Solo sensations

Its emphasis on small-scale productions makes the Fringe Festival a prime venue for charismatic performers to strut their stuff solo. This year's Fringe features more than three dozen solo shows. Among the most promising are "Do Not Kill Me, Killer Robots!," a comedy by Bedlam Theatre regular Ben Egerman that was just voted best solo performance at the (Washington, D.C.) Capital Fringe; and "St. Christopher of Financial Aid," a parody of for-profit online education by top local actor Christopher Kehoe. While not purely a solo show (there's one additional actress), "Confessions of a Lazy Hmong Woman" is a stereotype-busting showcase for writer/performer May Lee-Yang.

Everybody dance now

The current generation of dancemakers is increasingly integrating elements of theater and performance art into its creations, which makes a creative Petri dish like the Fringe a great place to see cutting-edge dance. Casebolt and Smith are an L.A. comedy-dance duo (yes, you read that right) who won raves for their hilarious 2009 show, "Speaking Out!," and this year are back with a new piece called simply "O(h)." Tamara Ober, a longtime principal of Minneapolis' Zenon Dance Company, has begun stepping out with her own compositions, including last year's Fringe favorite "Pipa." She's producer of Brant Miller's new Fringe show, "The First Five Minutes Are Slow," which brought down the house at a Fringe-For-All preview with a bit involving remote-controlled desk lamps.

You know -- for kids!

Be sure to reserve tickets if you want to see "You Are Not Paris," imaginative director Jon Ferguson's latest collaboration with the young performers of Stages Theatre Company: Tickets to their Fringe show last year sold out so quickly you'd have thought it starred Justin Bieber. Another hot ticket for teens is likely to be Blank Slate Theatre's revival of their acclaimed show "Disordered [thy name is teenager]." There's Fringe fare for young children as well, and the title of this year's highest-profile kids' show tells you everything you need to know about it: "Fartosaurus Rex!"

Fringe: The musical

Just about every word in the dictionary has appeared in the Fringe program placed before a colon and the words "The Musical." Buzz is promising for Uncommon Time Theater Co.'s charming show "Grind: The Musical" -- which is not about dirty dancing, but rather about coffee shop baristas who fall in love and break into song.

The fringe of the Fringe

The Fringe wouldn't be the Fringe without some truly far-out stuff. Among this year's shows in that vein, there's "The Quest," co-starring busy Fringer Matthew Kelly (see previous page). At each performance, Kelly and his co-stars will improvise a classic quest for something of the audience's choosing, facing to-be-determined obstacles and heinous villains invented on the spot. "#Ringtone" is a site-specific multimedia experience taking place at the Fallout Urban Art Center. Directed by MinnesotaPlaylist.com mastermind Alan Berks, the show features one of the strongest casts in this year's Fringe -- Katie Kaufmann, Lindsay Marcy, Ben McGinley, Matt Sciple, Anna Sundberg and Adam Whisner.