FringeNYC 2012 - Your Personal Guide to The 16th Annual New York International Fringe Festival

Hy on the Fringe: Your Personal Guide to the

2012 New York International Fringe Festival

And the FringeNYC September Encore Series

This Ratings Page Most Recently Updated: Sunday September 30th 2012

FringeNYC Show Ratings & Rankings

This section lists the FringeNYC 2012 shows I've seen from beginning to end. (Shows that I walked out of mid-stream—there was only one this year—aren't mentioned.)

The shows are listed in rough order of personal preference, with each production assigned one to four stars using the following rating system:

**** = Transcendently Great

*** = Solid & Worth Seeing

** = Unless Your Relatives Are in the Cast, Think Twice

* = "I Wanted to Kill Myself"

If a title is underlined, you can click it to jump to my review.

If a title isn't underlined, I haven't yet written up the show. I won't review every production seen, but will strive to review as many as possible in the time available.

I'll be updating the list every single day, so please make a habit of checking this page frequently.

Please also note that I very seldom give a show four stars. Last year was the first in which I've ever given three shows in the festival a **** rating. I rated three shows **** this year as well; and there might be another such giant lurking within the Encore productions I haven't yet seen. (Naysayers notwithstanding, FringeNYC continues to get better every year...)

All that said, what follows are the 68 FringeNYC 2012 shows I've seen to date from beginning to end::

5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche ****

Hanafuda Denki: A Tale of Playing Cards ****

Tail! Spin! ****

COBU: Knockin' On the Cool Earth ***½

Non-Equity: The Musical ***½

Independents ***½

Twelfth Night ***½

Oasis: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Middle East But Were Afraid to Dance ***½

Fantasy Artists ***½

This Too Shall Suck ***½

Canon in D Minor ***½

Mother Eve's Secret Garden of Sensual Sisterhood ***½

The Zebra Shirt of Lonely Children ***

Pulp Shakespeare ***

Snow White Zombie Apocalypse ***

Nightfall on Miranga Island ***

Lennon in Denmark ***

City of Shadows ***

An End to Dreaming ***

Blanche: The Bittersweet Life of a Wild Prairie Dame ***

Phantomwise ***

The Abduction of Becky Morris ***

American Midget ***

Have I Got a Girl For You ***

Vacuum ***

Shiksappeal: Getting the Chosen to Choose Me ***

FriendAndy.com ***

Sleepover ***

Mahmoud ***

The Underdeveloped and Overexposed Life and Death of Deena Domino ***

Salamander Starts Over ***

June and Nancy ***

Wake Up ***

Sweet Tooth ***

Magdelan ***

Dark Hollow: An Appalachian Woyzeck ***

Danny Visconti is Hill-Bent: My Night with Hillary Clinton **½

An Interrogation Primer **½

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You **½

Gil Kuno's Six String Sonics **½

Rated M For Mature **½

Chain Reaction **½

What I Learned From Porn **½

An Evening With Kirk Douglas **½

Men To Be Feared **½

Pink Milk **½

Mallory/Valerie **½

The Art of Painting **½

Dumber Faster **½

Girl in Argentine Landscape **½

All My Children **½

Women of Smoke **½

The Dick and the Rose **½

The Women of Spoon River: Their Voices from the Hill **½

Gay Camp **½

Shelly's Spherical Journey **½

Pieces **

Falling **

Salvage **

The Particulars **

Quest for the West: Adventures on the Oregon Trail **

From Busk Till Dawn: The Life of an NYC Street Performer **

Grimm: A New Musical **

Almost a Fantasy *½

Five Things: A Webcomic in 3-D *½

Super Sidekick: The Musical *½

Below *

Chop *

Notable recent additions to the list are Hanafuda Denki: A Tale of Playing Cards, a spectacular all-Japanese dark fantasy comedy that's a bit like anime on stage, utterly unique, and not to be missed; Oasis, a highly professional dance piece that you'll be glad you experienced; Fantasy Artists, by far the best-written play I've seen at the festival; Mother Eve's Secret Garden of Sensual Sisterhood, a highly polished musical comedy packed with laughs—and garnering standing ovations; The Zebra Shirt of Lonely Children, a one-man show by a fascinating performer about the death of his father; Pulp Shakespeare, a hilarious version of Pulp Fiction as the Bard might've written it; City of Shadows, an unusual and highly memorable collection of Australian photographs set to song; Phantonwise, an exploration of the real-life Alice and her genius friend who immortalized her through the looking glass; The Abduction of Becky Morris, a subtle tale of obsession and the complexities of women; American Midget, a mostly-smart allegory about self-doubt crippling us (starts out great, but loses steam as it goes along); Have I Got a Girl For You, an insider look at an escort service that's delightful until (to my enormous disappointment) the story falls apart at the end; and Vacuum, a play about memory, money, and the cure for cancer that includes a number of fine ingredients—though more work is needed to arrive at the right recipe for them—and a performance by resonant actress Dana Brooke that's by itself worth the price of admission.