Having well-established himself at the Montreal Fringe with “Help, I’m American” in 2017 and the Frankie-Nominated “Becoming Magic Mike” in 2018, multi-talented American actor, writer, comedian and singer/songwriter DK Reinemer returns for his third consecutive year to the St-Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival with his new show, “The DK Effect”.
For the same performer to be selected to perform at the Montreal Fringe Festival three years in a row—it’s not only about talent. An act would either have to be one that wins the coveted Frankie Award for Spirit of the Fringe–which receives an automatic spot in the following year’s Fringe, in addition to winning the Fringe lottery twice in the two other years, or be selected from the programming lottery three years in a row. DK Reinemer has accomplished this amazing feat, and could now be considered even as much as the American regular at the Montreal Fringe.
From his first show, “Help, I’m American!” to his hilarious, gut-busting one-man bumbling buddy-cop comedy “Becoming Magic Mike” which became a crowd-favourite of the 2018 Montreal Fringe, DK Reimener explores several new approaches to comedy in his newest show, “The DK Effect”. Having only been performed previously at Orlando Fringe in May-June 2019, DK tries and succeeds at many new formats of comedy in this new show, ironically based on the Dunning-Kruger effect.
The DK Effect in reality, is a cognitive bias in which relatively unskilled persons suffer illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than it really is. In this one-man show production, DK Reimener also seems to play at least ten characters, each with a distinct personality, style of humour as well as different costumes and props–all considering themselves to be more-or-less, a professional in their skill, while demonstrating those skills to the audience often proves hilariously otherwise.
Although the DK Effect is when unskilled persons suffer illusory superiority, DK Reinemer’s ability as a comedian, writer and entertainer are indeed among the top professional comedians performing at this year’s Montreal Fringe Festival. Audiences are treated to a thoroughly entertaining, fast-paced show in The DK Effect, which is playing for a total of 6 performances in this year’s Montreal Fringe Festival. This show is certainly not one to be missed.
To find out more about his career as a solo performer, and his process for creating and working on “The DK Effect”, Curtains Up had the opportunity to have a post-show sit down with DK Reinemer.
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Curtains Up: In your own words, how would you describe the DK Effect in real life?
DK Reinemer: The DK effect is the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is a cognitive science that says that if you know a little bit about something, you will think that you’re way better at it than you actually are, because you don’t possess the correct answers to know what a correct answer actually is.
How did you come up with this show?
I kinda started digging around to find out more about what it was, how prominent it is now, that uttered confidence and arrogance and yeah, I started digging around and started taking that as a bit of the lens to find a bunch of different ways to do comedy I’ve been working on in the past and a format to put it all together, so the struggle was finding the container for working on all these types of comedy I wanted to work on!
Very interesting! Who would you say are your comedic influences?
In general? Steve Martin definitely was a big one. Some of those characters from my show, the guitar guy, one of the guitar guys I play in the show—I really like him, and made him very Steve Martin-esque. Other influences include Mitch Hedberg and doing short, drier jokes…. That’s what I love about this show, I’m able to explore a lot of those different kinds of styles and grow each stand up guy, exploring comedians’ styles like Dane Cook. I want to be able to try all these bits. There’s this sort of unsure guy who pitches ideas, who is more a writer who has funny ideas, but doesn’t know how to put them out there—I think that kind of guy is really funny too.
Why exactly did you choose those specific characters in your show? What was the process that led you to consider the characters you performed today?
They’re all different styles of comedy that I really like, and some of them are ones I feel I’m better at, and some are ones I would like to get better at. Having a failing magician or a failing magic numbers gag or a mentalist type of idea—I’m really poking fun at entertainment in general, across the board.
So the first show you did at the Montreal Fringe (“Help, I’m American!”) to now, how would you call it a progression to “The DK Effect”
I think I’ve definitely become more comfortable and seasoned as a performer. Pacing is a big thing, and very hard for a solo show. You really want to keep them entertained, but not overdo it, you need to give yourself rests in a performance. I don’t know, I’d say that! I feel like “Help, I’m an American”, I still love that show and it was more of a smorgasboard of sketches. For that, I thought “how could I write a sketch show as a bunch of people—like a sketch group, but it’s just one person”, so it was a bit of a s***show in a different way. This [show] has a similar energy to that, but I want to keep it a little more contained or focused, to have more of a theme as well.
You mentioned this a bit, but are there any other challenges of doing a solo show?
As I mentioned, pacing is definitely one. I mean, also coming up with everything yourself, fighting self-doubt is also a challenge. This show was really challenging as digging into the Dunning-Kruger is a lot about how we’re bad at knowing whether we’re good or bad at something, and so I had a lot of moments where I was like “geez, am I even good?”. It brought up a lot of interesting things—so just writing it was a challenge in itself. For me, writing it and then switching over to actor mode was definitely a challenge. Like, giving myself more time with a script as an actor. Admitting that a script is done, it’s written, and then giving myself a month to put it on its feet. This is as opposed to “I open next weekend in Orlando and I’m still tweaking things and gingerbreading it to death”. I feel like because I came from an improv background, that I sometimes rely a little too heavily on that, so it kinda shoots me in the foot at times where I had wished I had solidified a bit, instead of just doing improv to get myself through it.
How much of your show is actually improv?
It’s about 90% written. It’s all there, but obviously interactions with audience are all improvised. Other than that, most of it is written.
What would you say is your target audience for your writing and comedic style?
That’s a good question. I think comedy nerds. I’m a little worried that this show is a bit more niche than my previous shows, because there’s a bit of insider baseball, and a bit of drier sense of humor. I don’t know, I feel like I give everyone a variety in this show. I’d say anyone who likes comedy, definitely! You know, that older woman in the front, she was lovely and it’s great that she can love it, but also that young girl in the middle was also really laughing. I feel that it hits a lot of audiences from young adults upwards.
What’s your artistic process of creating a show?
Good question! For this one, I knew the theme and knew the subject matter, but I just started researching it and finding the story about MacArthur Wheeler and it’s just fascinating. From there, I explored how it would lead me to some sketches I might draw or some standup. I just start collecting things, from a sketch to a joke to a song or an idea, and I just start compiling and I guess at that point, I just start rearranging. I’m looking for patterns, through-lines or things that would work really together. From there, it’s just re-write, re-write, re-write until it… yeah, there’s actually 2 full sketch bits that I don’t do on this show just because I didn’t have enough time. I had to cut them from the show. It’s just a lot of re-writing!
Any future shows or works coming up? What’s the next project or goal in the pipeline?
Well, this show is really brand new for me, so I’m just going to hammer on this. I’m remounting my Magic Mike show in Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa, so I kinda need to shift gears to get back into that. For future projects, I definitely want to do more recorded film stuff, like taking a lot of the stuff I’ve done over the year, my three shows – to film them and put them on the screen, do a best-of compilation and see where it goes from there!
The DK Effect is playing at Petit Campus as part of the St-Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival, running until June 16th. For more information and tickets, check out www.montrealfringe.ca, or call 514-843-FEST (3378) Please note that this show is in an 18+ venue.
