Jaded Optimist Coloring Book

A few more thoughts on the Indy Fringe:  Pauline Moffatt, Executive Director of the Indy Fringe, seems to do a splendid job.  I have numerous clients/friends in Indianapolis, none of whom came to my, or any other shows.  Shame on you all.  The arts community in Indianapolis seems vital, inspired and inspiring.  Indianapolis has some surprisingly good restaurants, with my favorite being R Bistro. I grew up in Chicago, and we Chicagoans mostly looked down our collective noses on Indy.  My 20 years spend in NYC didn’t make me any more favorably inclined to places like Indy.  I must admit that I am pleasantly surprised by how cosmopolitan the art scene, the restaurants and many of the people whom I met really are.  I’ll be damned.  Who knew?

The Indianapolis Fringe Festival is a mere 5 years old with, I believe, 5 venues, all of which are on or just off of one street-Massachusetts Avenue.  Doesn’t sound like much compared to Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco etc.  Sometimes size matters, but not here.  Loren Niemi and I just completed a successful run of Alone and Testifying in the Indy Fringe.  This was my second year coming to Indy; the first as a performer.  I am usually overly loquacious, but let me just get to the point:  the Indy Fringe is/was GREAT.  I have never seen a more friendly group of fringe goers interacting with a more lively bunch of fringe artists spending money at local businesses.  I managed to see 11 shows, Loren 20 and my wife Pat 13.  There was some really really cool work here.  Lively, funny, risky, political and sometimes delightfully lewd and crude (hooray for the Monkey Poet!).   I either really enjoyed or loved everything I saw except for one show that will remain unnamed this Indy Fringe is over.  That show I positively hated.  More than any fringe show ever.  Actually, more than any show I have ever seen of any kind anywhere.  Oh well.  One stinker out of 11 was not too shabby.  What seems to really set the tone for Indy Fringe is the fact that is it small, intimate and totally self contained.  Some shows I loved:  Adventures in Mating (Joe Scrimshaw’s work moved to a new venue with non-Scrimshaw performers), Money Poet (incredibly funny Brit  doing scandalously perverse poetry about topics such as fisting), In Rehearsal (dance/yoga/storytelling), Assholes and Aureoles (BRILLIANT sketch comedy), And I Am Not Making This Up (improv dance/spoken word), Phil the Void (stand up monologue/?), Improscaping (brave, sensual poignant dance/movement).  How was our show, Alone and Testifying?  As you may have read below, I am not afraid to be self critical, so when I say I thought we did a bang up job, I really mean it.  We didn’t have huge crowds.  In fact, we drew larger audiences in Minny.  But we were better in Indy.  We just clicked.  Most of the reviewers seemed to agree.  Oh well, mea culpa Minny.

I hate to say this out loud, but I enjoyed the Indy Fringe this year more than I did the Minny Fringe.  For some reason, it felt like most of the Minneapolis Fringe shows I saw were all solid B’s, but no real A’s.  My wife Pat concurs.  As we drove back from Indy last night and today we realized that we could not recall one Minny show that really stood out.  In fact, there was almost none that we could even remember.  Most of our favorite memories were from the 2007, 2006 and 2005 Fringes.  Nothing scandalized, or titillated, or angered, or amazed, or or or.  It just was … nice?  I’m not sure why I feel this way, but I do, and did even before I became entranced by Indy.  I love the Minneapolis Fringe.  It just was too tidy for my taste.  Our intrepid Executive Director Robin Gilette ( a Kokomo Indiana native) was there with her parents.  Lovely people.  Oh well, next year it’s all new all over again, and I hope to see some of my favorites like Amy Solloway and Kevin Kling get a good number.  And I hope some of the regulars like the Scrimshaws push the taste envelope harder next year if they get in.  And I hope I get in again and really make up for what I saw as a sometimes lackluster performance on my part.  Hope springs eternal.