| Adrienne Onofri | Jonathan Warman | Dan Pine | Audience Reviews |
Summer Stock-up All for One: The Fringe Festival’s Solo Performers It’s Fringe time again in New York City, 17 days of nearly round-the-clock theater including everything from multimedia drama to musical satire to puppetry to folkloric dancing—all for just $15 a pop. As a celebration of downtown theater, the Fringe Festival has always featured a bumper crop of that staple of downtown theater: the one-person show. But there’s plenty of variety within that category: autobiographical pieces, dance shows, monologue compilations, musicals, even clown theater. Some of the Fringe’s solo performers shared insights with www.BroadwayWorld.com about the art of going it alone on stage and how the seed of an idea flowers into a full production. A number of the performers say they turn to the one-person format to give voice to people or experiences that are underrepresented in theater. "It’s the concept of the outsider," says Michael Feldman, who’s written three solo plays in addition to the Diagnosis: Jew Pain he’s presenting at the Fringe. "One-person shows have always been known as an arena for ‘minorities.’ It can be looked at as a metaphor, with the outsider being alone [just as] the performer is alone on stage, or because we don’t have anywhere else to turn so we need to tell our story and have people sit and listen." * * * |