Organizers called it one of the most significant changes in the history of Fresno's Rogue Festival. With the introduction of Rogue Bucks, the festival shifted from an all-cash operation to a different kind of "currency." Patrons bought Rogue Bucks from a few centralized locations, then traded them in for admission at the venues.

Now that the first year of Rogue Bucks is behind us, what are your thoughts?

To me, the system seemed to work quite smoothly. I bought Rogue Bucks twice and didn't have to wait too long either time. I was never in a position where I had to buy Rogue Bucks from one of the "floaters" promised at outlying venues, so I'm not sure how that worked, but I didn't hear any complaints about that set-up.

I did hear a few complaints about the added steps of having to stand in a line to buy Rogue Bucks, trading those Bucks in for "boarding passes" and then having to stand in a final line to get into a show. The most number of complaints I heard was about the fact that some of the Rogue's "Bring Your Own" venues didn't accept Rogue Bucks, which complicated some people's efforts to buy a certain number of Bucks to get through the festival without having some left over at the end.

I did chat with a couple of people who were Rogue-goers in years past but decided not to attend this year because of what they perceived to be the added hassle of Rogue Bucks.

Considering our pre-Rogue post on this subject, I wanted to follow up with a post-Rogue assessment. Overall, a hit or a miss? Is there any way the Rogue Bucks system can be improved in the future?

Note: After a two-week stretch of nearly non-stop shows, I ran out of time to write reviews of a couple of Rogue performances that I caught near the end of the run of the festival. But I wanted to offer this late review of a promising original one-act play presented by Artists' Repertory Theatre.

Fringe festivals attract lots of one-person shows, which are a natural because of the ease and economy with which they can travel. Many of those shows have distinctly personal themes and often focus on recollected stories of family dysfunction.

But Michael Peterson, a veteran local actor, took a different approach in this year's Rogue Festival. Instead of a first-person show about his life, he sat down and wrote an actual two-person play. The result: a bracingly honest, introspective piece of theater that gave a profound glimpse into the world of mental illness. Though "The They" needs some more work and expansion in terms of story and structure, this poignant production shows a lot of promise.

Amy Querin and her Fresno Dance Collective -- NOCO for short -- think big when it comes to the Rogue Festival.

This year the up-and-coming dance company booked the Tower Theatre, the first time the venue has been used in the Rogue. Querin arranged a collaboration with Xotica, Fresno's longest running weeky drag show. Over the course of the Rogue run she will have brought in not just one out-of-state guest dance company but FOUR. And on top of all that, she programmed a concert-length original multimedia collaboration titled "The Eternity Project," a 40-minute piece that includes choreography and video.

The result is a six-show series (three were performed last Sunday, and three will be featured Saturday) so chock-full of dance that the 90-minute evening event might make you think of a Chinese restaurant menu. (The 8 p.m. show consisted of the Xotica prologue, "The Eternity Project" and then added the 4 p.m. matinee program -- like adding egg rolls.)

Here's a Thursday and Friday Rogue Festival option that I'm not even sure is listed in the printed schedule in a venue that doesn't get much buzz:

Strictly Belly Dance, featuring traditional cabaret-style dancing performed with finger cymbals, will perform 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday at Studio 74 (1274 N. Van Ness Ave.) Dancers are Annette Federico, who performs with a snake, and Michele Jackson, who performs with a sword.

The remarkable thing about this venue -- which is host to the "Rogue Muse" submissions and the art exhibition "Remembering Brent Brooks" and is open until 9 p.m. daily during the festival -- is its intimacy. The cabaret-style table seating is grouped in a very small space. (If it feels as if you're in someone's living room, you'd be right -- that's what the space used to be in this Tower bungalow-turned-into-art-studio.) You'll be seated just feet from the performers. Tickets are $5.

It's easy to slip into cliche when talking about actors "giving" something to an audience.

But at the risk of sounding hopelessly cloying, I can't write about Terry Lewis in "The Velocity of Gary (Not His Real Name)" without a noisy introductory march down Giving Boulevard.

It isn't just that Lewis -- a longtime Fresno theater performer whose clean-cut characterizations and strong tenor voice have endeared him over the years to local audiences, mostly in family-friendly fare -- bares all of his outsides in this one-man show. (No euphemisms this time: We're talking full-frontal nudity on stage.) For 70 minutes, he does the same thing with his insides as well. He gives a haunting, stirring, funny, subversive and emotionally potent performance.

Annette Roman knew exactly what she was doing when she named her solo performance show "Hitler's Li'l Abomination." A provocative title can sell a show. In the course of her performance, she even ponders the propriety of her Rogue Festival program photo, which depicts her waving a couple of swastika flags. She seems to suggest that a little sensationalism in the service of greater truths can be forgiven -- a sentiment with which I can concur. Get the audiences through the door, then hit them with the good stuff.

In Roman's case, the core of her show is an intriguing one. Her father was a Jewish Holocaust survivor, and her mother was in the Hitler Youth. The fact that her parents actually procreated would have been enough to make Hitler crazy -- hence the title. Though there are some comic shadings to Roman's show, as reflected by the swastika flags pic, she hopes to construct a serious philosophical and historical discussion.

So far, so good, then. There's a lot of potential in this autobiographical tale. But this show just doesn't work as well as it should. It needs a more cohesive script and better direction.

A sweet story and two talented actors -- one the youngest participant in the Rogue Festival, the other with a few more years and gray hairs on him -- come together in "The Implausible Claus," a short play at the Broken Leg Stage. Ron Blackwell plays an old vaudeville performer moping through his days at a retirement home when a street-smart and precocious 9-year-old girl (played by Nayelli Zechman) pops in for an unscheduled visit.

Nicki Harmon's play, written more than 20 years ago, introduces us to the Ho Ho Hotline, which has been installed in the Evergreen Retirement Home in Jersey City. As depicted by director Brandey Steiner, the hotline is almost akin to slave labor, with the depressed vaudevillian, named Aaron Lefkowitz, grumping his way through his daily duties as he answers called from children thinking they're talking to Santa.