Nicole Burch, a fast-talking, wise-cracking, but attractive blonde wonders why she’s still single at the age of 33. Her quest to find a perfect prince obliges her to kiss a lot of frogs–“enough to ravage an entire koi pond.” Her comic misadventures with the opposite sex lie at the heart of The 7 Guys You Date Before You Get Married, now drawing laughs at the 2016 Hollywood Fringe Festival. Burch, an alumnus of The Groundlings Sunday Company, not only stars in the show but has written all seven of its sketches. 27 top-notch comic actors strut their stuff in these fast-moving sketches, directed by another Groundlings alum, Holly Mandel. Poking fun — especially from a woman’s point of view — at dating disasters is a sure-fire formula for success today, especially at Fringe festivals, which generally attract youthful audiences out for a communal and raucous good time. The 7 Guys delivers on that score, shooting a quiver-full of satirical arrows at the male animal, whether alpha or beta, when he tries to mate with the opposite sex. The games men play to get women into bed are ridiculed in the show, but Burch doesn’t hesitate to poke fun at herself and other females as well, as evidenced by the sketch about conjugal relations in which she reminds a pal that “monogamy makes your vagina taste better.”
