Sub-Total
2026 Audience Reviews
Member Reviews
The following reviews were submitted by Fringe Member: Landon Hudson
Company: Melancholics Anonymous
Show: Watership Down
Venue: Rarig Stoll Thrust Theatre
Best fringe award 1000%
I am in awe of this show. Got full body chills multiple times. My chest tightened so many times. This is such a beautiful story, with the most clever and beautifully directed staging. The ensemble is an ENSEMBLE, nobody outshines, they are so good together. The harmonies were killing me they were so good. Truly touched me. What a clever idea for a show. The best fringe show I probably will see and I have 15 more still. They all were so humble. They trusted each other so much. They all know how special this is and it was just that. So special. A little pitchy with solos at times, and the only other critique is that it wasn’t longer. This is best fringe worthy 10009900000%. I am in shock. So good guys. So good.
Company: Theatre Engine
Show: Chum!
Venue: Rarig Kilburn Theatre
A WONDERFUL parody musical-haven’t seen jaws? Go
I just love shows who know exactly what it is. Such a great parody musical. The whole cast was extremely talented, constantly harmonizing, never out of town. All MSU BFA alums which I loved, as well as wonderful direction from Paul Hustles. I love shows who perfectly fit the 60 minutes, and this was a brisk 49 minute show. What I mean by that is, so many fringe shows I’m seeing have cut their shows in half to fit the 60 minutes, and I understand sometimes doing that but you lose so much context. Even with me not being a jaws fan or ever seeing the movie (I know), it was fabulous and I followed perfectly. Which is what makes a parody musical great. Inviting in ALL audiences, not just the niche fandoms. Great great show.
Company: Sugar Throw Theatre
Show: Magical Athlete: Stadium Showdown
Venue: Rarig Stoll Thrust Theatre
Definitely the BEST show I’ve seen.
A perfect fringe show Audience interaction. Putting the power in the audience hands. Full game played on stage. Each round changing characters and acting out different people. The program is SO clever and great. Truly a perfect perfect show. Go with all your friends. This show you can go multiple times!
Company: rick rhobajt widen
Show: Socks & Shoes & Coats
Venue: Barbara Barker Center for Dance
Best musical I’ve seen…but doesn’t work as musical
Best musical I’ve seen so far. And I don’t think it works as a musical at ALL (unless restructuring) I think the instruments being the other characters is brilliant. Like brilliant. But I don’t think the show went as far as it could have. Too much going on in my opinion. 1. I think either you keep the other characters as instruments and make it a sung-thru show 2. Make it a play with music, cut the songs, keep all the instruments. I didn’t love any song enough to justify making it a musical. It was very clunky when we’d get a song, or we’d have 15 min of straight play scenes. I didn’t overly think either lead was 100% there for me. The female identifying performer was great with the “child” on stage, but lacked chemistry for me with the husband, and I found the male identifying performer to miss the mark completely vocally for me. I loved the PowerPoint on the wall following the babies journey, especially with the baby talk already infused on the screen. So smart. I thought sometimes the violinist wasn’t prepared, came in late, and when the screen had GIANT paragraphs, but changed slides in 15 seconds, it was hard to keep up. So much to love. I think this has the potential to be a BEAUTIFUL show. Lots of work to be done. Also figure out. Is this a comedy? What do you want your piece to be. I couldn’t tell if they wanted us to laugh or cry, and if the answer is both, that was muddy as well. Something really special is here. Please keep workshopping it
Company: Albino Squirrel Productions
Show: It's-a-Me, a Musical!
Venue: Rarig Stoll Thrust Theatre
NOT suitable for 2-6….if you like Mario-still go.
I think this show has a LOT of really great things about it. Ten years they’ve been working on the project, I dont think they knew what it should be, or what it wants to be. I think they just wanted to make a Mario musical, and if that was your sole intention, you did that. This show is NOT for 2-6 year olds. Definitely a 12+ kind of show. “It get stuck in your zipper again” Cursing, very mild sexual innuendoes, but still-I was pretty flabbergasted at some of the material considering children were in the house, and thats my biggest critique. I think all the crude stuff was HILARIOUS, I think the show needs to lean in and become just a flat out adult show. The campiness of the characters all having weird sexual tension towards the middle-end, just felt more suitable for an adult production. They’d have random TikTok references, then 80s references, and it felt like whatever they thought was funny they’d through in. I don’t know if it stuck the landing, but the purple and yellow plumbers, and the Mario twins were definitely hilarious and entertaining. Leave your kids with the sitter, this feels like false advertisement. Consider it a date night.
Company: Zabel Weinhagen
Show: Empty Nest
Venue: Rarig Stoll Thrust Theatre
If you have children, DONT miss it.
As someone who doesn’t have children, I’ll just be blunt, most of it didn’t resonate with me personally. That isn’t to say I didn’t have a great time, because I did. These performers made you feel so invested in their lives, and them being married for 23 years, you can tell how much these two love doing this together. I didn’t get the impression either person was a professional actor, which almost gave us this cathartic earnestness that I really appreciated. I felt like it was MOSTLY there, and I think one thing I know they hit the nail on the head on-who this show is for, and why they’re doing it. If a show knows what it is, and you aren’t trying to impress everyone and stick to your target demographic , 9 times out of ten you have a hit. And for people with children, older people, and couples who have been through a lot of life together. We have the hit for you. Thoroughly enjoyed.
Company: Black and Foxy Co
Show: Ember
Venue: Rarig Kilburn Theatre
Great heart-don’t know what it wants to be.
So much about this I loved. I think they had so much talent on stage, I just don’t know if they knew what to do with it. The director explained that the cast was given the prompt “what does radiance mean to you”, and I thought it was cool how each performer could give it its own interpretation. For me, that lead to a pretty clunky cabaret, that really didn’t have a progression, or know what it wanted to be. I thought Michael and Jessica were shoutouts for me. And think we just needed a better show order and a little bit more organization, and I think this could really be something. As someone who started a theatre company focusing on the PERFORMER rather than the character, I REALLY wanted this to resonate with me, and I just felt that it missed the mark. Again, it takes a lot of guts to try something out, and for that, I give them accolades.
Company: an alleged Theatre Company
Show: FAST Death of a Salesman
Venue: Rarig Stoll Thrust Theatre
Hilarious…don’t miss it!!
Loved the idea behind this one. Really funny. Fast paced, and a phenomenal cast. The Baltimore auctioneer is my top 3 fav characters at fringe so far, the brother and lead guy were also terrific. Nobody was bad at all, really solid team. As of the ending….nothing happening with the nephew…just being like….eh he’s a kid, idk felt like a cop out to me. Also made it seem like you were admitting you couldn’t get him to enjoy theatre and I feel like asking him.. “how would you like to enjoy this” or doing it in Roblox or something idk..seemed weird. I also felt like for the whole thing to be building and building to end like that really felt off But this is a MUST see. Hilarious, even though it could have been more poignant.
Company: Sockpop
Show: 1 Hour Left to Live: A One Puppet Show by That Felt Good
Venue: The Southern Theater
Best improv I’ve ever seen.
Definitely a contender for my best fringe pick. Such a strong troop, nobody overshadowed anybody, fucking hilarious. JUST a theory but the comedian in the middle of the show, it felt like they’d plug a different one every show, which if that’s the case I think that’s so cool. The puppeteer carried the show, everybody was amazing, but they have SERIOUS talent. Hilarious. The perfect person for the part. I think this was so well thought out. Music was great. I think the energy for a 1pm was so high. Great. Work.
Company: Moonlight Muses LLC
Show: In The Moonlight
Venue: Center for Performing Arts
skip it. seriously.
I really try to write reviews that are honest, but provide critique and care, not just to slander. This one is tough. I loathed this quite a bit. #1 the show was 2 hours with a fifteen intermission and that was never marketed. I had other fringe shows scheduled and couldn’t stay for the second act EVEN if I wanted too. So us leaving at intermission was honestly out of being overbooked. They marketed that the show would have a loud scream…why does that need to be announced? The show starts and it’s 5 minutes of dancing, no words, you’re in 1984 and have NO idea what’s going on. I don’t know if they were trying to be campy, serious? Funny? It was dreadful. This women wants to stay in Italy but this other women likes her but then her husband goes to America and then these people want him to kill his co workers? It made NO sense. Songs were so confusing, no idea what the plot was. You could tell that some audience members were definitely plants because they were OVERLY laughing at jokes to like rouse the audience…..you could tell people were not pleased. THEN they asked the audience to get up and dance with them randomly, and when people said no, the actors continued begging people to get up. Then this person in the cast randomly SCREAMED, fell over, and that was act one. $25 is extremely high for something like this, and I recommend this show be taken back to the drawing board, I commend the effort but you got about 99% of it wrong. If you like new works, check it out 100%.
Company: The Winding Sheet Outfit
Show: A Confluence of Magical Arseholes
Venue: Rarig Stoll Thrust Theatre
wtf was this….more of it please. Irish, cunts, and
I went in blind. Go in blind. You will really not understand what’s going on but they’re aware of that. Truly such a fun time. Irish music, dancing, singing, NAUGHTY language you can’t believe you’re hearing. Choreography, stage combat. Was great. I didn’t love that the show ended early for a 5 min curtain speech, I wanted more of the SHOW. I truly couldn’t give a plot besides secret society and two Irish poets going at it for a women. Go see it. You won’t regret it even if you hate it.