Dropping onto the Orange venue stage is “S#IT! An Unauthorized Musical Parody of Stephen King’s IT.”
With a title like that, it’s safe to assume what we were going to get a hysterical interpretation of one of the horror master’s beloved books. This brand new production comes from the creative team that brought the absurdly hysterical “ThanksKilling: The Musical” at last year’s Fringe.
Having read the book… well ok, seen the movies (both the 80’s mini-series and most recent big Hollywood version this past fall) my expectations were set high, almost as high as a lonely red balloon will float, and did it ever float!
But how do you squeeze a 1,138-page horror novel into the limited allotted time of a Fringe show? Well, much like the recent Hollywood film, you base the show on the first half of the book only and then add in a narrator (and a very special surprise guest) to move things along. The narrator is the horror master himself (well not really) Stephen King… or as “S#IT!” tell us in the show’s opening number “Definitely not Stephen King,” Hail the King!
Much like the book it’s parodying, in the small town of Deery, Maine a group of pre-teens are being terrorized by a killer clown who is played freakishly well by Tripp Karrh.
Not shy of crude humor (thank god!) and a potential “splash zone” in the audience, “S#IT” certainly pushes the humor limits much in the way an episode of “South Park” does.
Despite the title, “S#IT!” is definitely not a steaming pile of it, but some rather hot “S#IT” as it pokes fun at everything the King’s horror genre has to offer. It captures everything patrons see as Fringe must haves: comedy, gender-bending drag, original music and a s#itload of creativity.
“S#IT! An Unauthorized Musical Parody of Stephen King’s IT” plays in the Orange Venue through May 26. For more information visit OrlandoFringe.org.
