Photo By James Czar / JAMESCZAR.com

(L-R) Matt Slaybaugh, Kelly Wehrer and Liz Fitts in A/ ThePostModernLoveStory

The second annual Fringe Festival is underway, and early reports -- both in interest and execution -- are excellent.

"Attendance is better than last year," says Jason Bruffy, the festival's producing director. "The overall quality of the productions has stepped up. Audience reaction has been great."

Reaction from CityBeat's crew of critics has been just as positive. The review excerpts below (full-length versions of these and others can be found at citybeat.com/fringe) represent the best of what we've seen to date, most of which still have scheduled performances.

Fringe organizers have also announced the "Pick of Fringe" winners, as selected by critics, festival producers and audiences. The three winners offer special performances Sunday at the Contemporary Arts Center.

So, if you haven't already, get off your ass and enjoy one of our city's creative high points.

· BlueForms Theatre Group's show is true to its title. A/THEPOSTMODERN- LOVESTORY is commonplace and universal, contemporary and traditional. It's about the ways we experience love. Directed by Matt Slaybaugh, the collaborative piece pulls from When Harry Met Sally and Plato, almost within the same breath. It features a tight ensemble of actors with no weak links, and no actor is selfish enough to grab too much focus. (Elizabeth Cobbe) * 'PICK OF THE FRINGE' WINNER

· Deborah Kennedy's BAD WOMEN is a snippet of a much more complex story: An imprisoned woman (Kristin Clippard) taunts a journalist (Burgess Byrd) by sidestepping the real story behind her imprisonment. Accused of sexually abusing children under her watch at a daycare center, she's struggling to understand what happened to land her in prison while the journalist struggles to uncover the same thing. (Julie Bernzott)

· The eye-widening one-woman performance given by writer/actor Amy Salloway makes DOES THIS MONOLOGUE MAKE ME LOOK FAT? a must-see. In the somber finale, she stands on a nearly empty stage and quite powerfully and wonderfully bares her soul. It's a moment when you realize that this brand of stripped-down fringe theater is so needed. Her script is endlessly clever and accessible -- a true feat considering it could have been just an hour of "woman of substance" jokes and rants. Instead, it boils Salloway's life down into thoughts, emotions and impulses that are universal, relevant and poignant. (Rodger Pille) * 'PICK OF THE FRINGE' WINNER

· Adam Wagner's DON'T LOOK DOWN feels like a New York-ready cabaret. The songs are well-constructed, unabashedly catchy and at times quite meaningful. Wagner, a CCM graduating senior, seems influenced by modern musical composers, but he also makes each song feel fresh and musically inventive. Its four performers are as much showing off Wagner's music as they are the fine training they're getting at CCM. (RP)

· Mark Flanigan is a born storyteller. His readings come off with the sheer delight in words and in the quirky sort of life they're capable of expressing. His casual manner of delivery belies a real craft with the composition of a line and of a story. The small audience sat in thrall of this self-effacing individual's ability to draw us into his world. With a total of five completely different performances, DYING TO TELL should attract theatergoers who are looking for something genuine and unique. (Mark Sterner)

· Anna Marie Agniel arrives on stage bouncy with adrenaline, ready to start her show, SLOW CHILDREN PLAYING. She will slow down to become her sister Mary Kate, but first she tells us about "slow." Slow as dictionary-defined, slow as a concept, slow as exemplified by certain humans whose chromosome makeup gives them their own particular speed, generally classified as not swift. She then proceeds, as Mary Kate, to undermine the dictionary's easy assumptions. In the purest theater of this one-person performance, Agniel takes us along with Mary Kate as some unknown and un-diagnosable mental illness moves her even further from the world most of us experience. (Jane Durrell) * 'PICK OF THE FRINGE' WINNER

· TECTONICS is Moving Art Dance Company's last performance of its inaugural season. The title is fitting, as the performance evokes images of the earth shifting but not in a rigid sense. The "movers" (Colleen McCarty, Holly Price, Julie Mullins and Britt Hillard) show off their undeniable physical strength by literally stacking up on top of one another, holding yoga poses and breathing audibly, but not without grace. Movements flow into one another and shift with the music (also performed onstage) by Matthew Anderson, Lou Larson and Jason Mintern. Fluid images come courtesy of Roesing Ape, who adjusts his video to sometimes slide off the screen. (Jessica Turner)

· Don't stay away from WOYZECKED AND LEFT FOR DEAD just because you haven't seen or read Georg Buchner's Woyzeck, the baffling source material for this creative adaptation. The Fringe production is an intense, superbly acted exploration of what it means to return home from a modern war. Brian Robertson's direction is understated, and its three actors can carry it. This isn't a style of theater that tells you what happens step by step -- it's an onstage demonstration of the failure on all sides to come to terms with the violence that surrounds war. (EC)

CINCINNATI FRINGE FESTIVAL continues through Sunday. Click here for details on Pick of the Fringe performances (link to http://www.cincyfringe.com/shows-pickofthefringe.html). Click here for a review of Visual Fringe.