jun 2024 18:42:41 +0000 https://nohoartsdistrict.com/?p=26456 A NoHo Arts theatre review of Love on the Other Side of Death II: Meet The Rook, written and performed by Mary Guillermin, developed by Jessica Lynn Johnson at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024. 

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[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of Love on the Other Side of Death II: Meet The Rook, written and performed by Mary Guillermin, developed by Jessica Lynn Johnson at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024

Yes, this is a play about death, but it is much more about celebration of life and a reminder of how important it is to open yourself up to possibilities of love and connection, sometimes found in the unlikeliest places. A few years ago, Mary met a young man. He had arrived at her house as an Airbnb guest and quickly became a friend. But within a few weeks, their friendship had grown more intense. This young man profoundly changed Mary’s life, to the point where she actually legally adopted him as her son at the ripe old age of 35. Does this make her nuts? Maybe a little. But only in the sense that she followed her heart, believed her instincts and recognized truth when she found it. 

Mary has no other children and, although she leads a rich and fulfilling life as an artist and a family therapist in idyllic Topanga Canyon, meeting Michael made her realize that she had been waiting to be his mother all her life. 

This profound connection was mutual. Michael felt as sure about her as she did of him and their life together had really just begun when something tragic happened. Michael died suddenly of heart failure and he was gone from her life almost as quickly as he had arrived. But he had left something of himself with her. Love. 

I believe that we return to the souls we love over and over again, life after life. Sometimes they are sisters and brothers, sometimes parents, sometimes lovers, sometimes perhaps they are beloved animals. But the deepness of our love pulls them towards us like a lightening rod. Mary’s brief time with her son Michael was a pivotal moment in her life. And although she grieves for him every minute, she wouldn’t change the fact that they met and loved each other.

This beautiful and deeply personal play about Micheal and Mary is the closest thing to grief therapy I have seen on stage. I have lost both my parents and still haven’t recovered, not sure I ever will. But I don’t think we are supposed to. It will feel less painful, but grief is a natural feeling for the loss of love. This play and Mary’s outpouring of her and Michael’s love is a gift. It is utterly magical. Mary uses audio of Michael own voice talking about their relationship and as we listen to him we see photos of them both displayed behind her and watch Mary quietly sitting on stage listening to him talk about her and about their family together. She is so proud of him, so glad to have had him if only for a moment. Feeling him around her still, showing her signs that he is beyond pain and content hardly feels mysterious. It feels true. 

This is an astonishing and deeply moving piece. Mary has taken her heartbreak and created something meaningful, worthwhile and important. Her words and Micheal’s combine to form a gently healing artful play and I can only hope it brings her some peace in her journey. I know it brought peace to mine.

Solo shows are created for so many reasons. To share pain. To share laughs, to share heartache. Mary’s play Love on The Other Side of Death was created as a form of healing, a way to understand what had happened and why. The end result is a gorgeous poignant reminder that love never truly dies as long as we remember and celebrate the time we have together.

Bravo to Mary for making a beautiful play about her beloved son Micheal and for finding a way to heal herself a little while helping to heal others. 

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A Transcriber’s Tale https://nohoartsdistrict.com/a-transcribers-tale-review/ Thu, 27 Jun 2024 22:58:30 +0000 https://nohoartsdistrict.com/?p=26440 A Transcriber’s Tale is a real outlier for me this Hollywood Fringe. Joanna is a singer-songwriter of funny, observational songs and her comedy revolves around that enviable gift. So she peppers the show with musical illustrations of her moods, her victories, her lows and her highs. It has the effect of immediate intimacy. A few lines of a song can get you to a place that pages of dialogue often cannot. Something about the music and the way our brains work perhaps. But it can lift you or pull you along a path so quickly and so completely…there’s really nothing else like it.

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[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of A Transcriber’s Tale, written and performed by Joanna Parson, directed by Aimee Todoroff, music direction by Drew Wutke, and produced by Michael Blaha and Lee Castello at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024

I had never given much of thought to what kind of impact a transcriber’s job has on them. Think about it. They take audio, lots of news usually and turn it into written record. And while they do, they are absorbing every single word, no matter what the context, the content or the subject. One minute it’s a dog show, the next it’s famine in the Sudan or war or cancer or politics. It has to wear on a person. It has to burden the mind and the heart.

Joanna Parson’s experience transcribing in New York over the last couple of decades has been a mixture, to say the least. She is an actress, so she first took the job to make money in between roles. Waitressing had taken its own toll and she has been blessed with speedy typing skills. It seemed like a blessing, more money, your own schedule, no rude people leaving bad tips. But over the years it got tougher and tougher to remove herself from the stories she typed. Then came September 11th. She went to work because she had a purposeful role to play and she couldn’t do anything else. But imagine what she found herself writing about over and over again.

A Transcriber’s Tale is a real outlier for me this Hollywood Fringe. Joanna is a singer-songwriter of funny, observational songs and her comedy revolves around that enviable gift. So she peppers the show with musical illustrations of her moods, her victories, her lows and her highs. It has the effect of immediate intimacy. A few lines of a song can get you to a place that pages of dialogue often cannot. Something about the music and the way our brains work perhaps. But it can lift you or pull you along a path so quickly and so completely…there’s really nothing else like it.

Joanna’s story is about acting and working, falling in love and creating a life for herself in New York, she’s not a native New Yorker. There’s a richness to her writing and her performance. An ease to it that makes her affable and hilarious and trustworthy and heartbreaking all at the same time. Being in New York that year must have been impossible and yet impossible not to be there. Her experiences of that time are particularly poignant, but the play’s journey is a longer one that only that year, and the balance of the show is predominantly humorous and human and full of light. 

She’s a bit of a marvel actually. A gifted storyteller, holding her guitar not as a shield but rather an offering. A gift. It’s a gorgeous gorgeous show. A delight. And Joanna Parson is absolutely brilliant. Bravo!!!!!

Where: 

Broadwater Theatre, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood

When: 

Saturday, June 29 at 3:00 PM

Tickets: 

https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/10852?tab=tickets

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Grape Culture https://nohoartsdistrict.com/grape-culture-review/ Thu, 27 Jun 2024 22:28:17 +0000 https://nohoartsdistrict.com/?p=26436 [NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of Grape Culture, written and performed by Toni Nagy and  Sarah Buckner at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024.  Grape Culture is an astounding show and certainly not your usual light entertainment. It’s about rape for one thing and also about our collective lack of introspection on […]

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[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of Grape Culture, written and performed by Toni Nagy and  Sarah Buckner at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024

Grape Culture is an astounding show and certainly not your usual light entertainment. It’s about rape for one thing and also about our collective lack of introspection on something that affects not only the female half of the population, but also men, some very directly.

Seems odd then that we don’t talk about it every single day. But then that’s how deep the denial goes.

This incredible show mixes comedy, dance, film and clowning to tell this riveting story and all these techniques combined take it all to another level entirely. These two actors are relentless in this high-octave expose of what is considered ‘okay’ in our culture. This is not just about the experiences of these two phenomenal women, but a questioning of the horribly pervasive programming of everyone to look away, to minimize and to ultimately allow rape and rapey behavior. 

A NoHo Arts theatre review of GRAPE CULTURE, written and performed by Toni Nagy and Sarah Buckner at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024.

In the younger generations, this is much more talked about. I know I have had many conversations with my daughter, in her twenties, where she has called me out on the minimizing of sexual abuse. It sounds bad, doesn’t it? But I’m talking about what used to be considered “bad behavior” and is now quite rightly a crime. Looking back I know I have been assaulted at the very least and I still think about it as if I had done something wrong. There are just so many of us.

This show is such an incredibly visceral relentless ride. It’s almost like deprogramming. It’s tough to watch some of it without squirming and yet you absolutely cannot look away. These two incredible performers are driven and brave and utterly beautiful in their total commitment to this subject. They change on stage over and over again, desensitizing us to the striping and reclothing, appearing to be almost naked at times, both physically as well as emotionally. As they tell their stories and force us to face the effects of decades and centuries and millennia of rape culture. And this is not subjective. Rape is a weapon used to deny rights, control people, dehumanize, delegitimize and degrade. There are also far more subtle forms. Ones that are excused away lest it upset someone. Ridiculous right? But it’s all around us every single day. 

Why make a Hollywood Fringe show about this? And why create a show that exposes these two fine actors so completely over and over again? To make us face the brutality of it. The casual and persistent continuation of a behavior that should be abhorrent in every conceivable way but that we barely even talk about. It’s a dirty little secret that isn’t little and is definitely not a secret.

What better reason could there be to write a show about something that is so directly affecting all of us all of the time. It’s on our phone, on our TV, on the bus, driving in the car beside us and sometimes it’s in our bed.

I don’t think I have ever seen a show that has been so deliberately triggering. Or so appropriately inappropriate. Grape Culture should be on everyone’s must-see list at Fringe and in every school and in every workplace and at every college and university campus. Nothing will ever really change unless we are all made to deal with our misplaced sense of shame and our deeply trivialized pain.

A NoHo Arts theatre review of GRAPE CULTURE, written and performed by Toni Nagy and Sarah Buckner at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024.

Toni Nagy and Sarah Buckner are my heroes. They took a subject we would all rather not talk about let alone see a play about and totally blew it up. This is not remotely narrative in nature. This is a no-hold barred, in-your-face, incredibly effective, often funny, always shocking piece of performance art. By the end of the show, Toni Nagy and Sarah Buckner are physically and emotionally exhausted. They have given everything and the result is absolutely stunning. Bravo is too small a word. This is spectacular theatre. Meaningful purposeful unmissable Fringe. 

There are two more performances: 

Saturday, June 29 at 5:00 PM
Sunday, June 30 at 12:30 PM

Where: 

Broadwater (second stage) 6320 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood.

Tickets: 

https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/10853?tab=tickets

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My Little Phobia https://nohoartsdistrict.com/my-little-phobia-review/ Thu, 27 Jun 2024 22:06:19 +0000 https://nohoartsdistrict.com/?p=26431 A NoHo Arts theatre review of My Little Phobia, written and performed by Emily Markoe, and directed by Julie Pearson at 2024 Hollywood Fringe Festival.

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[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of My Little Phobia, written and performed by Emily Markoe, and directed by Julie Pearson at 2024 Hollywood Fringe Festival.

Emily Markoe is one of those rarest of actors who can play it completely straight while being incredibly funny. My Little phobia is about Emily Markoe’s clinical fear of puke. It’s actually a thing. It’s called emetophobia and it’s very very real. Emily takes us on a journey though her life with this sometimes debilitating problem. Where it started…and how it’s going. 

My Little Phobia is a very very funny show. Emily’s steel-like demeanor belies her deep insecurities, particularly around vomit, whether other people’s or her own. She takes us back to the beginning, her first horrific vomit drama as a kid and how her therapist back then, her My Little Pony, talked her through the trauma. Since then the phobia has become more and more extreme and acute. Just the thought of vomit can lead to panic attacks and a kind of self-induced stillness, catatonic-like that, while absolutely hilarious on stage, must be a bit of an issue in real life.

A NoHo Arts theatre review of My Little Phobia, written and performed by Emily Markoe, and directed by Julie Pearson at 2024 Hollywood Fringe Festival.

Emily Markoe is a brilliant performer. Blindingly funny, and this show is one of the most creative Hollywood Fringe shows I have seen. She merges anecdotes with improvised interactions with the audience, punctuated with hilarious characters and scenes, and is so brilliant in her non-reactive interactions it’s almost uncomfortable. In an outstandingly brilliant way. 

Bodily functions can usually be relied upon to entertain. Puke is probably not at the top of the list though. It does tend to halt the fun in real life…too messy and smelly and violent. But for the purposes of this wonderful show and Emily’s quite brilliant performance, the vomit stays thankfully theoretical but the laughs are real.

There’s a lovely theatricality to My Little Phobia. Emily walks onto the stage draped in a veil and proceeds to monologue. It’s like a combination of Ophelia and a wrestler entering the ring. It sets the tone for the play. The elevated weirdness complements the subject matter and highlights Emily’s awkward grace. The reason this show is so funny is because it’s true. Emily doesn’t need to be hammy when the audience knows deep down that everything is shiningly real. Emily and her phobia are old friends, she is simply sharing the ceremony of her life with us in the most captivating and grimly fun way possible. She ends the show as it began, with the draped heroine and her magical burden. It’s achingly funny and sweetly tender and Emily is eery and magical and strangely moving. It’s a gorgeous finale and I highly recommend this beautifully original show. 

Emily Markoe is taking this show to The Edinburgh Fringe in August, but there’s one more performance in our Fringe: Thursday, June 27 @ 9:30PM

A NoHo Arts theatre review of My Little Phobia, written and performed by Emily Markoe, and directed by Julie Pearson at 2024 Hollywood Fringe Festival.

Where: 

The Broadwater, 1078 Lillian Way, Hollywood

Tickets: 

https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/10438?tab=tickets

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Sam https://nohoartsdistrict.com/sam-review/ Thu, 27 Jun 2024 01:18:06 +0000 https://nohoartsdistrict.com/?p=26422 A NoHo Arts theatre review of SAM, the one-woman existential comedy musical starring Sam Labrecque, composed by Edith Mudge, and produced by Samskape Productions Inc. at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024. 

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[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of SAM, the one-woman existential comedy musical starring Sam Labrecque, composed by Edith Mudge, and produced by Samskape Productions Inc. at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024

So I don’t just love this play because it is all about Sam…(not me). Although, I can admit I was delighted that a show with this name exists. I loved it because it made me joyful and happy and incredibly glad that Sam Labrecque is in this world creating something as gorgeous as this. 

I suppose it is satire. But so much of this rang true that it seemed more like a musical documentary of one actor’s struggle to get booked. A young actress all the way from the wilds of Canoga Park narrates her own story of her rise from a fledging unknown to her first real paid job.

A NoHo Arts theatre review of SAM, the one-woman existential comedy musical starring Sam Labrecque, composed by Edith Mudge, and produced by Samskape Productions Inc. at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024. 

Along the way is rejection, a lot of it. My husband is an actor and I don’t know how he survives emotionally. Or how anyone does. But I guess that is 80% of the job and this show beautifully and poignantly makes that painfully clear.

The songs are wonderful and absolutely hilarious, and everything is delivered with a sweet irony that makes the show even more delicious. Sam has a fantastic musical theatre voice and a huge range that she uses fully and to great effect. But it’s this character that drives the show. Is it her? I don’t know, but I love her anyway.

When she begins her journey, she bounces through auditions, making every one an opportunity and a gift. By the last audition, she is a little more down to earth, her expectations are rock bottom. So when she hears the magical words – ‘We would love to offer you the role.” – she is dumbstruck, which is adorable.

This show is one of my absolute favorites this Hollywood Fringe. It’s unique and heartfelt and Sam Labrecque is also not afraid to go deep. She is a natural comic and I love her voice, but her performance is much more than played for laughs. Her audience is always going to be mostly other actors at Fringe, all supporting each other’s shows and their fellow journeymen. So a play about an actor is probably a little harder to pull off in some ways. But this play is so beautifully written and so wonderfully and truthfully performed that no one could think it any less than perfection.

A NoHo Arts theatre review of SAM, the one-woman existential comedy musical starring Sam Labrecque, composed by Edith Mudge, and produced by Samskape Productions Inc. at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024. 

There are just three last opportunities to see Sam Labracque perform her opus Sam and you would be a fool to miss it. Fringe is made for magical talents such as this. It is the perfect frame for a perfect show….and I love, love, loved it so much!!!

Where: 

The Broadwater Studio
1078 Lilian Way, Hollywood

When: 

Saturday, June 29 @ 9:30am & 2:00pm
Sunday, June 30 @ 8:00pm (Closing Night) 

Tickets: 

https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/10296?tab=tickets

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Gaslighting is My Love Language https://nohoartsdistrict.com/gaslighting-is-my-love-language-review/ Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:50:36 +0000 https://nohoartsdistrict.com/?p=26414 Fielding careens from marriage to dating to work and family. She opens her life up and shows us all the funny, sad, regretful and damaged bits and it makes for this strangely incredibly hopeful upbeat and insanely profound profanity drenched hour of life as she knows it.

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[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of Gaslighting is My Love Language, written and performed by Fielding Edlow and directed by Ashley Ward at 2024 Hollywood Fringe Festival

Fielding Edlow is a writer, actor, and stand-up comedian based in Los Angeles. Pure Wow recently named her “one of the six funniest women in Los Angeles right now.” So creating a brutally brilliant one-woman show about leaving her husband of 13 years and why she had to seems like a natural progression for this incredibly talented woman. 

Gaslighting is My Love Language feels like a fine stand-up monologue. A woman on the verge of change, finally recognizing how trapped she was by shame in a marriage to a man who she loved but didn’t like. Sometimes fear makes the best of us bad and fuelling her low self esteem and lack of confidence in anything worthy she could do was the bad bad thing this man became. 

A NoHo Arts theatre review of Gaslighting is My Love Language, written and performed by Fielding Edlow and directed by Ashley Ward at 2024 Hollywood Fringe Festival. 

But Fielding seems to be getting a little revenge…in her success. With her brilliant writing, in her Can’t Say Slut show streaming on Amazon Prime, her own monthly show Eat Pray F*ck at the Hollywood Improv, her multiple plays produced with Naked Angels, NY Stage & Film, Circle X Theatre Company, NY and LA Fringe Festivals, and Comedy Central Stage. And with her solo show Coke-Free J.A.P. once a New York Fringe show, now 30 30-minute comedy pilot at Showtime. Wow…not too shabby.

And here she is at The Hollywood Fringe with this brilliant, fearless, bitting victory monologue about becoming who she always was all along. She packed the theatre the night I was there and the audience was eating her up…so to speak. This is brazen bold material. Vulgar, funny and exquisitely truthful. This is what you wish you had said to whoever you left or whoever left you. It’s not cruel, interestingly. She even has some fondness still for her ex. And honestly, she doesn’t need to eviscerate him, she’s able to make her life and this show work better without doing that. They do have a child together who also plays a part in this show in searingly accurate teenage glory.

A NoHo Arts theatre review of Gaslighting is My Love Language, written and performed by Fielding Edlow and directed by Ashley Ward at 2024 Hollywood Fringe Festival. 

Fielding careens from marriage to dating to work and family. She opens her life up and shows us all the funny, sad, regretful and damaged bits and it makes for this strangely incredibly hopeful upbeat and insanely profound profanity drenched hour of life as she knows it.

Fielding Edlow has the kind of rare talent that requires attention. She’s this gorgeous, fiery, sexy warrior woman who you want in your corner. I wish I could call her up when I need some piss and vinegar. We should all have her on speed dial actually…is that still a thing even? 

Gaslighting in My Love Language is a brilliant brilliant solo show. Just straight up hilarious, wise and wicked stories that feel true in every sense. I absolutely loved this show. What an amazing woman, what a phenomenal talent! 

There are three more nights to catch this show!!! 

Where: 

The Hudson Theatre

 6539nSanta Monica Blvd, Hollywood

When:

Tuesday, June 25 at 8:30p

Friday, June 28 at 8:30pm

Sunday, June 30 at 3:30pm

Tickets: 

https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/10388?tab=tickets

When: Tuesday, June 25 at 8:30pm, Friday, June 28 at 8:30pm, Sunday, June 30 at 3:30pm

Where: The Hudson Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood

Tickets: https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/10388?tab=details

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Baby https://nohoartsdistrict.com/baby-review/ Tue, 25 Jun 2024 22:43:11 +0000 https://nohoartsdistrict.com/?p=26409 A NoHo Arts theatre review of Baby, written and performed by Rachel Troy, produced by Oliver Harlan at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024.

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[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of Baby, written and performed by Rachel Troy, produced by Oliver Harlan at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024.

Rachel Troy is a bit of a genius. Baby, her slightly subversive and incredibly funny solo clown show premiering at Hollywood Fringe this year, is about a baby, but it’s really about us. Humans. And our comical weird need to be coddled and parented well passed when we should honestly need that. Rachel’s inner baby is at first sweet, then difficult, demanding and a little nuts. But then a baby’s needs are all out there on the surface. Feed me, hold me, play with me, leave me alone, I’m tired. So maybe that’s what all our inner babies are really like and perhaps that is the point she is trying to make.

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The baby wakes up on stage and cries. She is in her room, surrounded by her toys and then her mother leaves her. She is bereft and seeks solace, first in her toys and then in someone else. Someone conveniently nearby. Rachel brings an audience member up to comfort the baby which works, of course, because what this baby needs is attention, food, to be made to feel safe, held, communicated with and, in the end, to be important to another human. Perhaps who that human is is less important than the feeling this baby receives from them. In fact, I think that is really very apparent. Babies are inherently selfish…they need to be to survive.

In the second part of the show, the baby is no longer a child, she is an adult “baby” who is so fractured she cannot function as an adult and must infantilize herself in order to become the center of someone’s life. Oh so many of these people have I met…

All of this is then balanced by Rachel as the therapist. She is an actual therapist and while she avoids the direct diagnoses, she talks us through it. The incredible thing about this play is how Rachel performs these characters, the therapist, the baby, the adult baby, even her mother, with the littlest judgment possible. She gives them to us in their true forms, warts and all, and then kind of steps away. She lets us see them in the realest of terms and then allows us the space to see ourselves in them. Their bad and silly behavior is absolutely human and, therefore, flawed. But is it so terrible? Are we there to judge or to see our own reflection? 

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I’m still not exactly sure. All I know is that Baby is one of the most interesting, funny and ingenious shows I have ever seen. Rachel is so subtle in her behavior, so utterly captivating, I could have heard a pin drop at times in the tiny Broadwater Studio, which was the perfect womb-like space for this extraordinary show. But through most of the performance, the laughter ricocheted off the walls and myself and everyone there sat transfixed by Rachel and her amazing performance.

Facing who we are on the inside isn’t pretty. There’s no point at all in pretending about that if any progress or understanding is to be made. But making a Hollywood Fringe show out of the ridiculousness of our baby minds is a wonderful, fantastical, crazy gift to us all. Bravo!!!

SEE THIS SHOW!!!!

When: 

Thursday, JUNE 27 at 6:30PM
Saturday, JUNE 29 at 11AM
Sunday, JUNE 30 at 2PM

Where: 

The Broadwater (Studio), 1078 Lillian Way, Los Angeles, CA 90038

Tickets: 

https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/10565?tab=tickets

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All the Boys I Blocked! https://nohoartsdistrict.com/all-the-boys-i-blocked-review/ Tue, 25 Jun 2024 01:40:59 +0000 https://nohoartsdistrict.com/?p=26391 A NoHo Arts theatre review of All the Boys I Blocked!, written and performed by Chanel & The Circus aat Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024. Chanel seems to have mastered the art of the comedic, the melancholy, the slightly savage, and the absolutely real. As they navigate the memory of their dating histories we are treated to man after unfortunate man, who they of course have the highest of hopes for each and every time…been there. As they expose each of their shortcomings, Chanel liberates themselves with songs. Songs of heartbreak, songs of solace, songs of comparative shame, and songs of forgiveness, mostly for Chanel, which is utterly marvelous and just as it should be.

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[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of All the Boys I Blocked!, written and performed by Chanel & The Circus aat Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024.

Boy did this show resonate with me! A somewhat improvised musical featuring Chanel in full clown paraphernalia ironically discussing their tragic love life in a room full of deeply appreciative and empathetic Hollywood Fringe audience. Chanel seems to have mastered the art of the comedic, the melancholy, the slightly savage, and the absolutely real. As they navigate the memory of their dating histories we are treated to man after unfortunate man, who they of course have the highest of hopes for each and every time…been there. As they expose each of their shortcomings, Chanel liberates themselves with songs. Songs of heartbreak, songs of solace, songs of comparative shame, and songs of forgiveness, mostly for Chanel, which is utterly marvelous and just as it should be.

A NoHo Arts theatre review of All the Boys I Blocked!, written and performed by Chanel & The Circus aat Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024.

The original songs are part of an album soon to be released and Chanel cracks open their heart as they sing and play these truly excellent, weirdly beautiful and funny songs. 

This is a show unlike any other at Fringe. It is searing yet gentle, brazen yet believable. There is, I am sure, some poetic license taken…especially during the actual poems of which there are a few. But overall, it felt exactly like the kinds of nutt-ball relationships we have all found ourselves in from time to time, wondering often how we allowed ourselves to be fooled yet again. Being a human, whether female or male or the rainbow in between is complicated in matters of the heart. Especially so for one as sweet as Chanel. For all their warrior posing Chanel is actually yearning to be loved after all. And so they share this with us and as Chanel unfolds all the messy and the profound they rise above it all and to their infinite credit they take us with them. 

A NoHo Arts theatre review of All the Boys I Blocked!, written and performed by Chanel & The Circus aat Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024.

There is a little audience participation, but nothing too scary. Chanel asks about our worst relationships and then makes little ditties about them at it is of course brilliant and hilarious and spot on, given the reaction from whoever bravely volunteers.

I absolutely adored All the Boys I Blocked! Vista is the perfect venue too as it allows for the show to be not just witnessed by the audience but for them to be a part of it. The stage is the stage, but once the performer reaches out or walks from it into the audience, the lines are blurred and since most of the audience are also fringers, well, you can imagine the gorgeous connections that are made and the perfect alliances that are formed over and over again. It’s an incredible experience and Chanel is part rock star, part clown-witch and all musical god. 

I urge you to see this fabulous show, it has one final performance on Sunday, June 30th.

A NoHo Arts theatre review of All the Boys I Blocked!, written and performed by Chanel & The Circus aat Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024.

Tickets: 

https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/10433?tab=tickets

When: 

Sunday, June 30 at 7:30 pm

Where: 

Javista Coffee Hollywood
1532 N Highland Ave, Hollywood, CA 90028

Creative Team: 

Chanel Samson, playwright, composer, and performer. Melanie D’Andrea, director and filmmaker.

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