{"id":11323,"date":"2018-06-24T09:19:29","date_gmt":"2018-06-24T16:19:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/Becomeimmersed.com\/?p=11323"},"modified":"2019-11-25T16:48:45","modified_gmt":"2019-11-26T00:48:45","slug":"fringe-lesser-death-coffee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/fringe-lesser-death-coffee\/","title":{"rendered":"Fringe 2018: Annie Lesser\u2019s \u201cDeath & Coffee\u201d is an Intimate Chat with a Serious Edge"},"content":{"rendered":"

It might sound strange, but death has an aftertaste. Something acrid, something that burns, something foul. Annie Lesser\u2019s latest project, Death and Coffee,<\/em> now playing at 2018\u2019s Hollywood Fringe Festival<\/a>, is a deeply personal conversation about loss and its aftermath. Lesser, best known for her immersive ABC Project<\/a>, <\/em>here shifts focus from her characters to herself, giving one audience member at a time a glimpse into her pain, her struggle, and her understanding of her Grandfather\u2019s death. It is a brave, simple story, unflinchingly real because it is<\/em> real; Annie invites a guest into her home, into her life, transporting him or her thorough her grief and toward her triumph.<\/p>\n

Annie\u2019s prolific work throughout the Los Angeles theatre community is known for its ambition, wild abandon, and expansiveness. By tightening her lens and turning it inward, Annie has managed to execute her most moving production since 2016\u2019s Apartment 8<\/em><\/a>, another one-on-one audience experience that sparked highly-charged emotions. The main difference here is the feeling of being truly present for Death and Coffee<\/em>; where a participant had the option to silently take in Keight Leighn\u2019s stirring monologue in Apartment 8<\/em>, Death and Coffee <\/em>is literally that: a two-person discourse on death over a strong cup of joe (or tea, or cocoa, as it were.)<\/p>\n

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Due to the nature of the show\u2014and its intimate, conversational setting\u2014audience members that are newer to the immersive theatre genre may find themselves much more at ease with Annie, forgetting that they\u2019re attending a ticketed event thanks to her ability to organically engage her scene partner. This is no accident: Annie tells the true story of her grandfather\u2019s death, and describes her true feelings regarding it. What may seem like a delicate subject at first glance is very matter-of-fact to her. This is how it happened, this is what it felt like then, and this is what it can feel like now. Her openness is both refreshing and wholly necessary to make the work succeed for attendees.<\/p>\n

You need not have experienced a loss like hers to connect with Annie Lesser\u2019s story; she\u2019ll bring you along with her from death through grief to, hopefully, what comes after. Hers is not a standard story, though death is the most universal of human conditions. Her honesty and perspective are such that, by the end of her story, you\u2019ll feel as if you’ve processed something along with her; that maybe that taste of death need not linger so strongly on the tongue. Death and Coffee<\/em> is a fitting name for the show in so many ways; yes, it\u2019s a description of the conversation itself, but it also serves as a sort of metaphor for loss. Death is bitter, not unlike a strong cup of coffee; think of Death and Coffee<\/em> as what\u2019s needed to make that once bitter story sweet.<\/p>\n

Death & Coffee is currently on a sold-out run<\/a> at the 2018 Hollywood Fringe<\/a> Festival. For more information, including future extensions, please follow them on Instagram<\/a>. You can also support Annie<\/a> and the ABC Project<\/a> <\/em>on Patreon<\/a> for advance ticket sales to future shows and many more rewards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Annie Lesser\u2019s \u201cDeath and Coffee\u201d is a casual, heavy chat between audience member and lesser about the loss of her Grandfather. It\u2019s both moving and self-reflective. A \u201cmust\u201d of the Fringe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":11335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2170,80],"tags":[1055,1056,10911,10752,5342,3586],"yst_prominent_words":[1078,1089,2799,10914,10916,3890,5779,10912,1856,5219,2165,10913,3007,1084,2157,2802,5147,389,1188,10915],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/img_2610-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrPML-2WD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11323"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11323"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=11323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}