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Home > Arts > FRINGE FILE #16 – INTERVIEW: r. d. rhobajt and the <em>Shoes & Socks & Coats</em> Show

FRINGE FILE #16 – INTERVIEW: r. d. rhobajt and the Shoes & Socks & Coats Show

by Basil Considine -

The official show image for Socks & Shoes & Coats by rick rhobajt widen, one of 104 shows playing at the 2026 Minnesota Fringe Festival..

The Minnesota Fringe Festival has never shied away from life’s larger questions, but most shows don’t come with quite so many pediatric appointments, preschool anxieties, and conversations about poop. Most.

In Socks & Shoes & Coats, Twin Cities writer-composer r. d. rhobajt (Rick Rhobajt Widen) turns the bewildering first years of parenthood into an intimate new musical featuring eight original songs, live accompaniment, and the inspired theatrical device of “captioned violin baby-talk.”

What, exactly, does an infant sound like when translated by a violin? That is one of several questions waiting at the Barbara Barker Center for Dance, where Socks & Shoes & Coats plays during the 2026 Minnesota Fringe Festival.

Official Show Description
New parents navigate pregnancy & pediatricians & preschool & poop. Somewhere in the realm of classic musicals like “The Fantasticks” or “I Do! I Do!” Featuring 8 new songs & captioned violin baby-talk.

He spoke with the Arts Reader’s Basil Considine on his upcoming show.

Composer Rick Rhobajt Widen.

What are some of the things that you do as an artist?

I write musicals, this is my 10th! I also Instagram about buttons I make, and other stuff.

How did you first engage with the Minnesota Fringe Festival, and how has that changed over the years?

My last lottery ball win was 2017, where we did a larger cast production of this Armageddony song cycle thing. And then I did a few video offerings during the pandemic about refugees and climate change deniers.

I think maybe the Festival has changed over the years as it’s getting harder and harder to get a slot! Which is good of course, the more thespians the merrier in this town. But yeah, I did the math and for the lower tiers at least you had like a 12% chance to get a slot this year. So I’m taking my lottery win as a sign from the theatre gods I better make this one count!

“This Armageddony song cycle thing” – the 2017 Minnesota Fringe show Songs for a Post Apocalyptic World.

What’s a favorite piece of non-Fringe theater that you experienced in the last year, and why?

My favorite so far was my daughter playing Anna in Frozen, super cute as she played Young Anna a few years ago too, proud dad! She’s got that kind of engaging awkward delivery that’s just right for parts like that.

What is your role in bringing this show to the stage?

Writer and Producer.

A script extract.

What kinds of things will the audience experience at your show? What is its general aesthetic?

The main fun will be that the child character is invisible, but brought to life by a violinist using scordatura tuning baby/toddler-talk melodies with captions and actors miming him into existence. It’s a fable with frosting, kind of like The Fantasticks or Into the Woods or something.

What’s a favorite moment in this show, and why?

When the character of Partner finally lets go of their need to constantly be rushing Spouse from A to B, and just sits with them, in an A to A way, where it’s okay that they dwell with the pain pieces for a while, and how this new-found emotional safety helps Spouse finally stop clinging to their child so hard in what is perhaps an unhealthy way.

Widen (right) performing at the Dunsmore Jazz Room at Crooners Supper Club.

What are two other Fringe shows that you are interested in seeing, and why?

A Confluence of Magical Arseholes because Yeats is my favorite! I even wrote a song bastardizing his Innisfree poem that I play out at the Ren Fest with my Irish band. And then Watership Down because who doesn’t like a good bunnypocalypse?

What’s up next for you creatively?

My next musical is about a future society where mutant magnetic genitals select peoples’ life-partners for them, and when two star crossed lovers find they love each other despite this evolved societal norm, well, you know. Hoping it will be a grand old farce!

The 1972 novel Watership Down, featuring a group of rabbits driven from their home, has been adapted numerous times to different media, including a folk musical that is one of this year’s Minnesota Fringe Festival shows.
Basil Considine
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