I have pretty much spent all of my free time this June down in Hollywood for the Hollywood Fringe Festival, and it’s been great. The quality of the productions have improved from last year’s festival – for the most part – but I think the best improvement for me was joining up with See It or Skip It LA as a correspondent. Not only were we seeing shows and reporting back via social media (everything we saw was graded with one of four hashtags – #SeeItLA, #ChanceItLA, #DrinkBeforeItLA or #SkipItLA) to help people parse through the almost 300 (I think) offerings, but also getting together once a week to talk about what we’d seen. If you haven’t listened to our podcasts, you can check them out here. They were a lot of fun to record and fueled mostly by coffee and a love of theater since they were recorded Sunday morning and the majority of us were coming off of late night Saturday Fringe binges. Gotta love those 11:30 pm show times!

As I saw a significant amount of theater over the past month, I decided to do a recap – especially since there is still one weekend left of the Fringe, and almost all of these shows still have performances left. My micro-reviews for each of these plays can be read on the Fringe website, the interviews that I did with most of the shows can be read here, and last, but not least, here’s my breakdown on the shows I saw, and the dates of any performances they may have left.

Must See It – Get off your butt and see these. (This wasn’t actually a category we used.)

• Eleanor’s Story: An American Girl in Hitler’s Germany – 27
• The Player King – 26, 27, 28
• Treya’s Last Dance – 23, 26
• Breaking Bard – 25, 26, 27

See It – Good show, check it out

• Sincerely, – 26, 27
• Shakespeare(ish) – 27, 28
• Bright Swords – 27
• The Poe Show – 24, 27
• R&J – Gender Reversed – 25, 27
• Taming of the Shrew – An Exploration of Gender Expression
• Thenardier’s Inn
• Love Labours Won – 26, 27
• Amelia’s Going Down – 23, 27

Chance It – Good for a specific audience

• Shakespeare’s Last Night Out – 26, 27
• King of Kong: The Musical Parody – 25, 27
• YA Novel: A Parody – 27, 28

Chance It – Has good things going, but is a little rough around the edges

• War and Peace: A One Man Show – 26, 28
• My Gay Husband – 25, 26
• The Count of Monte Cristo: The Musical – 26, 27
• The Three Musketeerers – 25, 28

Drink Before It – Let’s face it, some shows are better with lubrication

• You and Me and My Best Friend P – 27
• Waiting for Affleck – 27
• Four Clowns: The Halfwits Last Hurrah – 23, 26
• My Darling Josephine – 26

Skip It – Needs work to be fully realized

• Wombatman: The Cereal Murders
• Might As Well Live
• Fuck You Jason: Or Medea by Euripedes
• Bernice’s Story

Honorable Mention – I did not get to see these artists, but I continually saw them out seeing shows to support other productions, so I figured that deserved a shout out.

• My Sister
• Timeheart
• Ex-Communication
• Dating: Adults Embracing Failure

I have one more show that I am scheduled to see – Tracers – and I know that the script for this one is phenomenal, so I’m hoping the production is too! There are many other shows worth seeing that I didn’t have time to get to, so if you’re in LA, come hang out in Hollywood this weekend. Rub elbows with some artists and see some great theater! As for me, I need a nap.