FringeNYC 2013: Not Another Teen Solo Show
After a less than ideal youth-hood, a spunky Indian girl in Indiana turns to the popular teen movies of the time for guidance on how to master high school. Because real life is totally just like the movies... right?!
Official production websiteShow details/ticketing at FringeNYC
Review by Charles C Bales · August 13, 2013
Spoofing the title of the 2001 movie that in turn spoofed the teen rom-coms churned out in the late 1990s, Not Another Teen Solo Show was created by and stars the charming and energetic Rati Gupta.
Now playing at the Sgouros Theater in the West Village as part of FringeNYC 2013, Gupta’s autobiographical piece cleverly relays her melodramatic and trauma-filled high school years through the clichés and archetypes of the aforementioned teen movie deluge.
As a first generation child of Indian parents, Rati struggles to fit in to her mostly white private Catholic school in suburban Indiana. Taking films such as Varsity Blues and Can’t Hardly Wait as gospel, she hatches a scheme to become a cheerleader, slut, and bitch — all traits found in the most popular girls of her favorite movies.
But where Rati sees herself as the beloved Cher from Clueless, her classmates view her more like the ridiculed Josie Grossie from Never Been Kissed. Nonetheless, she succeeds in usurping the drugged out head cheerleader’s position of power with her awesome Janet Jackson dance moves and ecstatically finds herself moving up the social ladder.
Born from Ms. Gupta re-reading her horrifyingly naïve high school journals in which she posits herself as the Pygmalion-esque Laney Boggs from She’s All That as played by Rachael Leigh Cook, Not Another Teen Solo Show runs a little less than an hour. The star, also the co-creator of How to Grow the F*** Up, a podcast for adolescent adults, powers through the 55-minute piece with whimsical bits about flirting via America Online instant messaging, awkward first kisses, hanging out with the local bad boy to get a reputation, and other teenage flotsam and jetsam.
NATSS also incorporates some deliciously spot on filmed interludes during Gupta’s costume changes that are intentionally reminiscent of the caustic cheerleader tryouts from Bring It On and the titillating girl-on-girl kiss from Cruel Intentions, among others. (And kudos to John Wynn and Kurt Anderson of Punching Bees Productions for these high quality — and hilarious — mini-movies.)
Of course, after achieving her goal of popularity, Rati’s perch atop the high school hierarchy is subsequently taken away from her. All she ever really wanted was an über-romantic moment at the high school prom with a gorgeous boyfriend like Andrew Keegan’s Joey Donner from 10 Things I Hate About You slow dancing to Sixpence None the Richer’s “Kiss Me” from her totally fave flick, She’s All That.
Nothing stands in the way of a happy ending in Hollywood. But alas, real life isn’t Hollywood. And although NATSS lacks a happy ending for the teenaged Rati, the grown up Gupta earns her own with a terrifically entertaining solo show.
Preview: Interviews with Artists from Not Another Teen Solo Show
We're asking artists from each show to answer questions about themselves and their work to help our readers get a detailed advance picture of the festival:
Theater Beats Movies · Rati Gupta (Writer)
- Why is this a play (as opposed to a TV script, webseries, film, etc.?)
The show is about the disparity between the realities of life and the expectations we form based on what we see as "real life" in TV/Film. If we had turned this production into a TV series or film, with more actors posing as "real people" and more kooky situations plotted as "typical"... the message would've contradicted itself. And things would've gotten all meta and stuff and I didn't want to confuse anyone. A real person, on a stage, talking to more real people. That's great. - Which cartoon character would most like this show – Bugs Bunny, Marge Simpson, Charlie Brown, or Casper the Friendly Ghost?
Charlie Brown. He's insecure and misunderstood, just like everyone else in high school. - How have you been surprised by the audience response to any of your plays?
To be honest, I haven't been THAT surprised… I designed this show to be funny and relatable, for people to walk away thinking about how stupidly funny those movies were, and how sucky high school was, and that's basically what the reaction has been. I will say that I had an audience member I didn't know tell me that he had gone to the same high school as me, which was crazy! I also got asked out on a date once after the show… that was unexpected. - Are there filmic elements in this play (e.g., video, projections, montages, quick fades, etc.)?
Oh, fo'sho! It's a show about how teen movies screwed us up as teenagers, so we HAD to thrown in our own versions of those movies. We have 5 video parodies of our favorite 90's high school movies that play at various times throughout the production. - Why should audiences see live theater instead of just watching videos on the internet?
Look, the internet is awesome! You can watch stuff for hours in your pajamas without having to move a single toe. But with live theater... there's an excitement, an energy, an air of unpredictability that you just can't get from recorded media. With TV/video, your mind is switched to Receive. You take in what you are seeing and that's it. When you watch live theater, you're interacting, maybe not physically, but there is a give and take happening. The audience affects the performance and the performance affects the audience, and that truly awesome experience is something you simply can't get from an internet video.
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