Queen Mab's Alarmingly Mandatory Bridal Shower

“Queen Mab’s Alarmingly Mandatory Bridal Shower”
was presented at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in June of 2023

featuring
Elise Dewsberry as Queen Mab

The above video is from the live-streamed performance on June 20, 2023. Turn your speakers up, the sound isn’t great!

MORE FABULOUS REVIEWS FOR QUEEN MAB

“The Hollywood Fringe is a platform for the most magical, quirky and unique theatre. It’s built for it in fact. Short shows, black box spaces, big crowds hopping from one performance to another, high on the event itself and eager to be wowed, or shocked or most importantly, to be entertained.

Queen Mab’s Alarmingly Mandatory Bridal Shower is absolutely the kind of show one would expect to see at Fringe. A funny, slightly weird, mesmerizing and gorgeously performed musical about Queen Mab and her yearning to be wed. The intoxicating Elise Dewberry, (artistic director of New Musicals Inc.) and her fabulous voice star in this hilarious story about the mythological creature, Queen Mab, queen of the fairies. Mischievous and mostly benevolent, she is the dream-bringer to men and the wife of fairy king Oberon. Here we meet her pre-marriage, of course, and hell bent on a union with a suitor.

The audience has been summoned under pain of death to attend her and we are held captive as she sings her way through a truly brilliant performance. Having literally just flown in that day from England, the land of the fairies, although not by the use of my own wings, I was perhaps primed for enchantment. But I was hardly the only one in the theatre as entranced. The show is produced by the phenomenal New Musicals Inc. whose members have been producing musical theatre for over 40 years. Not too shoddy! I knew this before the show, but I was still thoroughly impressed by this wonderful show.

I do love musical theatre…but it’s sometimes not as good as I wish it would be. However, Queen Mab’s Alarmingly Mandatory Bridal Shower fully delivers. Inventive, funny, beautifully arranged and brilliantly performed. I highly recommend it! Come for a visit with the delightfully charming and utterly terrifying Queen Mab and her wickedly fun agenda!”

~~Samantha Simmonds-Ronceros, NoHo Arts District Theatre Reviewer

“WHAT A MOTHER FUCKING DELIGHT. I absolutely loved this show. I literally laughed until I cried and my face hurt… many times. And then? I got a little sad and really felt for the character by the end. I would pay this performer to hurl Shakespearean insults at me for ANOTHER hour. And it can’t be denied the SKILL involved because this text is DENSE and the music AIN’T easy. And I just have to say it… Queen Mab is giving me a TINY hint of Bette Midler in “Hocus Pocus”? Which made me love it MORE before she even got through the first musical number. Canned accompaniment can sometimes be tricky but this one was so perfectly calibrated to the show and the performance that it was almost another character in and of itself. Go see this show. It will absolutely make your day better.”

~~CJ Merriman

“Elise Dewsberry always brings the chops and this outing was no different. Top tier comedy timing and genuinely genius character development are on full display here. The difficult music and grandiloquent script exemplify what NMI does best and Dewsberry seemingly performs it all with ease. Although Queen Mab may not be graceful (sorry your highness), she is performed elegantly and flawlessly leading to a final act that actually made me tear up. A splendidly simple premise. A cute and well utilized set. More laughter than I was prepared for. This my friends…. Is why we Fringe. I would LOVE to see this with a full band outside of a Fringe situation, though that’s not a complaint. The recorded tracks actually added to the idea of Mab’s delusion and it totally worked. A perfectly constructed, hour long musical comedy. Elise Dewsberry, dramaturg and new musical development extrordinaire, proves why she is such a massive staple of the LA theatre community. A phenomenally fun piece with great music to boot.”

~~J. Bailey Burcham

“A comical front row seat at the latest engagement party of Queen Mab, the most narcissistically driven ruler of any fairy kingdom. You’ve heard of a bridesmaid, and never a bride… Mab hasn’t even made it to bridesmaid…and this her her 29th engagement party. The music is playful and fun and very middle earth and Elise Dewsberry, an amazing actress and singer, has Queen Mab dialed in perfectly which makes for a very fun-filled farce. Don’t miss Queen Mab.”

~~Paul Elliott

“Elise Dewsberry is a dynamo of an actor/singer, 100% engaging from beginning to end. Nothing doesn’t work. The soundtrack is appropriately cheesy in quality and a nice sendup of operetta. Wonderful silliness with a gentle dollop of pathos.”

~~Anonymous

“The sharpness and rapid-fire wit of Scott Guy’s writing is only matched by Elise Dewsberry’s wry and unrelenting bullseye performance. I was expecting to laugh, but I was given far more occasion to than even I expected. What a well-spent hour at the Fringe. Someone please start a GoFundMe for Queen Mab’s dental work. How all these jokes landed on the other side of those chompers… it’s a master class in diction, s’what it is. So much fun, all hail the Queen!”

~~Ryland Shelton

“The character-based humor and clever turns of lyrical phrase during the songs. The amusing subtext about Mab’s history of suitors. I appreciated that the piece, despite its relentless goofy fun, delivered a message about the dangers of the un-examined life. Charmingly eccentric, larger-than-life yet ultimately addressing real human foibles. Delivered with chuckle-inducing grandiosity and delightfully expressive personality by Elise Dewsberry. (It’s always fun when seeing someone you know onstage and having the performance be so thorough that you forget that you know them, and only perceive the character .)”

~~Michael Gordon Shapiro

“The amazing linguistic twists inherent to the script made every line a delight, and Elise brought each moment to life. I was so thoroughly charmed by all the specificity in the language, and the easy slips between a higher and lower class set of dialects. Truly great stuff. A delightful hour of musical theatre headed by the incomparable Elise Dewsberry – she rules the stage as Queen Mab.”

~~Casey Alcoser

“Elise Dewsberry rocked this! First of all her voice is fabulous. And she was hilarious! Props to Scott, the show is so Gilbert and Sullivan, so clever and funny and Elise brought it to life. And such a great shift to sadness at the end. I loved it! One person shows are no easy feat. MAD ABOUT MAB, so clever and well done!”

~~Lelia Symington

“The musical material did NOT sound easy and though I knew Elise was a strong vocalist, her vocal agility was truly on display in this show. It was such a delight to see her both put us in our place and merrily unleash her inner child. I’ve been looking forward to witnessing Elise Dewsberry take the stage as the alarmingly maladjusted Mab, and she surpassed my imaginings—I was impressed and amused by the queen’s mad musings, and I can certainly say that no other solo show host has been quite so… domineering with their audiences. 😅 Queen Mab knows what she wants!”

~~Socks Whitmore

“I like the use of language. Scott Guy’s script and lyrics are a deep dive into the fun, obscure and poetical parts of English prose. I loved the fantasy of the show and the fantasyland of the characters. Elise Dewsberry’s performance was delightful and solid. She clearly has the chops to pull of the difficult musical material and handles the story and emotional turns easily. Very fun. I feel that it was a fantastic piece and very high performance and writing quality. Everyone should go see it. A delightful, fun and entertaining night.”

~~Mike Robinson

“Queen Mab was hilarious! And, boy oh boy did, she show off her amazing pipes, oh and her wedding dress?! Leaves any of us wishing for a such a day jealous. I simply do not want to give away anything here but sincerely had the entire audience laughing from the very top of the show. I would like to see Queen Mab in therapy so we can get an actual wedding out of her! How fabulous would THAT be?! It was an honor to meet the Fairy Queen who’s been engaged more times than ME! But damn if she didn’t pull on the heartstrings after she thoroughly made you laugh.”

~~Carrie Lynn Certa

“The precision of the over-the-top language and how deeply Queen Mab has tumbled wildly into her own wedding planning. The crystalline singing of completely hilarious lyrics. Elise has drunk every drop of the Queen’s Kool-Aid. A sheer delightful bit of madness in pink. Elise is a brilliant performer. A true joy to behold. So much fun.”

~~Steve Cuden

“The script’s self-aware humor and campy nature allowed Dewsberry’s character to shine in her over-the-top antics, which I found particularly entertaining. The extravagant set design and costumes added to the production’s unique charm. Be prepared for a truly unconventional theatrical experience — in the best way possible! A rollercoaster of cringe comedy, blending whimsy with the macabre to create a fascinating, if tragic, portrait of a narcissistic fairy queen. Elise Dewsberry’s STELLAR performance as the eccentric Queen Mab brought an infectious energy that elevated the material.”

~~Thomas Blakeley

“Elise Dewsberry is a tour-de-force adroitly mining the carnival-ride persona of Queen Mab in all her mercurial, self-perceived glory. Scott Guy’s book and lyrics are a perfect marriage with Dewsberry’s considerable talents. Guy’s use of composer Jacques Offenbach’s romantic compositions are clever and feel organic to supporting the story. This little gem is not to be overlooked. The engaging grandiosity of this piece begs for and deserves a larger venue with production values to lift up the experience for all. A wonderful synergy between performer and material.”

~~Joel Bailey

“Queen Mab’s Alarmingly Mandatory Bridal Shower”
was originally presented as the first half of
Spellcasters: two one-act musicals for solo performer

first presented at
The Secret Rose Theatre
Los Angeles
October, 2007

THE ROYAL HAILING

In which Her Majesty, Queen Mab, Ruler of All the Fairies, welcomes the audience to her Bridal Shower, demanding murmurs of adoration from all the members of her fairy court.

““Didn’t I say on the invitations ‘no presents necessary’?  Didn’t I?'”

HE SAID YES

In which Queen Mab celebrates her recent marriage proposal..

““You wouldn’t have me getting married in
white burlap, now would you?”“

I SHALL BE BEAUTIFUL

In which Queen Mab gussies up, and models her wedding gown…

“La la la la la ..Yes – I shall be beautiful!”

““And number Twenty with that freak lightning frizzled him dead on the spot, they told me.”

IPSE DIXIT, DAMA FORTUNA

In which Queen Mab warns Dame Fortune to stay away from Number Twenty Nine…

““Presents! Oh, for me? You shouldn’t have.”

“A husk of corn?”

“Get thee behind me, prezzie. Pfaugh!”

THE GIFT HE GAVE TO ME

In which Queen Mab discovers a gift from her own Betrothed, but decides to put aside the pleasure of opening it until later.

“A glob of uncooked dough. Well, dignity be damed!”

CROSS THE QUEEN

In which Queen Mab casts a spell on her ungrateful ex-fiancees.

“He’s not the ripest berry on the bush, you know? Not the firmest mushroom in the basket.”

IF HE WILL SIT WITH ME

In which Queen Mab forgives her fiancee for having only one ear.

“My dear beloved … I’ve run away.”

FOLD THINE ARMS

In which Queen Mab bids farewell to her dream of being a bride…

“Why, you’d always feel inadequate … next to such beauty, such regal presence.”

“I do believe Queen Mab will be happy after all, give or take the better part of twenty years.”

I SHALL BE BEAUTIFUL REPRISE

In which Queen Mab contemplates a happy future.