Pittsburgh Fringe 2026
GULP!
Prith Khalsa
Genre: Absurd Theatre, Clown, Comedic, Comedy, Contemporary
Venue: Mr. Roboto Project
Festival: Pittsburgh Fringe
Low Down
GULP! is an absurd physical comedy where an ordinary morning spirals into a full lifetime love story between Henry and his breakfast. Blending element of clowning, sketch, movement and sound, GULP! explores broad comedic grounds and new territories.
Prith Khalsa, the solo performer, is an absurdist comedian, clown, and improviser currently residing in Colorado, USA. He has created and performed ensemble and individual work in various theaters across the US. GULP! is his solo debut. His style is informed by years of living in campgrounds entertaining people with his body around campfires. His only goal is giving you a night you will remember forever.
This show was directed by Todd Sullivan. Todd is a writer, director, actor, improviser and clown based out of Denver, CO. He has devised, directed and performed pieces for the Today Show (NBC), La Mama ETC (NYC), The Hammer Museum (LA), Second City, UCB and for the SF, NY, and Denver Fringe Festivals. He directed the landmark 278th Tiny Desk Concert in which the desk moved across town! Todd’s been a coach and teaching artist for Rise Comedy, Rogue Improv, and WGIS. He currently teaches, coaches and performs regularly at Chaos Bloom Theater in Denver. Todd was a Directing Fellow at the American Film Institute and once won a cash award for Elocution.
Review
For the past so many years as a comedy performance academic, I have often struggled to find performances that are so effective in their intention that they can pull me away from my personal technical assessment. Let me be the first to say, GULP! has the ability to not pull but rather rip a person away from any business that may be occupying their mind. As the show starts with a morning alarm, ushering our hero Henry to the stage, the audience is immediately buckled up and along for the rollercoaster ride that is the ups and downs of a budding and long-lasting love story, a tale as old as time: one man and one banana. Just like any relationship, the meet-cute is only the beginning. The audience witnesses Henry and the banana’s journey from lovers to spouses to parents and beyond. When audience members are not laughing at the next vignette of the lovers’ story, they are often encouraged to take active parts in the story itself. Some rubbed feet, others lent sage advice, and I am proud to say I caught the bouquet.
The concept is absurdist, but that is merely the sign of the strength of the craftsmanship of the show. This is a clown show, after all! For an audience, a clown show should consist of simple characters that are equally as dynamically entertaining as they are real enough that the audience can buy into their absurdity. For an adjudicator, a clown show should have a constantly evolving central concept in which the performer has room in time and space to blur the lines between performance and audience inclusion. GULP! showcases how Prith Khalsa is truly a master of his craft. He accomplishes all of these aforementioned goals and more through an expertly polished clown performance, confident and expressive through every jump, spin, fall, and crash. The show is peppered with line and gesture motifs that recur in often reinvented ways, keeping the audience on their toes while laughing along to the patterns (the intended effects for such dramatic choices). Khalsa is a performer with which the audience is able to quickly reach a point of comfortability, and through feeding on their encouragement and positive reactions, Khalsa is electrified in return. When staging and props did not go according to plan, the lines between Khalsa and character “Henry” were blurred, but since so much of Khalsa’s passion and personal expression shines through his performance, the audience remained unphased and, if anything, touched by the humanity that is behind live performance.
GULP! is a show that welcomes audience members, meeting them where they are at in the work of experimental and immersive theatre. I was incredibly lucky to see this show on a night with such a fervent and full house, with many who filled the first couple rows eager to be a part of the action. That being said, due to the craftsmanship of this script, coupled with the physical performance and artistic direction of the show, I can easily believe this piece would still be a success under different circumstances. I genuinely hope this is not the last I hear of GULP! on the road, nor this is the last performance of Khalsa’s I have the good grace to experience. Thanks to shows like this, the greater public has the opportunity to see what many of us stuffy comedy academics have been saying for years: the art of clowning is alive and it’s so much more than what you think.
