SHAMELESS - 2002

Five years ago in 2002 I took part in the Minnesota Fringe Festival for the very first time. I performed my one man show “Shameless” and it was an event I will never forget for many reasons. The first being it was my Twin Cities premiere, the second being I got great reviews, and third I learned a lesson that sometimes it’s not good to make off-the-cuff smartass remarks to the newspaper reporter. Because, as it turns out, they will probably be printed and in the end make you look like a complete idiot.

I remember vividly standing in Rainbow Foods in Plymouth with Jen (my roommate at the time) and flipping open the newspaper to the arts section in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. There I was…an article and photo of me on stage performing. Exciting! How awesome is that? Then I started to read the article. I stood there in shock. All of my stupid remarks were printed as actual quotes. Some of which I have never been able to live down. I guess I am always good for a sound bite or two. So here it is, the article in it's enterity as it ran in the newspaper…enjoy.


Novices Take Steps to the Fringe.
'Low risk and high anxiety' as stage artists prepare for spotlight.
by MATT PEIKENSt. Paul Pioneer Press, August 4, 2002

Most performers regard the big time as a stage in New York. For Jason Schommer, who has conquered every stage in Little Falls, Minn., Minneapolis is big enough for now. .

"Back home, I'm kinda like the local boy who made good. Here, I'm a nobody," Schommer said Saturday afternoon, a half-hour before making both his Twin Cities and Minnesota Fringe Festival debuts.

His one-man show, essentially a set of standup comedy he's calling "Shameless" is among more than 130 productions on the Fringe schedule. Shows run through Aug. 11 at 17 venues in downtown and Uptown Minneapolis.

The 28-year-old Schommer stood alone inside a quiet Brave New Workshop, scanned the empty seats and said, "I'm gonna go to the bathroom, put on some Chap Stick and pray people come."

The Fringe Festival, in its ninth season, attracts a handful of seasoned playwrights and performers but is largely for novice artists and experimental shows. Audiences go in hoping for gems while armed with a tolerance for duds. Schommer and other performers see the Fringe as an important baby step in their creative evolutions.

At Old Arizona Studios, 23-year-old choreographers Galen Treuer and Ann Willemssen presented "See Jane Dance," their first dance outside of Oberlin College in Iowa, where both graduated in 2001.

"It's low-risk and high-anxiety," Willemssen said of the Fringe. "At Oberlin, you got to know the audience pretty well. The same people see you over and over again. Here, we don't know if people will like it or think it's funny. We don't even know if they'll show up."

Willemssen and Treuer opened their show to any dancer willing to perform. They wound up with a small group of young women with a range of experience, from ballet and modern dance work to someone who had only practiced yoga.

Backstage at their Fringe debut Saturday afternoon, dancers stretch, laugh and talk-and-walk their way through some steps. Willemssen hands each dancer a yellow rose as a gift. Everyone forms a circle with the choreographers and holds hands.

"Eye contact," one dancer says.

"Make them love you," adds another.

"Be a little sassy," Treuer says.

"And have fun, you guys, no matter what," Willemssen beams. "Even if you screw up."

Further up Nicollet Avenue, at the Red Eye Collaboration, Michelle Elliott and James Lekvin seem relaxed and cavalier 15 minutes away from the opening of "When Pop Stars Attack." This is their fifth year of presenting a new musical at the Fringe, and the co-writers say they can only fail through caution.

"Anything goes in the Fringe, and audiences are coming for the sheer community of it," Elliott said. "Being wild and creative is the thrill of it. If something doesn't work, at least we tried it." Back at the Brave New Workshop, the technician gives Schommer the 5-minute cue.

"Oh, God, you're about to watch a train derail," Schommer says. "Is anybody out there?"

"Oh, yeah," the tech says. "But they're all sitting in the back."

"Oh, well, it's like that in Little Falls, too," Schommer says before stepping up to peek through the curtain. "I see 15 people who hopefully want a good show."

He opens some pieces of paper -- his loose script -- and draws Xs through large chunks of text. The tech speaks to Schommer through an intercom: "Places." Schommer turns to the curtain and exhales.

"O.K., it's magic time."


**NOTE: Personally my two favorite remarks are the ones about going to the bathroom to put on chap-stick and that it’s magic time. What was I thinking? Cripes.**