an intimate evening with fotis

Fringe Image An Intimate Evening With Fotis was my first foray into solo storytelling. Don’t let the “storytelling” thing lead your brain to images of granola,dragons and…whatever other horrible images might jump into your head when you hear “storytelling”. Essentially it’s me doing stand up. Except I sit. And read. It’s fucking funny. Just look at these randomly selected reviews from newspapers which, for those of you that don’t know, is a medium that barely exists.

-Mike Fotis, known for his rip-roaring performances at the Brave New Workshop , goes solo with a high-octane grouping of original comic readings. This winning crowd-pleaser steers the proverbial male persecution complex, standard to much comedy, down a different path. Rather than squawking about kids, taxes, exes, and blue-collar ‘common sense,’ Fotis protests his outsider status as an actor who likes sports, riffs on prescription drugs, and spoofs porn-fixated businessmen.

-John Townsend, Star Tribune.

-Planting yourself at a table and reading stories from the page isn’t normally the smartest choice for solo performance. But Mike Fotis, a Brave New Workshop regular who stamped his Fringe identity through the schizo duo Ferrari McSpeedy, moves more while seated than many dance companies do on their feet. The movement comes through wit, pacing, expression and inflection - all honed through years of high-level comic craftsmanship. Fotis comes across as an Ivy League dropout who dies with every Chicago sports season and can’t hold a girl (”In my mind, a wicker box said commitment. In her mind, it said it was all over.”). Line for line, there may not be a funnier show in this Fringe Festival.

mikefotis.com