Is poetry just for English majors? 'Nevermore' says no, that playgoers can tune into iambic verse just fine. Although writer/director Amy Pettinella plays the feminine role in this two-character piece, she gives the best lines to her co-actor, Russell McGee. No surprise: He's playing Edgar Allan Poe, no stranger to good lines.  

This gleeful hour of stage calamities conceived by Minneapolis-based partners Ryan Lear and Rachel Petrie could become the breakout hit of the 2010 Cincy Fringe. Cleverly constructed, sharply written and hilariously performed, it's a simultaneous celebration and lampoon of all that is sacred and silly in the histrionic realm.  

Based on a series of improvised rehearsals, the folks at Fake Bacon Productions have patched together a show that might be a little too loose to be taken seriously, while being too funny at times to dismiss entirely. It's a bit like every '70s disaster flick ('Earthquake,' 'Poseidon Adventure,' 'Towering Inferno') meets 'The Naked Gun.'  

CCM grad Casey Scott Leach offers a 45-minute set that combines a scripted stream of consciousness and rap. He rages, role-plays, reflects, observes, judges, moves offstage with an ax to chop at a log and flirts. He falls to the floor repeatedly, from which he sometimes awakes as if from a dream. Also onstage is Ben Leach, who drums and plays the banjo to accompany the poet's journey.  

Fringe veteran Andrew Hungerford's show, featuring him and Know Theatre regular Liz Vosmeier, is an engaging piece of storytelling, artfully delivered by two excellent actors. This piece of theater will stick with you because it's so human — not about "things" but about real people.  

Playwright Roger Collins takes a hard though hardly realistic look at Iraq war vets who come home to homelessness, social invisibility and civic neglect. At times it's realistically grounded, but more often it's fanciful and elliptical, sometimes even angularly poetic. Too little of that remains in focus or receives the kind of attention to detail it requires for effective presentation and deserves for its occasional insight.  

Combining black-and-white video interview segments of many diverse people responding to questions about dance with live-action spoken word, choreographed movement and some audience interaction, Pones Inc. raises questions about personal early memories of dance, what dance means culturally, why more people don't go see dance and in general why more people don't dance.  

Artemis Exchange offers a perfectly wonderful evening of a totally different sort here. It's deeply philosophic and not nearly as scatterbrained as it would like you to think. It's more deep-delving than over-reaching. And it's seriously funny — with laughter rumbling up from inside provocative reinterpretations of familiar parables and fables.  

A pack of gum, a can of grapefruit juice, a pair of baby booties hand-knitted by Granny — these are the modest spoils of Jimmy Hogg's one-man performance, one of four Cincy Fringe solo shows assigned to the small platform stage at Media Bridges. The unassuming title, no-frills setting and even the rumbling Race Street traffic all serve Hogg well.  

This year's Performance Gallery entry in the Fringe Fest, scripted by Brad Cupples and directed by Darryl Harris, chooses to stick to a more familiar format (the extended comedy sketch) than previous year's creative and passionate efforts. The bits that work here are usually the ones that are the most outlandish.