Show: Lilly and Lila's Lovely Lesbian Hour
Venue: Brown Venue (Orlando Philharmonic @ Shakespeare Festival)
Show times: 5-19 @ 10:20pm, 5-20 @ 7:30pm, 5-22 @ 6:45pm, 5-23 @ 10:20pm, 5-24 @ 8:40pm, 5-27 @ 12:45pm and 5-28 @ 6:40pm
Tickets: $10

How do I begin? My first Fringe foray of the year may end up being the most memorable musing of the week. The overused alliteration is in reference to Lilly and Lila's Lovely Lesbian Hour, now showing in the Brown Venue at the OSF. Steve Schneider of the Weekly was there, though I wasn't sitting close enough to see his facial expression during the show; maybe that's for the better. By watching the show solo and having plenty of time to reflect afterwards, I may be able to give you a more pure review. On to the lesbians...

The premise of the show comes from Lilly and Lila, a lesbian couple who was frozen in an arctic avalanche in 1956. Now thawed out, the cocktail-loving duo are here to show us what things were like in the 50's, holding the current decade along side their own in the name of entertainment. The show is listed as Variety/Interactive, and I'd say that's a very good description. The girls used film, audience participation, alcohol and a mysterious hand from behind the curtain to deliver almost non-stop laughter to the unknowing audience.

As I attended the pilot showing, I don't think many of us were ready for the most attention-grabbing part of the evening – the go-go dancers! I could say more, but I think a simple "adult content" (i.e. pasties) warning is all that's required. If you appreciate the female figure, you may be able to brush up on your women's studies this week and never have a need to leave the Fringe.

Among the other attractions were a gameshow, a few cocktail tastings, a performance by a real-life Parliment House Drag Queen "Rusty Faucet", and a number of punchline-laden anecdotes sure to invoke laughter.

On a scale of "highly recommended" to "run the other way", I'd call this one "tantalizingly worth the ten bucks". Thumbs up.

Comment by Lilly:
Thank you so much for your lovely review! It's wonderful to get feedback on our quirky little piece.

Fringe is guerilla theatre at its best. You have only one tech rehearsal in the space, twenty minutes to put up your set and ten minutes to take it down. I have never been involved in a Fringe show that something didn't go completely awry. For our opening tonight we didn't have the slide show that went with the opening song, and our two videos didn't have sound. (Two, you might ask, having seen only one this evening - well, at less than five minutes before show we were told that they would be silent: we cut one and decided to wing it on the other.) Talking to actors from other shows later, at the beer tent of course, we found that some shows had worse experiences. Sounds negative? Hell no - the Fringe staff is great and the tech for our brown venue pulled magic out thin air to fix many other things that decided to go wonky.

That being said, there is such a joy to Fringe. Having that many varied performers in one space is like manna for fans - something all of us involved in the Fringe are. I've had my Orlando Weekly and Orlando Sentinel guides out, madly pencilling out various gameplans to try to see all of the shows that I simply MUST see. This year there are simply so many shows that look amazingly good; truly this fifteenth Orlando Fringe Festival is a banner year.
Once again, thank you for coming to our show.
Love, Lilly (aka Leneil)