Memorial Day weekend is upon us. For every other holiday, there are a variety of ways to celebrate. Sometimes I don’t know my Thanksgiving plans until two weeks before. As a student, I had a part-time job in which I always worked Easter. Sometimes, I’ve even celebrated the Fourth of July without fireworks.

But I’ll be damned if I celebrate Memorial Day in any other way except Fringe. The Orlando Fringe Festival, to be specific – the first in North America and one weekend in which I get to come back to my beloved hometown and celebrate in the kookiest way imaginable.

“I have a crush on EVERY BOY!” No, not really, but close!

6. Tod Kimbro. I failed to get to his show, but I saw him everywhere, laughing and enjoying everything. And I regretted not seeing his show intensely. I loved his score for DRIP, and I have made up my mind that he’ll be the first thing I see next year.

5. Max from Six Characters. I don’t know exactly what it was. The way he pulls out his gun in the priest uniform. The way he first flips the bird.

Like everyone else who came to the Fringe Festival this year, I truly wanted to adore Heart of Coal. Anyone who I had met who was involved in the show, even people whose names appeared in the program that I knew – I really like all of them. And of course the fact that Heather Henson had created the show’s puppets was a huge selling point. I got to learn a little bit about the environmental issue at hand in the show and I agreed with it a great deal. I was really excited before sitting down in the Green Venue to see the show on Thursday night.

Zombie Girlfriend
Doodie Humor
Orange Venue

Doodie Humor is back once again, to satirize moral satire and basically gross us out to the point we laugh. Real hard. And with spurting blood, nasty talk, pimps, hoes, flesch-eaters, horror-obsessed best friends (there’s one of those in every single post-Scream horror films, isn’t there? Self-reflexive much?), and the most hilarious mime you will ever meet, they succeed tremendously. At some points the show seems slow, but maybe it’s just the fast edit madness of everything else going on at the Fringe.

It seems the last time we wrote a sparkling review of a then somewhat lesser known artist at Fringe, he won Patron’s Pick. (And he used our quote on his promotional materials, which drove our stock up!) I took a certain sense of pride in knowing that we had picked ourselves a winner. For me, I think when the critical voice meets the things that move people, you have truly great art.

Once again, TJ Dawe needs no help with promotions. None at all. His three shows this year are selling hugely, and rightly so.

Patron’s Picks are being predicted, already. And you’ve all seen the lines wrapped around the box office computers.

It’s getting tense. There will be more handing out of little flyers, more rushes for tickets for shows you haven’t seen, more final performances for certain shows, more beer tent melees, more of everything, for five more days.

So who better to come out of blogging hiding than BF’s Head Bitch in Charge (otherwise known as the HBIC)?

That’s right kids, I’m back. But I can say that I haven’t seen a show I haven’t liked thus far, so no worries.

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.

Being my first Fringe show for the year, I guess I had high expectations. Really, I was just excited about being back in this den of debauchery, seeing great performances.

Also, being the VH1 aficionado and pop culture fiend that I am, this show intrigued me. It also intrigued me that this was the same company last year that put on tape – while they were still in high school. Holy shit. I didn’t see their production last year, but being familiar with the movie adaptation of the play, I would have been terrified of the subject matter when I was in high school.

So for me, my last night at Fringe was on Friday. I was happy to be there that day, although because of weather/travel issues, I missed Tape. I was really interested in seeing it not only because I've seen the film adaptation (and my boyfriend loves it), but because I am interested to see how a high school production fits into Fringe. I support the kids doing it, and I think it's fantastic experience to be around so many professionals.