The Seminar: Choose This Show!

The Seminar is a funny play. It’s also more than a little creepy – which makes the funny bits all the better. It’s a play with a none-too-subtle message about our obsession with beauty, but the talented cast pulls it off in an entertaining way without being preachy.

 

In a comic take on the makeover and self-improvement presentations, we are introduced to a team of “beauty experts” intent on sharing their effective (yet grisly) beautification process with the world. Plastic masks and an over-the-top application of cosmetics give the “seminar presenters” (actors Candice Fiorentino, Melissa Heagy, Brianne Jang and Sara Vickruck) an off-putting look inspired by high fashion yet taken to an eerie-looking extreme.

 

“Choose to change!” the singing, dancing, robotic-swiveling cast shout. “Don’t let your genetics define who you are! Ugly is a choice!” They take turns mocking ugly people and preaching the gospel of plastic beauty. Pretty soon, those lines become quite catchy. Then the plot becomes clear: one member of the audience will be transformed on stage into a glamazon, complete with leg extensions, butt implants, a hair transplant and other surgical wonders.

 

Great acting by a talented cast very effectively pulls in the audience, to the point where you’re not quite sure at first what is spontaneous participation and what is truly part of the performance. That makes the trauma of the “beauty treatment” all the more unnerving – and engaging.

 

It’s an ensemble production and the cast members really do complement each other’s styles. They’re also complicated characters; Brianne Jang will alternately preach to the audience with the fierce zeal of a convert, only to descend at times into gooey cuteness.

 

Great performances all around and an entertaining story told by quirky characters makes this a perfect show to kick off your Fringe-ing.