Well it’s Saturday morning, day two of the Philadelphia Fringe festival. If you never heard of the Fringe then let me describe it for you. The Philadelphia Fringe and Live Arts Festival has put together a platform for contemporary performances where international and local artist can share their artistic vision with the world. Most of the performances deal with everyday topics that we discuss in our lives like politics, race, religion, art, science and culture and is convey through light hearted skits, poetry, dance, music, theater and visual arts. Even in this high-tech world sometime the best stories are still told the old fashion way. Art is a reflection of the life and time that we live in, the thing people have seen in their travels or experience in their life. For 11 years The Philadelphia Fringe Festival has been an event that gives people access to the newest, cutting edge stuff out in the world of the Arts, if you want to know what’s up.

Friday Night was opening night for The Fringe. The Festival starts on August 31st and lasts to September 15th . I won’t be able to go to everything but uwishunu has helped a brother get into more things by allowing the opportunity to review some of the shows.

This will be the first time that I get to attend The Fringe, I’m a avid lover of the Arts and very excited, so excited that I picked the show that I will review in the next two weeks simple by title of company or by the title of the performance. I wanted to get the whole “new to the arts” experience to see what it’s like to pick something that you’re not familiar with, then go check it out for yourself.

As the day started, I traveled by Septa El downtown to pick up my tickets from the box office, which was neatly tucked in the back of The National building at 115N. 2nd St. As I waited in line to get my passes, I eyed the big dry marker board that hung behind the box office. It had a list of show that had been re-scheduled and a list of shows that would not allow any “late seating”. But what got me was there also was a list of sold out shows. Here it is the first day of the festival and shows are sold out! They explained that this was a shock to the festival also, making this year the best pre ticket selling year of all time. I thought to myself this must be good. Fortunately, none of my show were sold out and I walked away a happy man, for tonight; I will be going to see The N Crowd, a local improv comedy troop based here in Philly.

Showtime started promptly at 8pm. My girlfriend Marci wanted to go at the last minute so I hoped they would have extra tickets at the venue. Sure enough they did. But I don’t recommend getting your tickets at the venue. They only have left over seats and who knows, your show might be sold out by the performance time. It’s best to order them on-line or get them from the box office at least 3 hours before showtime.

Ladies and Gentlemen we are ready to start the show. After a round of thunderous applause, The N Crowd comedy troop enters. I really don’t want to give away the show because it’s very good, they are dedicated to comedy. I couldn’t stop laughing. The N Crowd is made up of 8 very funny, bright and intelligent people. The show consists of improv comedy sketches, some new (”to the left” and “lying, sitting, standing”) and some you might have seen before (”mannequin and “a day in the life”) all are interactive with the crowd. This means the performance is never the same twice. This makes for a better show, especially if the crowd is into it.

The performance is 90 minutes, but once they get rolling time flies by. I think the best sketch was when they interview two people in the audience to get a sense of what they were about, then proceed to act out a blind date while pretending to be them. This type of comedy is worth the admission, I’m laughing now as I write this blog a day later. The N Crowd will be performing after the Fringe Festival has ended. Every Friday they get together to present this super funny show. So if you get a chance stop on through old city and check them out before you go to dinner or club hopping.

Improv Comedy: The N Crowd Triple Double Feature
Every Friday night: 8pm and 10pm

The Actor’s Center
257 N. 3rd St, Philadelphia, PA
(215) 925-7060