It's been a minute since there was enough of an immersive critical mass at the Hollywood Fringe Festival amongst the massive number of shows to warrant an entire Fringe Diary and not just a few notes in the Rundown.

This year is different, with immersive & interactive work – largely of the experimental kind – populating not only the Immersive & Games category but slipping out into others as well. Why I'm still fielding recommendations on shows that we should actually cover which are coming from the Clown and Solo sections, for example.

(Not that this is an invitation for everyone to pitch me! But if you've seen a show that we should cover and you're a member of the site, make a note in the comments.)

Test Pilots: Little Changemakers – Say Nothing and Leave

Before I get too far into it, I just want to note that the Test Pilots project is ambitious as hell and fascinating. The “show” actually consists of seven different pieces that sit in the “Test Pilots” container, all of which contain varying degrees of audience participation.

At the base layer of participation in the show I was in — and I do mean “in,” we’ll get there — audience members had access to a device that allowed them to shape the flow of the show, branching narrative style. The script that was delivered to the performers on stage via teleprompter was determined by the choices that the audience made. 

But there was another layer of agency in Little Changemakers, the Test Pilot that I wound up starring in.

It began when our small audience — there were six or seven of us for the Sunday matinee — were led into the Audition room. There we were told by the first time director, fresh from a stint as a kindergarten teacher, that we would be test audience for a biographical movie about Super Good, the host of the kids show “Little Changemakers,” who had gone missing years ago. She did this as a few Test Pilot network execs looked on, largely in silence. 

We were not brought here randomly, but because the producers had figured out that one of us was the actual Super Good. That in fact I was Super Good. Would I agree to star in the show about my own life?

And that, my friends, is how I got to live out — sort of — the childhood dream of being a kids TV show host. Kind of. 

After agreeing to be in the show I was whisked away backstage where I was put into costume (over my own clothes) and “makeup” (a goblin masked makeup artist pretended to put makeup on me with a brush, wisely not contacting my face as they were pretending to put makeup on other people with the same brush). It was deliciously disorienting. Was I actually going to perform? How would that work. No one would tell me exactly what was going on.

As someone who came up in high school theatre on Christopher Durang, it felt like I was living out an even more madcap version of The Actor’s Nightmare, complete with puppet companions and a ukulele. 

I don’t want to spoil more of the experience, as things get goofier from the moment I stepped on stage, but I do want to report that at least one of the audience members who were limited to voting on what was happening reported that they had a good time. Indeed that they too had some of that “wait is this really happening?” effect that I was positively swimming in.

I desperately want to check out some of the other Test Pilots shows, although I’d demure from being a direct participant again. Not because I don’t want to — quite the opposite, as I wish there had been an audience full of my friends to bear witness to my turn as Super Good, or video evidence, something that would let me share this with others — but because other willing participants deserve to have this kind of whirlwind fever dream. 

Also I’m sure the Say Nothing and Leave team wouldn’t spoil me like that. While members of the creative team were behind San Francisco’s Change Your Mind, they didn’t clock that I was that Noah until towards the end of the show. In part because I went into a run of the show that was an hour and change earlier than the one I was supposed to go into.

This is one of my all-time favorite Hollywood Fringe experiences, and I hope that the rest of the lineup and the audience side view of it is just as joyful.

–Noah J. Nelson, Publisher

Don't Kill Daisy – Soleil Kohl 

This interactive one-woman show is an agile mix of clowning and video game tropes.

Denver based performer and creator Soleil Kohl plays Daisy, who acts as the audience’s avatar through a loose narrative about the end of the world as we guide her through a wasteland filled with random objects and mini-bosses on her way to a final confrontation with the Big Bad.

Before the show starts we’re given a chance to pick random objects from the stage, or bring something of our own, which we can hand to Daisy to help her overcome the challenges that appear. Of course, sometimes that backfires and Daisy winds up dead. Luckily shouting “Main Menu” and “Continue Story” lets us pick up where Daisy died.

This is a fun, if loose, piece that will benefit from some more reps for it to figure out exactly what it wants to become. The object based help/hinder model has something to it, but doesn’t feel quite dialed in. Nor can I put my finger on exactly what is holding that back aside from some singalling isues between Kohl and the booth which slowed the action when a videogame like sound or lighting effect was called for.

Don’t Kill Daisy works best when it feels like it is about to go off the rails, but sometimes actually goes off the rails. Luckily not for long and not in a way that leads to a total wreck. Yet it will still come down to Kohl's honing the show’s ability to give the audience just enough agency to push her somewhere sublime without letting that force grind the show to a halt.

–Noah J. Nelson, Publisher

ROOT (RUNNING OUT OF TIME) - Mindweird

There is a lot going on in ROOT (RUNNING OUT OF TIME), and therein lies the problem.

At the heart of the show are some interesting questions: what happens when access to life altering technology isn’t evenly distributed? Both to the haves and the have-nots. Where does total faith in technology lead us as individuals and as a species, especially when a preponderance of resources are vested in the hands of those who view technology through a messianic lens.

Unfortunately, while there are a lot of interesting ideas under the surface of ROOT, the piece itself is a mess.

The main storyline is about a young woman, Pluto, who has chosen to terminate her life and become a digital version of herself. The audience is cast as the witnesses of this event, for which an android bodied officiate (played by a human actor) and her sister are both present. The Officiate, being hosted in an android body, can summon up different digital entities to give testimonials on this, Pluto’s Ascension Day.

Which also happens to be her birthday. And her grandmother is in the hospital. And there are protestors outside. Oh, and there’s a whole plot about a generational spaceship in the future that is going to crash into a planet outside our solar system which is told through flash forwards which are distinct from the flashbacks, even though both forwards and backs are told through projections. I think that’s everything.

Well, I think that’s everything story-wise at least, because there’s also a whole AR component which is how Pluto’s digital self appears onstage. Which we use our phones to view. This is, ostensibly, the reason why I came to the show in the first place and one of the major challenges the production has taken on for itself. It is very high tech, and this is Fringe, so the fact that it almost works is a win.

As opposed to how the spaceship appeared for the opening day performance, which was as a plywood cutout of a 1950’s rocket ship which a body-suited actor playing an AI would walk into center stage every so often after pausing the action on stage to stick their head through the porthole of and say a number and then walk it to the other side of the stage. It took me a few times to realize that this was a countdown, since the spaceship story was so disconnected from the ascension service — staged very much like a funeral — that I didn’t know why the spaceship thing was happening at all.

From the tone of the pre-recorded bits and the actors performances I was pretty sure this wasn’t intended to be a farce, but the spaceship bit really tried that conviction.

The assembled cast is a storied and talented bunch, with the two sisters having extensive experience in the L.A. immersive scene on multiple big name projects and experience performing in headset. Our Officiate does a game job, indeed it is his performance that carries the show, but in the end the script is just too fractured to make even watching veteran actors who know each other perform together.

Fringe is the place for wild experimentation, and maybe the show that was on opening day will be radically different from the last performance. But I think the issues with ROOT run deeper than a Fringe run can fix, and if the core creative team wants to keep exploring this idea they’ll need to go back to the lab and pare it down significantly.

– Noah J. Nelson, Publisher

The Mysteries of Persephone - The Beam Collective x Sweetness and Sweetness Collective

This one comes as the debut piece from a young company, who are framing this Fringe run as a workshop and it shows a LOT of promise, even if it is rough around the edges.

Things start in the lounge of Second Place, the new venue on Hollywood that has been activated for Fringe. That’s where a time traveler from ancient Greece shows up to enlist our aid in setting things aright. It seems that Spring just won’t come because Hades has taken Persephone to be his bride and Demeter, in her wrath, refuses to turn the wheel of seasons.

What unfolds is a series of encounters, some puzzle-like, others with rituals, that take us through time and into the depths of Hades. All of which are realized through actor interactions, “find the object” hunts, and in a few cases harmonizing and song. At one point I was even called upon to cleanse someone else’s aura with a crystal.

The creator Nikki Carnarius, has based the work on her research into the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Ancient Greek mystery cult whose role in the history of Western myth and ritual traditions is not to be underestimated. As a one time student of that history, I’m predisposed to give those earnestly experimenting with the mystery society’s material some latitude.

To be sure, this isn’t a highly polished gem, more of a diamond in the rough. One of my traveling companions found the ritual based puzzle that led to our first encounter with the Gods to be laid out a bit haphazardly. I’ll confess I was rooted to the operator position for that one and not running around on the fetch quest side of things, so I’ll defer to them on that one.

I found a late game ritual wherein we gave words of encouragement to one of the characters to be quite a profound bit of communal ritual, and wondered how that particular format could be harnessed for building community identity. Afterwards I found out that this particular sequence was only one of a few possible endings based on how the last sequence of tasks went.

I could also sense that the cast still had a bit of the shakes to them, not quite settled into their roles as characters or interactors, but under that the will was there. So too is the drive to make something of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and while this production is still operating at the sketch level that Fringe pieces often do, I can see it blossoming into something compelling. If the team keeps pouring the level of love and attention they already have into the process.

– Noah J. Nelson, Publisher

Doll Court - Maddie Mutations

A big part of the charm of Fringe is seeing an odd piece in an offbeat venue from a young creator who is honing their voice. What you find might not be for everyone, it might not even be exactly for you, but those who connect with it really click and the overall joy is contagious.

Doll Court, which takes place in Outfitters Wig — a half-century-plus old wig shop on Hollywood Boulevard that has a charm that is equal parts fabulous and eerie — finds the audience assisting creator Maddie Forrest in acting out the proceedings of an absurd trial amongst a collection of dolls.

It is, in other words, exactly what it says on the tin: Doll Court.

Forrest has an (intentionally?) awkward clownish persona for the proceedings, taking on the role of the accuser, prosecutor, and star witnesses at various points, and introducing the other dolls before enlisting the audience into taking up the rolls. The rules, such as they are, are simple: it's Doll Court.

Which is to say: it’s make believe and what story logic here is the same as elementary school kids spinning a story at playtime. Enhanced by sound effects provided via soundboard in realtime by Daniel Koren.

To be sure some of the best comic bits of the piece are the interactions between Forrest and Koren via soundboard/dialogue exchange. Indeed if I have a real development note — Forrest noted she’s looking for such feedback so here it is — it would be to use that dynamic to give the whole show a bit more structure so that the anarchic play sections had even more to stand on.

A fundamental ground of being for a show like this can help the audience orient and play with the creators and each other. The alternative is literally anything goes, which isn’t the real reason we all come out to these things. In part we’re looking for a glimpse of how the creators of these works view the world, as articulated through the way they play with us and each other.

Alright enough storefront philosophy, we need to talk about the poop and fart jokes.

I’m not sure if every instance of Doll Court is about a case involving a large amount of horse feces, but the one I caught on Friday did. Which meant a whole lot of poop and fart sounds off the soundboard. Like a lot a lot. A. Lot.

Everyone has their own tolerance for such things, I’d put mine at about a 6. Friday’s run was a 8.9. Now my scale is predicated on the fact that just about anything medical triggers a sympathetic nervous system response. In short: hearing all the various, extensive pooping sounds made my stomach churn after about ten minutes of it regularly happening. The visceral imagination that makes interactive work so effective for me can be a liability in these scenarios, and while it didn’t take me completely out it also kept me from giving myself totally over to Doll Court.

If you have a strong aversion to scatological humor, then consider this your warning.

There’s promise in Doll Court, and if anything I’d be curious to see Forrest stage this less like a show and more like an opportunity for folks to play together. At least as an experiment. Fringe might lend itself to using the show framing, as that’s the mode people are in, but it’s not unheard of for someone to break the mold entirely. I’d love to see Forrest take this out of a show paradigm and into something more fluid and strange.

– Noah J. Nelson, Publisher

Mr. Ow - Tozy Magic

Have you ever seen a worm do magic?

Okay but have you ever seen a glamorous worm do magic?

Late Friday night I caught Reno-based Tozy's Mr. Ow, a clowning/magic show that finds her taking on the titular role in a (vinyl?) worm costume. As an out of town performer in what is now a monstrously large performing arts festival, Tozy didn’t get much of a turnout at the off the beaten path venue which was once home to Sacred Fools before they moved into the heart of the Fringe zone. There were just shy of ten of us in the audience, which for an over the top character magic show is an uphill battle.

To Tozy’s credit that didn’t stop the near-self consciously flamboyant worm from giving their all, and a very game member of the audience who agreed to be Mr. Ow’s assistant played nicely off Tozy’s ability to riff as the absurd character.

The show is structured around a few tricks you have probably seen before, but the twists Tozy gives them makes for a poignant moment here and there along the way along with the laughs.

I have to imagine this could play very raucously with a sizable enough crowd. As it was on Friday night there was definitely a melancholic undercurrent to the proceedings. Fringe can be hard on out-of-town talent that hasn’t built up a big network in L.A., and that’s some of what seems to be happening here.

That said, while there’s some juice in the Mr. Ow character, especially when things take an absurdly introspective turn, the sheer wave of clown and clown-adjacent work in town has reached a kind of saturation point. Like: New York Mag did an article on the clown scene here, whose epicenter is the Elysian, meaning there’s more options than ever and it takes something really sharp to stand out.

– Noah J. Nelson, Publisher

Cindy is Right Now — Theatre Ghosts

A lot of solo shows claim to be immersive & participatory and then fail to do little more than poke the fourth wall with the lightest of touches.

What’s awesome is that Lacy Allen’s Cindy Is Right Now doesn’t claim to be immersive, but manages to hit all the emotional buttons that a really good immersive work does. It accomplishes this through total commitment to the premise: Cindy (Lacy Allen) experiences life fully present and in this one moment, and we’re right there with her as she tries to experience a whole life together in the half hour she has with us.

It’s a simple high concept executed incredibly well thanks to Allen’s absolute commitment to the bit and a script that takes us through some swift comic scenarios that are sweetly rendered and afford the audience the chance to play along.

Without trying to force sentimentality or interaction, Allen manages to bring the audience into her world and hit some real profound notes, tapping into our inborn sense of play to get there. This isn’t a mechanically heavy piece, and if I were to do a long analysis of what was going on under the hood here I’d end up concluding that what we are seeing is what happens when the ideals of presence & immersion are approached sincerely from a performer-driven theatricality. But hey, this is a Fringe capsule review not a textbook.

Just go catch this when you can.

– Noah J. Nelson, Publisher

Total Horror Show —Midnight Musicals

This one is a fun horror comedy musical about a gay werewolf and his toxic friend group that features a few audience participant antics before and during the show. 

Before the show proper starts guests are give the chance to explore the space, including backstage nooks at The Cat’s Crawl, and meet various members of the cast as we get ready to join the search for the missing Oliver. In the case of the VIP section (which as press I got shunted into) that meant getting walked around to the alley on the side of the theatre where we were introduced to Owen’s sister Sara and asked to sign a (fake) waiver. 

This last bit seemed to cause the bonus scene to drag on a bit, and by the time we were in the theatre the rest of the audience were well into exploring the space. Maybe they got the better end of the deal, but the FOMO gods are appeased by either result. 

The main effect of the VIP track was being up on some of the character relationships before actually getting into the theater, but that could have been happening with a different set of characters for the regular punters at the show. 

Once things get started proper we’re told to board the party bus — aka our seats, which have been arrayed so that there’s a runway from stage to the main entrance into the space.

The show that follows is a wallop of campy fun, with a special treat for long time immersive heads in L.A. in the form of getting to see Daniel Montgomery, head writer for JFI Productions, in full musical mode in the role of Oliver’s friend Ben. The whole cast is a delight, but if you’ve been around the block long enough you’re familiar with Daniel as a writer, performer, and director and it’s a joy to get to see him in this light. 

As a whole the show falls under what we’d call “immersive hybrid.” In the case of Total Horror Show the immersive stuff is lightly additive, but not essential, to the show. They could cut all of it and the show would still stand on its own, but the presence of the bits doesn’t detract… although a little more structure to the immersive part could help take this show based on the Midnight Musicals podcast of the same name to new heights. 

I still haven’t seen anyone crack a fully immersive musical, but then again I won’t see Masquerade for a few more weeks. In the meantime, Total Horror Show is a fun time — although I hope they can fix the mic issues they were having the night I saw it — and if the team wants it I could see this getting an extension during Spooky Season and pleasing plenty of crowds then. 

– Noah J. Nelson, Publisher

Baby Man - danthony

Performer-creator danthony and director Sarah Lew’s Baby Man is yet another hidden immersive gem at the Fringe this year. Placed into the Clown & Alternative category, which it definitely is, this 45-minute long show finds the audience helping to stage the great All Story of our tribe: Baby Man. 

Danthony, our Story Shepherd, acts as narrator and protagonist of the tale, with members of the audience recruited to fill the roles of village elders, warriors, messengers, trees, and the titular Baby Man. (Don’t worry, there is an option to opt-out before things start and you can tap out at any time. Also, no one is playing themselves and there’s only a little bit of dialogue to read/recite.)

This piece definitely shares a vibe with Test Pilot’s Little Changemakers, which danthony and Lew are also a part of, in that it’s children’s theatre for grown ups without going the bawdy route. (There’s like one thing in this that would get a kid asking some uncomfortable questions, maybe.)

Danthony essentially sing-recites the whole of the Baby Man tale once the All Story starts up, and no small part of the joy of this is watching him pull the audience-participants back on track while holding to the meter of the show’s verse. 

There are just enough antics and comic flips in the story to keep the premise from wearing thin over the runtime, and the subtle tech effects — particularly the sound effects which danthony and Lew play like a fiddle — are a joy to behold. This isn’t quite edge of your seat comedy, but I definitely had some of the hardest laughs I’ve had in quite some time watching Baby Man unfold. 

My only real regret is not having seen this sooner in the Fringe cycle so I could tell more people about how good Baby Man is. 

– Noah J. Nelson, Publisher

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