Yep, FringeCENTRAL is standing amid the ruins of that bank branch on Fifth Avenue and East Eighth Street. Every year since 2004, your subservient Personal Shopper is cutely fitting the headline to our FringeCENTRAL location. Yes, we will keep your rate of interest high. Your Personal Shopper provides entertainment, discussion, titillation and even that feeling of rage that makes you want to smack someone. You wouldn’t, though. This is New York theater and it is too darn hot. So sit back, relax and let me lead you through a sample of our checking and savings plans as well as the silliest statistics that immortalize the inane.

And what will this year bring? Among the usual freaks and geeks shows, we can spot some trends that reflect where the country and its creative juices are at this moment. What are the political shows about? What celebrities will be dragged through the mud this time around? How many Shakespearean remakes do we offer and how smartass-y will they get? Step right up to teller No. 1.

So let’s start in the gutter. For the sooner we start, the sooner we can take our heads out of it. Only two shows–Shh! (“constitutionally questionable!”) and Mobius (“beneath lies a secret!”)–feature the nudity "warning" this year, which is a relatively a low count. On the other hand, a high number of shows describe their content as sex-related. For these shows, the creators used “sex," “sexy,” “sexual,”and/or “sexuality” in their description. Staycation-wise though, only one show labeled itself as the “Lingerie and DVD” store: SHINE: A Burlesque Musical. The creators only used the “sex” word once in their description. (Don’t they know what sells?)

Opposite Marriage!

This year, we finally give voice to the silent majority in Heterosexuals (“how much we just want to f*ck!”) and a mere 95 percent of all other shows. Homosexuals, the other white meat, are noted in main or supporting roles in 46 shows (we are getting used to it!) Some notables: Veritas (Harvard homosexuality!), The Twentieth-Century Way (“public restrooms in 1914”), Dear Harvey (activists!), Miss Magnolia Beaumont Goes to Provincetown (Southern debutante!), open heart (thoughts on monogamy!) and BUNKED! A New Musical (sponsored by Logo!) Also in the brotherly love vein: Friends of Dorothy: An Oz Cabaret (Pasties and glitter and drag? Oh my!) and Over and Over (negotiate sexual history!)