Amy Snowden takes on the Casting Couch

Hollywood Fringe Festival 2016Hollywood Fringe 2016 is better than ever and continues on for two more weeks: dance, artistry, plays. There’s also plenty of comedy at the Fringe in Hollywood.

Case in point…

Amy Snowden (above) grew up in rural Louisiana where squirrel was often hunted for dinner and a visit to the K-Mart something to phone neighbors about.

But she always knew she was meant for bigger things.

The voice in her head told her she was, and beckoned her to depart for Lo Angeles where she would find stardom.

In later years she would be convinced that voice was part of the sinister illuminati and got kick backs every time she shelled out for new head shots or agent auditions.

In Casting Confessions from La to LA Snowden tells the tale of a small town girl’s rise to the heights of America’s Got Talent and her fall to toe whore at the beck and call of those whose deviant desires are met through footnight.com.

It is a rocky, raunchy, ribald, rollicking ride recounting abusers, users, casting couches, and missed opportunities as her memories share the stage with a cardboard alligator, cardboard cow and inflatable male masturbation dummy.

Snowden, a veteran of the L.A. comedy circuit has not given her audience a one woman show, but a stand up routine that feels like a blatant shot at convincing the Comedy Networks of her worthiness for a special.

casting.jpgSnowden is funny in a rough kinda “down home” fashion, in the same vein as Larry the Cable Guy only much easier to look at.
Joe Salazar is credited with directing but hasn’t done much it seems towards either tidying up or tightening Snowden’s performance, which it, definitely, is in need of.

Snowden is often guilty of undercutting the impact of her stories, which are for the most part deliciously debauched by her lack of clarity in delivery.

Red Foxx, the master of “blue” humor before opting to build a nest egg on the sit-com Sanford and Son once told me the secret to telling an off-humor joke was, “Sticking it in all smooth and lickety-split before they see it coming. Then when they do that nervous laughter shit, twist it hard and pump it up into a proper guffaw.”

Playing on her sweet little country gal façade, Snowden could then sucker punch an audience silly with her risqué chronicle.

I also think she needs to decide if she’s doing stand up or a solo show, she can’t have it both ways.

And it must be noted that the audience I saw it with, was eating it up like a heaping serving of crawfish étouffée with banana pudding on the side.

Find out more about Amy and Casting Confessions HERE.

Written by

An award-winning L.A. playwright and rabble-rouser of note who has hoisted glasses with Orson Welles, been arrested on three continents and once beat up Charlie Manson. His first play, "Among the Vipers" was a semi-finalist in the Julie Harris Playwriting Competition and was featured in the Carnegie-Mellon Showcase of New Plays. It was produced at the NPT Theater in Ashland, Oregon and Los Angeles’ celebrated Odyssey Ensemble Theatre. His following play, “The Little Boy Who Loved Monsters” was produced at The Hollywood Actors Theater, where he earned praise from the Los Angeles Times for his “…inordinately creative writing.” The play went on to numerous other productions including Berlin’s The Black Theatre under the direction of Rainer Fassbinder who wrote in his program notes of Kearney, “He is a skilled playwright, but more importantly he is a dangerous one.” Ernest Kearney has worked as literary manager or as dramaturge for among others The Hudson Theater Guild, Nova Diem and the Odyssey Ensemble Theatre, where he still serves on the play selection committee. He has been the recipient of two Dramalogue Awards and a finalist or semi-finalist, three times, in the Julie Harris Playwriting Competition. His work has been performed by Michael Dunn, Sandra Tsing Loh, Jack Colvin and Billy Bob Thornton, and to date, either as playwright or director, he has upwards of a hundred and thirty productions under his belt, including a few at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater as puppeteer. Kearney remains focused on his writing, as well as living happily ever after with his lovely wife Marlene. His stage reviews and social essays can be found at TheTVolution.com and workingauthor.com. Follow him on Facebook.

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