DOWNTOWN – This year, Producing Director Jason Bruffy wanted the Festival to be bigger, better and bolder than ever before.  “That is why I commissioned Alex Jarman to create a 12 foot newspaper sculpture of my penis at the Fringe Art Gallery on 6th & Walnut,” said Bruffy.  “I told the artist that I wanted it to be the exact size, shape and dimension in every detail.  It’s absolutely amazing.  I had it built from all the articles written about me.  The women have been raving about it all week!”

“The Festival has been absolutely fabulous.  We have every dysfunction known to mankind represented here.  They have been separated out into different performance spaces for the convenience of our audiences.  At Gabriel’s Corner we have of course incest and other family domestic problems, as usual.  In the Cincinnati Ballet we have cripples, lepers and amputees.  The Contemporary Arts Center is focusing linguistic disorders and teenage angst.  Last but not least, Memorial Hall on pain, human suffering and mimes.  I felt that last set really fit neatly together.”

Headlining the festival was a troupe of paraplegic ballet dancers who came down from New York City just for this festival.  The brave troupe of dancers formed after being involved in the Stanton Island Ferry disaster of 2003.  Despite severed limbs and obvious signs of skin grafts, this die-hard group gracefully hopped around on crutches and spun around in wheel chairs, showing Cincinnati what true fringe art is all about.  Their ballet performance reached a dramatic finale when the quadriplegics dropped from the ceiling into the laps of the audience to flollip about like fish on deck.  The audience erupted in a sitting ovation of solidarity.

One of the highly touted features of the Fringe Festival is it's ability to foster new and creative ideas in the art world.  For example, on the first day the performance of "A Mime is a Terrible Thing to Waste” broke ground by having mimes milling about interacting with the patrons as they arrived to see the show.  Once seen as successful, “Does This Monologue Make Me Look Fat?” quickly replicated the idea by having several rotund male and female actors wade through the crowds.  “It really made me think about how portly people interact with the rest of society,” said Fringe fanatic Gill Matley.  And of course the show cast and crew of “Slow Children Playing” could not help but replicate the idea for their own show.  Their wacky pre-show antics really proved to be a crowd pleaser.

One of the more impressive shows at this year’s Fringe Festival the spoke word performance entitled “Lengthy Lisping”.  Audience members were locked in the Contemporary Arts Center stage with nothing more than a chair, cyanide pill and a glass of water.  From there, local poet and chronic lisper Shawn Sanders recited hit poems such as “She sells sea shells by the sea shore” and “Silly Sally swiftly shooed seven silly sheep,” for two hours thraight.  “The show must be a hit,” said Jason Bruff.  “I have yet to hear a bad review of the show!”

- Fred Pastry

He dared to ignore the advice of the area's most powerful theater critic. Instead, following a seasoned actor's finely honed instincts, one New York comedian allowed his talent to blossom from within, nearly bursting the seams of his smartly pressed Dockers.

The Cincinnati Dealer recently interviewed a variety of audience members, theater insiders, and gawkers-about-town to find out their reaction to Kurt Fitzpatrick's 2005 Fringe Festival performance of his own "Hooray for Speech Therapy!"

"Methinks a codpiece this player well would serve."
- William S., producer, playwright, noted poet

"One performance note: stand-up performers should . . . avoid weird bulges in their slacks."
- Jackee Demolition, local critic and connoisseur

"Powerful. Finest two-member performance of this year's festival."
- David Q., Alternative Arts Magazine

"Hooray for the bulge! Biggest thing to hit this town in a long, long time."
- Melissa K., enthusiastic supporter of the arts

"So that little prick thinks his is bigger'n mine? I'll show him a thing or two. Come on over to my place, speech boy. If you dare."
- M. Flanagan, local poet and roustabout

"Wow. I may write the songs, but this guy makes the whole world sing!"
- T. Moody, actor, performer, and Karaoke Knight

- Patricia Cake