Around the World in Eighty Days in Under Sixty Minutes

If the prospect of staging Jules Verne’s adventure novel seems at all daunting, consider, then, the restraints of the Fringe: All shows must wrap within sixty minutes. Yet if anyone can accomplish this feat, it’s Hardcover Theater, a Minneapolis-based company that routinely transforms novels, short stories, and even poetry into entertaining nights of theater. In adapting Verne’s whirlwind account of a trans-global voyage by boat and train (set in 1873, mind you), Hardcover has turned the expedition into sport. With the cast literally racing to beat the clock—stopping in Egypt, India, Hong Kong, and the American Wild West—this is a serious contender for fastest-paced show at the Fringe. 651-209-6799; www.fringefestival.org