by Martin Dockery & Joey Rinaldi

It is Rogue Festival time again! This year’s festival takes place from February 28-March 8 in the Tower District of Fresno, CA. Over the next 2 weeks, KRL will be publishing several Rogue Festival Performer Preview articles starting with these 2, as well as an article about Rogue itself. During the festival we will be publishing reviews of several of the shows. You will be able to find all of our coverage in our Rogue Festival category, and more info including some performer press releases on our Rogue Festival event page over on KRL News and Reviews. You can purchase tickets on the Rogue website.

Rogue Show Preview: 1 Small Lie
By Martin Dockery

After more than fifteen years of touring stories to theaters and festivals across North America and beyond, I’m debuting a brand new story at this year’s Rogue Festival. 1 Small Lie is an escapist, nail-biting thriller about a family man who stumbles onto a crime in progress, and who then impulsively steals from the thieves. With no plan or forethought, he’s forced to improvise his way through an ever-mounting series of lies that threaten to destroy both his family and his very life. Told in an autobiographical style, this is a story of greed, deception, infidelity, and the dark underbelly of an otherwise “good” person’s soul.

The show will be performed in the living room of one of the oldest and most beautiful houses in the Tower. So, it’s going to be up close and intimate! There will also be an underscoring soundtrack and an ever changing lightscape, all of which I’ll be controlling as I’m telling the story. So, it’s going to be quite the technical challenge, as well as an immersive, thrilling narrative experience. I haven’t attempted anything quite so complicated before, and I’m excited for the challenge.

My idea in making this show has been to create something that would have the feel of a pulpy summer read. A page-turner you can’t put down. I started thinking about the story during Covid lockdown when I was living out in Montauk in New York for 15 months with my wife and small child. At the far eastern tip of Long Island it can feel like the end of the world. (In fact, you can find any number of t-shirts and hats out there emblazoned with the words “The End.”)

I began to wonder what might happen if one stumbled upon a large bag of money, exposed during the commission of a crime with no witnesses. Surely, we’ve all wondered what we’d do if fate and fortune decided to put our sense of right and wrong to the test. If you take the bag can you trust your best intentions to return it to its rightful owners? What lies will you have to tell the world––and yourself––in order to keep it? What if it turns out you’re not one of the good guys?

I’ve actually lost count of how many shows I’ve performed at Rogue, but I’ve been coming from NYC, off and on, since 2010. Needless to say, I love it. The audiences are adventurous, welcoming, and curious. Last year, I debuted a show called TRUTH, and it was the perfect place for it to be born. I then went on to tour it for the rest of the summer of 2024. Similarly, I’ll be bringing 1 Small Lie to festivals in Orlando, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, and Edmonton this summer. But it all starts right here in Fresno. I hope you’ll be there with us, too.

For more, please visit MartinDockery.com.

1 Small Lie
Created & Performed by Martin Dockery

Venue & Time:
The Levy Historic Family Home
666 E. Home Ave, Fresno
Sat, March 1 @ 8:00 p.m.
Sun, March 2 @ 7:00 p.m.
Thu, March 6 @ 7:30 p.m.
Fri, March 7 @ 8:00 p.m.
Sat, March 8 @ 8:00 p.m.
Link to buy $15 tix: martin-dockery.ticketleap.com/1-small-lie

Idiot Abroad
By Joey Rinaldi

The first time I came to Fresno, I felt like a foreigner. Which is funny, because it’s the most American place I’ve ever been. Maybe it was the giant cowboy hats. Maybe it was the fact that people actually make eye contact and say hello to strangers. Or maybe it was because I had spent most of my life in New York City, where if you make eye contact with a stranger, you’re either about to get scammed or stabbed.

But something happened that first time I performed at the Rogue Festival—I fell in love with this city. I wasn’t just some comic passing through. I felt welcomed. I felt like the audience actually cared about my stories in a way I hadn’t experienced before. So when I left, I made a promise to myself: every time I have a new solo show, Fresno is where it’s going to debut.

Which brings me to Idiot Abroad.

This show is the most different, most personal, and maybe the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done. For years, I’ve built my career on telling long, sprawling, deeply personal stories—stories that took years, sometimes decades, for me to process. But for the first time, I’m bringing stories that are barely two years old to the stage. I’m not reminiscing about some distant version of myself. I’m still living with the consequences of these stories every day.

Idiot Abroad is about how my ridiculous, rom-com-fueled fantasies of love and adventure led me into absolute disaster. It’s about having my heart broken at a German sex club, getting robbed by the cartel in Mexico, and being so far out of my depth in foreign countries that I nearly died multiple times. But it’s also about learning the hard way that traveling doesn’t magically make you a better person—it just gives you more opportunities to make an idiot of yourself.

And unlike my past shows, this one isn’t just storytelling. This time, I’m relying on stand-up mechanics to shape my stories, blending the sharp, fast pacing of traditional comedy with the raw honesty of my long-form narratives. It’s a shift in my style, and honestly, it might be the best work I’ve ever done.

So I knew there was only one place to debut it.

Fresno has been my artistic home away from home. This city embraced my weird, rambling storytelling before anyone else did. And now, I get to bring them something new. Something fresh. Something that might actually still hurt a little.

But mostly, I just want to make people laugh. Because if I’ve learned anything from traveling the world and making a fool of myself, it’s that no matter where you go, no matter how lost you are, laughter is the one thing that always feels like home.

Idiot Abroad
WHEN:
8:30 p.m. Friday February 28th
5:00 p.m. Saturday March 1st
9:30 p.m. Saturday March 1st
2:00 p.m. Sunday March 2nd
6:30 p.m. Sunday March 2nd
WHERE: Hart’s Haven – 950 N Van Ness Ave, Fresno, CA 93728
HOW MUCH: 10 Dollars All tickets
RUNNING TIME: 50 minutes
TICKETS: fresnoroguefestival.org/performance/idiot-abroad-comedy-show/2025-02-28

If you love theatre, be sure to check out Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast, which features mysteries read by local actors. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, and also on podbean.

Check out more theatre reviews & other local entertainment articles in our Arts & Entertainment section. You can also find more theatre coming up on KRL’s Local Theatre event page.