Free to Be Friends

Free to Be Friends, a stage version of the fictional 1972 regional children’s TV show hosted by lesbians Betty & Joan, picks up where Free to Be You and Me and The Magic Garden left off, then makes everything a little weirder. Set on Betty and Joan’s Enchanted Patio, Free to Be Friends also stars poor, berated Shylock the Owl, a gorgeous owl puppet bedecked in retro-hued felt feathers. Sue Galloway plays Betty Maddox, a wide-eyed blonde who came to the Enchanted Patio after being rescued from a macramé cult called the Macramaniacs. Her life partner, Joan Stein, used to be a school teacher in Great Neck, Long Island with a husband and kids, which she gladly discarded. Together, Betty and Joan guide children through an array of confusing topics with lessons from Joan’s aging mother and jokes from the Giggle Patch, teach kids that “Yoga is when you do anything you want in a leotard,” bake Self Esteem Cookies (“They’re as delicious as you think they deserve to be!”), and transparently attempt to cloak their radical left-wing politics with a veneer of feel-good 70’s cheer…all of which just adds up to confusion, and then, terrible violence. Free to Be Friends is presented as part of the 10th Annual New York International Fringe Festival.

Schedule

Saturday, August 12th at 7:00 P.M.

Sunday, August 13th at 5:15 P.M.

Wednesday, August 16th at 8:30 P.M.

Thursday, August 17th at 3:30 P.M.

Friday, August 18th at 4:45 P.M.

Monday, August 21st at 7:00 P.M.