Monthly Archive for May, 2007

Once again, TJ Dawe needs no help with promotions. None at all. His three shows this year are selling hugely, and rightly so. I have not yet caught Dishpig, but 52 Pick-Up was absolutely stellar, not to mention an impressive feat of its two actors.

Show: Maxim & Cosmo
Company: Big Sandwich Prouctions - Vancouver, British Columbia
Venue: Orange (Orlando Shakes)
Times: 5/19 - 11:30AM, 5/20 - 6:00PM, 5/21 - 11:45PM, 5/22 - 8:10PM, 5/25 - 6:00PM, 5/26 - 3:35PM, 5/27 - 12:35PM
Tickets: $10
Rating: Mature Audiences

Maxim and Cosmo was described by the Orlando Weekly (I believe) as another master-class in monologue. Absolutely right. Except that it’s not even really a theatrical piece. It’s Mr. Dawe, sitting down with a microphone and a bottle of vitamin water, and having a one-sided conversation with the audience. It felt like I was back in college, listening to a lecture.

Now I graduated with honors, but I skipped my fair share of classes in my university tenture. But let me tell you – if TJ Dawe had been my professor, I would arrive at every lecture a half hour early and camp out before every one of his office hours. Damn.

And Maxim and Cosmo is just as insightful as a lifetime’s worth of sociological research. Screw reading dissertations male and female relations, just go see this show. I came in with high expectations as a fan of the One Man Trilogies and A Canadian Bartender at Butlin’s, but this exceeded them all. Seriously. Enlightening, insightful, and funny as shit, just go see it already. There’s nothing more I can say. Go see it or you will die lonely and unhappy.

Apparently, these two from Austin, TX doesn’t need my help. I was told by a professed math lover the other night at the Blogging Fringe tent that he had wanted to see Calculus, but that it had been sold out every night. I believe it, too. The crowd on Saturday night was packed almost to capacity, and everyone, mostly older patrons, laughed at every single joke fired off. The show was whimsical, surprising, well-executed, and above all, the definition of adorkable.

I can’t take credit for making up that word – I thought I might have been the first, but thinking better of my own cleverness, I googled it and found it littered among long-published blogs. Oh well. But I had never truly discovered the epitome of this newly christened vernacular term until I saw this show.

Show: Calculus: The Musical! Company: Matheatre - Austin, TX Venue: Red (Orlando REP) Times: 5/19 - 8:10PM, 5/20 - 10:10PM, 5/24 - 9:05PM, 5/26 - 6:35PM, 5/27 - 8:10PM Tickets: $10

Everything about it is nerdy. The multi-media, the costumes, the “cameos”, the script, the format, the chemistry between its two actors, the almost lo-fi production feel, the obvious pop-culture and higher mathematics obsessions that went into its creation, everything. You probably heard me say this on the video the other night, but as a former band geek who buddied up with the math and physics kids in high school, this show was the perfect marriage of those two worlds.

The female lead of the show is the cutest person at Fringe so far, second only to TJ Dawe. She somewhat carried the show with her outstanding accompaniment skills and great show voice. The writer and male lead had a hard time projecting, but honestly, that was my only complaint about the show. Everything else about it was 100% satisfying, and will give geeks like myself a strange sense of pride, knowing that we’re not the only one to laugh at jokes about Germans, French pronunciation and spelling, Sir Isaac Newton and this therapist’s obvious concerns, and derivative formulas. I never wanted it to end.

Yeah, totally adorkable.