Edinburgh Festival Fringe is in full swing and the CalArtian productions we reported on in a previous post, Mask, Goose and Whispering in the Dark, are receiving their share of critical praise.
Michael Yichao Wang’s (Theater MFA 13) Goose garnered a positive review from ThreeWeeks, the festival’s oldest review magazine:
A fairly solemn and sad story is kept light-hearted by Yichao’s [Wang] well-timed and well-formed charm and humor… The drama is delightful, thought-provoking and leaves you feeling deliciously satisfied and happy. I could have listened to Yichao’s monologue-style thoughts for hours.
Outside of CalArts Festival Theater at Venue 13, another alumnus is drawing rave reviews. Allan Trautman (Theater MFA 78) is a cast member of Henson Alternative’s Puppet Up! Uncensored, a show that combines comic improvisation and live puppet theater. Although it features puppets and puppeteers from The Jim Henson Company, Puppet Up! Uncensored is an adults-only departure from Sesame Street. Fest gives it four out of five stars, saying it “highlights the raw artistry of Colleen Smith, Leslie Carrara-Rudolph, Ted Michaels, Drew Massey and Allan Trautman, all of whom appear not only to be masters of their craft, but genuinely funny people,” while Wow 24/7 raves:
These guys are marvelous multi-taskers—as well as operating the puppets with seemingly effortless dexterity, they make silly voices, sing, improvise jokes and exhibit intuitive comic timing as they relive the first date of a couple plucked from the audience, create a Bond film opening sequence and rap a kids’ story.
Above, we posted a photo gallery from John Michael Johnson’s (Theater MFA 15) Mask and Wang’s Goose.