Orlando Weekly Review

Fringe review! 'Waiting for Maupin'
'Waiting for Maupin'
Water on the Brain Productions
Pink Venue
$10

Witty, well-acted and still just rough enough around the edges, Waiting for Maupin is perfect Fringe fare. A very local parody of Christopher Guest’s Waiting for Guffman, the slapstick comedy by Andy Haynes (with contributions from Lori McCaskill, who also co-directed) goes behind the scenes at a dreary, dutiful history of Orlando (This Land is … Ourlando).

There, we find a hilariously self-congratulatory company waiting for kudos from the theater critic, swinging wildly between preening and nail-biting. Along the way, of course, there is the show – and it does go on, detailing with wide-eyed enthusiasm Orlando’s not-especially-heroic past in grainy videos, school-play vignettes, plummy voice-overs and side-splitting spoofs.

Sets (by Nik Gromoll and James Erwin) and equally over-the-top costumes (Gromoll and McCaskill) underline fine – and finely ridiculous, always on the verge of teetering totally out of control – performances by Kevin Bee, Andrea Daveline, Steve Hurst, John Kelly, Josh Paul and Kimberly Shader. The show’s high point is its frenzied tribute to the back-to-back 2004 hurricanes, as the cast twirls and careens in “She’s a Hurricane” (“She’s a Maniac”), the pulsing disco fighting with the sounds of howling winds and the cast’s ragged shouts.

The show-within-a-show was to captivate a critic, but Waiting for Maupin instead left its audience weak from laughter. Critic or no critic, this silly, sly, super-musical is the thing; enough all by itself to make Fringe fabulous.

— Laura Stewart

Orlando Sentinel Review

Waiting for Maupin
Matthew J. Palm | Sentinel Staff Writer
10:52 AM EDT, May 16, 2009
This gentle spoof is just as funny – maybe funnier – than the 1996 movie that inspired it, Waiting for Guffman. In the play, as in the film, a motley bunch of community-theater actors mount a production celebrating their town as they await an influential critic to show up for opening night.

The production in this case is Orlando, Ourlando – a laughable look at pivotal moments in Central Florida history – and the critic is the Sentinel's own Elizabeth Maupin. "She's a wizard," sighs the show's fey director (Kevin Bee, very funny) .

The cast gives the show its heart, especially Kimberly Shader as the dopey but besotted Mrs. Bloomberg, and Josh Paul as an ex-pole-dancer who never knew his father.

The Orlando, Ourlando production numbers put funny twists on the four 2004 hurricanes, the metallic taste of canned orange juice and a Disney number set to the tune of the old Carousel of Progress theme, "The Best Time of Your Life."

Unfortunately, the opening-night performance was marred by far too loud recorded backing music, making many of the lyrics impossible to hear. This was a shame because the phrases that could be heard sounded every bit as funny as the spoken dialogue. Sound technician: Fix that! This is a show that deserves to be heard in full.

Future performances: 3:20 p.m. Sat. 5/16, 6 p.m. Mon. 5/18, 9:20 p.m. Tue. 5/19, 11 p.m. Thu. 5/21, 8:10 p.m. Sat. 5/23, 5 p.m. Sun. 5/24. Pink venue.