It’s Loop time again in Addison, which means 10 days of nonstop theater, dance, art, song, and even puppets at WaterTower Theatre’s annual fringe festival. Previous years’ lineups have been uneven at best, but this year looks especially promising. Below are eight shows that immediately caught my eye.
Ah Whoopsies, You Need Go Search
Frankly, I don’t understand a word of this show’s description. But it has one of my favorite actors from last year, Montgomery Sutton (he lives in New York City, I swear—Dallas just won’t stop hiring him), and there’s a promise of “unusual clothes.” I’m usually down for that.
Dallas Neo-Classical Ballet, Penumbra
Do you know the story of The Red Shoes? It’s a pretty dark fairy tale about a spoiled girl whose cursed red shoes force her to dance to her death. That’s one of the five works in this collection by DNCB (the promo art is killer), which also features a piece Folie à Deux choreographed by Danielle Georgiou. Speaking of…
Danielle Georgiou Dance Group, NICE
This performance art/dance theater hybrid was originally part of the Elevator Series at the Wyly Theatre last fall. If you missed it (like I sadly did), you’ve likely had to hear people talk about the experience ever since. And let’s just say that “nice” doesn’t even begin to cover what they’ve been saying.
Jenn Dodd, Melanchomedy: Funny Scenes About Sad Folks
Dodd won last year’s Best of the Studio award at OOTL, and with her talent for changing characters at dizzying speeds and a seemingly endless vault of voices it’s no wonder. She’s back this year with a sketch comedy about tragedy, which in her hands sounds…really funny?
Miniature Curiosa, An Excruciatingly Ordinary Toy Theater Show
They had me at puppets. And comic books. This unique show promises to create live action comic books within a set of toy-sized streets, using low-fi technology to weave it all today. It’s nostalgia with a bit of hipsterism—and a three-foot ghost, apparently.
Patrick O’Brien, The Fever
Another Loop winner (from 2013) returns with his one-man show written by Wallace Shawn, about an international traveler whose malady brings about enlightenment. I’ll help you out: O’Brien is Mr. Dewey from Saved By The Bell, and Shawn is the “inconceivable” star of The Princess Bride (and also a damn good writer and editor).
QLive!, Thrill Me
I have the original cast recording of Thrill Me, purchased after I saw its Off-Broadway mounting in 2005. The creepy two-hander about 1920s thrill-killers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb still haunts me, mainly because, as the New York Times wrote, “it’s a reminder that evil often looks and sounds beautiful.”
Rite of Passage Theatre Company, Standing 8 Count
Van Quattro has re-emerged in DFW as of late, directing the critically well-received Why Things Burn recently at the Margo Jones Theatre and now starring in his own one-man play of his time as a semi-professional boxer. If you haven’t seen Quattro perform before, let me warn you now: He’s mesmerizing.