Hey kids, PETER MICHAEL MARINO’s improvised, socially anxious solo comedy SHOW UP is currently running at New York’s Under St. Marks Theater through September. The critically acclaimed show had a sold out run at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe and will be returning to St. Marks for a bevy of encore performances. SHOW UP, directed by Michole Biancosino & the audience, features Marino creating a life-story based on real-life audience experiences and Marino’s decades of solo performance work. Every show is a always something new and that makes “showing up” all the more thrilling. The producer and SOLOCOM creator was kind enough to answer a few questions about the show, this year’s engaging and slightly scary EdFringe performances, and of course, YOU, the stupendous audiences of New York. Enjoy!
COMEDY CAKE: How would you describe your Edinburgh Fringe Hit “Show Up” to the uninitiated?
PETER MICHAEL MARINO: “Show Up” is an improvised, one-man comedy about the good, bad and ugly experiences of the actual audience. That’s basically it. I get life stories from the audience ranging from childhood to job to love life (all the typical fodder of solo shows) and mash them up into a fictional solo show, right on the spot. The audience also controls the sound and set design. And there’s a party. All of this is peppered with my own life stories which detour into mental health issues like depression and social anxiety. It’s a comedy! I swear!
CAKE: What prompted you to create this show?
PMM: Honestly? After writing and memorizing solo shows for the past 6 years, I just wanted to see what would happen if I showed up at a theater and created a show on the spot. I soon realized that if you’re not famous, which I am not, you can’t do that. So I started developing a show around that, using the standard tropes of solo shows. And then more of my own stories and experiences became part of the show, and then the mental health stuff became the glue and the reason for why the show exists. My director Michole Biancosino (David Carl’s Celebrity One-Man Hamlet, Trump Lear) and I worked to create a structure for the improvised portion of the show to hang on and it just kept growing from there after several workshops.
CAKE: What do you feel motivates you most as a performer?
PMM: Doing something. All the time. As I discuss in “Show Up”, I always have to be doing something or else I’ll spend the day on the couch watching tv shows about aliens. I guess what I’m saying is is that I’m motivated to create by my fear of falling into the abyss. I’m also motivated by other performers. I just got back from doing the show 24 times at the Edinburgh Fringe and I saw about 40 shows while I was there and I was constantly inspired and motivated to create more and break more “rules” and take more chances.
CAKE: What was the experience like performing at Fringe?
PMM: Doing the show every day for an international audience was thrilling, enlightening and artistically empowering. I made me aware of how I can fall into performance habits – not all good or bad. In Edinburgh, you have to be 100% committed every time whether you have 40 in the audience or 4 – which is not uncommon when there are over 3,500 shows happening at the same time. It was amazing to see how eager strangers were to share their deepest, strangest life experiences with a room full of strangers… and ME – who’d be bringing it all to life. It also made me aware of how similar we all are and how being truthful is the key to connecting with people.
CAKE: What do you have to consider when performing in front of a New York audience versus a European one?
PMM: Great question. I think NY audiences place more value on their time and money, so they are a bit harder to win over at first. While EdFringe and European audiences are more open to the experience itself from the start. I mean, NYC is a year-round Fringe festival really, with so much going on all the time and so much diversity in performance and show styles. EdFringe also offers the same, if not a wider net of styles and shows, but for some reason the audiences there are with you from the word go. They’ll see a show just because they have a spare hour (and a cocktail or two in them.)
CAKE: What are some of the other solo performances you’ve enjoyed from fellow performers this year?
PMM: Jason Kravits’ improvised cabaret show “Off the Top!” blew me away. Walter Michael DeForest’s “Van Gogh Find Yourself” is a beautiful show where we learn about Van Gogh while getting a drawing lesson. Mindy Raf’s “Keeping my Kidneys” which was a perfect hybrid of standup, solo show and storytelling. And Paul Valenti’s gorgeous, uplifting, silent clown show “The Long Miserable Journey to Happiness.” I also really loved “The Truman Capote Talk Show” which I saw in Edinburgh and I hope plays NYC soon. Amazing.
CAKE: What’s been your most outrageous performance story traveling abroad?
PMM: Someone had a seizure in the middle of the show in Edinburgh! Like, a full on, move chairs, eyes rolling scary event. The whole audience jumped in to help this young lady. After we made sure she and her mates were safely on their way out to get help, I came back into the theater and asked if I should finish the show which was met with a resounding “YES!”… so I did.
CAKE: What do you have up your sleeve post “Show Up” show?
PMM: I plan to keep doing the show. Here and everywhere else. This is what I’ve got and I am enjoying doing it. Especially since 75% of each show is different. I’ve booked dates in the Adirondacks in October and Toronto in December, and I starting to plan for the winter and spring with an eye to bring the show back to Edinburgh again in August 2018. And more Fringe fests. In this business we have to plan months in advance and just trust that the stars will align. So far, so good.
Mentions: Get SHOW UP tickets HERE! Under St. Marks Theater is located at 94 St. Marks Place (between 1st Ave. & Ave. A, basement theater, no wheelchair access). For more info go to showuptheshow.com.