9 strange and sexy new shows to see at OKC's fifth annual Theatre Crude Fringe Festival

From puppet shows and new operas to musical comedy and psychological horror, the fifth annual Theatre Crude Fringe Festival offers a veritable gusher of cutting-edge live performances. 

The locally produced festival is set for Oct. 5-14 inside Oklahoma Shakespeare in the Park's black-box theater in the Paseo Arts District.

Produced in most major cities around the globe, fringe festivals showcase an array of new, experimental and original theater and performances. 

“It’s a huge milestone for us to be celebrating our fifth year in Oklahoma City. Each year more and more audience members find us, and more and more they are delighted and surprised by the productions they see. In addition to the incredible support from returning audiences, we love meeting the folks who are joining us for the first time," said festival co-founder and Executive Director Jenny Brand in a statement.

The 10-day 2023 event will include 42 in-person performances from 16 multidisciplinary groups. Plus, the fest will showcase four virtual productions that will be screened live at the theater and streamed online at https://www.theatrecrude.org.

Most of this year's Theatre Crude artists are based in Oklahoma, but the fest also will showcase traveling productions from New York, Los Angeles and Kansas City.

With an eclectic lineup that includes improv comedy, burlesque dance, solo performances and more, here are nine strange, sexy and promising titles to be featured at the 2023 Theatre Crude Fringe Festival:

1. 'Pricks! The Vaccine Musical'

Showtimes: 5:30 p.m. Oct. 13 and 7 p.m. Oct. 14.

A mainstay at the Theatre Crude Fringe Festival, OKC actor, director and writer Rodney Brazil penned, produced and stars in the four-person "Pricks! The Vaccine Musical." From smallpox to cowpox, the song-and-dance show humorously tells the history of vaccinations and their effect on humanity.

2. New Oklahoma operas

Showtimes: 8:30 p.m. Oct. 5, 4 p.m. Oct. 7, 10 p.m. Oct. 8 and 8:30 p.m. Oct. 12.

Opera on Tap OKC will present three recently commissioned short tales from its summer 10-Minute Opera Festival. The new Oklahoma operas include a comedic re-telling of Alice in Wonderland at the tea party, a story of space amphibians who co-pilot a freighter in a distant star system and a #MeToo-inspired tale of a zealous journalist and her misogynist boss.

3. 'The Co.llective Arts Puppet Circus for Oklahoma'

Showtimes: 5:30 p.m. Oct. 5, 10 p.m. Oct. 10, 7 p.m. Oct. 12 and 1 p.m. Oct. 14.

Co-written by 10 emerging OKC theater artists over a series of retreats in 2023, "The Co.llective Arts Puppet Circus for Oklahoma" will share mythical tales of a ghost town ravaged by ecological disaster, a young family with an ill child and "the fight for the heart of Oklahoma."

4. 'A Sensual Journey'

Showtimes: 10 p.m. Oct. 6, 8:30 p.m. Oct. 7, 10 p.m. Oct. 12 and 8:30 p.m. Oct. 14.

OKC burlesque dance troupe The Sultry Femmes will take viewers on "A Sensual Journey" spanning decades of feminine expression. The show is for audiences 18 and older only, and IDs will be checked at the door.

5. 'The Curious Case of the Blood-Sucking Remote'

Showtimes: 7 p.m. Oct. 5, 2:30 p.m. Oct. 8, 5:30 p.m. Oct. 12 and 4 p.m. Oct. 14.

Written and directed by Linda McDonald, an award-winning Oklahoma novelist and theater director, "The Curious Case of the Blood-Sucking Remote" centers on roommates Jana and Leta, who are so addicted to television that they can barely keep a job. The pair takes on a dangerous thief in the middle of the night in this comedy starring OKC actors Crystal Barby, Holly McNatt and Mike Waugh.

6. 'Mind Reader'

Showtimes: 5:30 p.m. Oct. 6, 2:30 p.m. Oct. 7, 10 p.m. Oct. 11 and 7 p.m. Oct. 13.

After successfully making his Theatre Crude fest debut in 2021 with his show "ExperiMENTAL," Steven Nicholas returns to OKC with a new mind-reading experience, aptly titled "Mind Reader." The Los Angeles-based touring performer is promising an experience that will "reach beyond the walls of the theater, involving people who haven’t even come to the show."

7. 'The Man from Midnight Station'

Showtimes: 7 p.m. Oct. 7, 1 p.m. Oct. 8, 8:30 p.m. Oct. 10 and 5:30 p.m. Oct. 14.

OKC-based artist and designer Dillon Bertholf wrote, directs and stars in this Western comedy described as a "high-spirited, mythic tale of passion, deception and snake oil." It centers on an ambitious governor determined to bring in a railroad, even if it means demolishing a popular hotspot on an overnight stagecoach route.

8. 'Yellow'

Showtimes: 10 p.m. Oct. 5 and 7 p.m. Oct. 8.

An assistant professor of theater at Oklahoma Baptist University, C. Alex Webster's one-woman show "Yellow" is based on based on Charlotte Perkins-Gilman's seminal 1892 short story "The Yellow Wallpaper." The story is considered a vital early work of American feminist literature, detailing the deplorable 19th-century approaches to women's mental and physical health.

9. '://SHELF_LIFE'

Showtimes: 5:30 p.m. Oct. 7, 7 p.m. Oct. 11, 8:30 p.m. Oct. 13 and 2:30 p.m. Oct. 14.

Zachary Scalzo, artist in residence in the University of Central Oklahoma's English department, wrote and performs this near-future one-man drama exploring possible implications of artificial intelligence.

Directed by S M Boyer, the solo show focuses on a new tech service, Shelf Life, that promises to take every piece of information you have on a deceased loved one and load it into an AI. The goal of the service is to generate a companion that's "something between immortality and a voice from the grave."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: 9 weird and sexy shows at OKC's Theatre Crude Fringe Festival 2023