The Total Veronica Experience
Written and performed by Veronica Manning; Directed by Sandrine Dupiton
Presented by the New York City Fringe Festival
Sat April 4 at 7pm, Mon April 6 at 9:50pm, Sat April 11 at 10:20pm, Wed April 15 at 6:30pm & Fri April 17 at 8:10pm
I rarely start a review at the end of a performance, but Veronica Manning closes with “Home” from The Wiz, and it feels right to begin there. “When I think of home, I think of a resting place… a place where there’s peace, quiet, and serenity.” It is both elegy and invitation.
My friend and I rush into The Rat with a minute to spare. As we settle into our seats, Veronica lies still. Above her, the words “Welcome to Processing” are projected, a loaded phrase. Is she processing thoughts, feelings, actions? Is she in a holding center? A waiting room for something greater? Whatever the answer, the moment is intimate, and I am intrigued..
The Total Veronica Experience unfolds as a memory play, a spiritual check-in, and a late-night confessional. Unlike most solo shows, Veronica is not alone. A second voice, Ohene Cornelius, threads through the performance as conscience, guardian angel, or higher power. It recalls the Wizard’s presence in The Wiz, gently nudging Dorothy toward a truth she already holds, the power to go home.
The framing device is bold. Veronica chokes on bacon and dies, or nearly does, and what follows is a retrospective of a life interrupted. It is an absurd and sobering entry point that forces us to confront just how thin the line is between continuation and conclusion. From there, the piece sprawls into lived experience, childhood abuse, a mother’s cutting words, a father’s violations, and the deep imprint of growing up unseen.
Yet this is not a piece that dwells only in shadow. Manning brings levity with precision. A sharp stand-up segment on veganism skewers performative identity in the social media age. A karaoke rendition of Proud Mary becomes an act of reclamation. Then comes a famous dance break to Janet Jackson’s If. If you know, you know. The audience erupts. You can feel the shared muscle memory of growing up glued to music videos, rehearsing greatness in bedroom mirrors.
This interplay, between pain and play, rupture and release, is where the piece truly shines.
What makes the work especially compelling is its transparency as a piece in progress. Short-play festivals can function as laboratories, and this feels like a vivid experiment whose structure mostly holds. The dual-voice device is intriguing, though at times it competes with Manning’s own presence. There are moments when you long to hear her unmediated voice, just her, center stage, telling her story without accompaniment.
Because when she is simply there, fully herself, the piece soars.
In just fifty minutes, we travel with Veronica through grief, humor, memory, and possibility, and we want more. More depth. More breath. More space for her to expand into her own narrative.
What lingers, finally, is hope. Not abstract, but embodied. Found in her children, in her art, and in the act of standing up and saying this happened, and I am still here.
The Total Veronica Experience is exactly what its title promises. Not polished. Not finished. But vividly, courageously alive, and that aliveness is its greatest strength.
Click HERE for tickets.
Review by Malini Singh McDonald.
Published by Theatre Beyond Broadway on April 13, 2026. All rights reserved.
