Hollywood 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.
Snowden 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.
