The inaugural Capital Fringe Festival will take place July 20-30, in over 28 venues in downtown D.C. The "Festival grounds" are located in and around downtown's Penn Quarter Neighborhood. The not-for-profit Fringe will feature over 90 arts groups presenting nearly 400 performances during the 11-day span of the fest. Participating artists come from the metro D.C. area, across the nation and Canada.
"We have an amazing number of artists who chose to participate in our inaugural event," said Festival director and co-founder Julianne Brienza. "The range and diversity of the performers is astounding. With artists from all over and all different disciplines, this is looking to be an event unlike any other in the District."
Executive director and co-founder Damian Sinclair stated, "The outpouring of support from the local community in making this Festival happen has been astounding. When we started planning for this event we had no idea Washington, D.C. would be so welcoming. It is clear that the moment is right and the city is ready for this."
Fringe festivals dot the world. In the U.S., fringe festivals are held in Orlando, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York. The Capital Fringe Festival will be the world's 76th Fringe Festival, according to its organizers.
A full list of participating artists, participating venues and performance times is available online at www.capfringe.org. Ticket prices for the Festival range from free to $32 with an average price of $15. Two Festival passes are currently on sale: an All-Access Pass for $300 and a Six-Pack Pass for $75. For information, visit the website or call (866) 811-4111.
The Festival box office is located at the Warehouse Downtown Arts Complex (1012-21 7th Street, NW).
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Capital Fringe is a 501(c)3 organization with a mission "to infuse energy into the Washington D.C. arts community and its patrons by introducing them to new and innovative performance styles and artists, and to lead the effort to create and provide outlets for experimental performance to grow and thrive in the nation's capital."
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Here's selection of titles being presented in the 2006 Capital Fringe Festival. For a complete list, visit www.capfringe.org.
Wit's End Productions
"Join Wit's End Productions for the D.C. premiere of British author Sarah Kane's final play. A dark play depicting the sometimes humorous and often painful encounters and thoughts of a person suffering from depression."
Journeymen Theater Ensemble
"Every day Bartleby goes to work. Every day he goes to an ordinary office. Works as an ordinary photocopy technician. Day after day. Until today. Journeymen Theater presents Bartleby: the fringe show for everyone who has ever spent a day in a cubicle or wouldn't be caught dead in one!"
Cheeky Monkey Sideshow
"Ladies and Gentlemen, prepare for a full-frontal assault against your better judgment! Witness fantastic feats of physical transcendence; sword swallowing, fire eating, magic, contortion, the cruel bed of nails, a gender-bending half-and-half, and more! Grotesque and graceful. Beautiful and bizarre. Every show is different, every act unique."
Artists of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange Company
"Piggly-Wiggly supermarkets transformed into store-front churches. A Roy Lichtenstein painting come to life. Belly dancing. Multi media. Paul Lynde. Immigration. A Dance Exchange performance can include any and all of this. Don't want to sit mum in your seat? We love to dialogue with the audience. Bring us on home."
Gita Morris with Ron Worthy at the keyboard
"The intimate and relaxed atmosphere of Cabaret 777 offers a romantically poignant journey into the world of cabaret music and poetry in five languages — English, French, German, Russian, and Latvian."
Alain Nu
"Experience totally baffling 'demonstrations' by Master Mentalist Alain Nu, recently on The Learning Channel. His way-beyond-belief impossibilities will challenge your senses and stretch the boundaries of your sanity. Minds are read,spoons bend eerily, and uncanny predictions come true. Prepare to be astonished: You won't be disappointed!"
Kristin Cantwell
"She grew up just knowing that she is a bionic woman, Zack Morris hearts her and Little Debbie is evil. Writer/performer Kristin Cantwell navigates life, love and the theatre as *gasp* a fat girl. A self-esteem hungrier than Nicole Richie fights back in this funny and honest show."
Wyckham Avery
"Cordelia awakes to find she has a very sore throat and enough rope to hang herself. As she begins to piece together her past, Cordelia is guided by her foolish alter-ego. Clowning, mask, music, and a bit of audience participation come together in this re-telling of King Lear."
banished? Productions
"Gripped by the 1941 Nazi occupation of Paris, Picasso abandoned his brushes to write this surreal dark comedy. banished? productions and BosmaDance have created a disquieting dance and multimedia ménage of motley characters who seek escape from wartime deprivation with acts of sensual indulgence: cooking, sex, and poetry."
Holly Bass
"Sometimes being yourself means dressing up like someone else… Diary of a Baby Diva follows one girl's path of self-discovery from nerdy teacher's pet to darling of the diva set."
Lost and Found Puppeteers
"Dis/Appearing is a wobbly-footed puppet's unpredictable and poetic journey onto a magical body of water. Incorporating six puppeteers using shadow, rod and Bun-ra-ku style puppetry, Dis/Appearing is 35 minutes of family-friendly excitement that sings with the wonder that only puppetry can bring."
Marian Licha
"Legendary Mexican artist Frida Kahlo teaches us how to paint by teaching us how to live with passion, in a master class exploring love, loss, and redemption, in this one-woman show."
Landless Theatre Company
"A mad scientist creates a monster when his experiment goes horribly wrong! In this original rock musical, Frozty the Abominable Snowman escapes and sets off on a furious search for his identity. His anger and isolation snowballs into psychosis, and he begins to kill. And kill again."
Hilary Kacser
"The actor's mother grew up in the London blitz. Based on In Pursuit of the English, Doris Lessing's post-war tragicomedy…"
Christopher Brophy (Splanchnic Theatricals)
"In the spring of 2006 a suburban Father of two embarks upon a voyage of discovery and transformation to the mythical golden city in a 15 foot open plastic sailboat. A real life nautical expedition of adventure and vision theatrically rendered by the self same nut-job."
The Escapists
"Imagine the high-octane energy of a Powerpuff Girls cartoon injected into the eclecticism of NPR's 'This American Life.' The Escapists create smart and rambunctious sketch comedy and improv in their show Keep Moving."
Emily Crews
"Kitsch in Sync, a dance/theatre/comedy performance, is a smorgasbord of witty works served up by Washington-based choreographer Emily Crews. Kitschy and campy and tongue-in-cheeky, Kitsch in Sync is modern dance gone wild! Designed to amuse—rather than bemuse—audiences of all ages."
Solas Nua
"During WWII, Nazis imported a boatload of French whores for the entertainment of troops on Jersey. But the coaster struck rocks and sank, killing nearly all on board. From this real event…a sublime and surreal poetic voice for those women lost at sea. Performed in the water!"
James Beard
"One cowboy's crazy romp through bankrupt New York acting schools, drunken auditions, nudists, lap dancers, and a showdown with his eccentric family."
Scarface Productions
"The critically acclaimed hit from the 2005 Edmonton Fringe. Hilarious and tragic all at once. Two men. Locked in a cutthroat competition. Refereed by a young woman who holds the key to a shared traumatic event. One that has shaped their sense of survival and success."
Courtney McLean
"The rollercoaster comedy of an astrophobic suburbanite girl balancing fitting in and acting out from within a family that can't keep up with the Joneses. Uproarious childhood anecdotes and embarrassing inner monologues explore what 'normal' means against the backdrop of Orange County, CA, where normal is anything but."
The Essential Theatre New Play Reading Series
"In its last year of development, People for Whom the World Spins and Turns, by James J Hsaio, is the story of addiction and recovery. It invites us in as five addicts endure a twenty-eight day recovery program and the challenges each encounters. Featuring cast members from the Emmy nominated HBO hit, 'The Wire.'"
David Keltz Productions, LLC
"Edgar Allan Poe lodged at the predecessor to the Willard Hotel in 1843. Veteran Poe actor David Keltz brings Poe to life once again at the Willard InterContinental in this dramatization based on Poe's life and work."
Madcap Players
"Though her name means 'happy,' Allegra is anything but. Playwright Adam Szymkowicz weaves a story of an endearing 18-year-old trying to understand her sex-crazed friend, her dying dad and an autistic man named Joe in a play that is both funny and thought-provoking. A whimsical, coming-of-age tale."
Treadwell Theatre Co.
"In 1887 a young journalist after a story feigned madness and was thrown into an assylum exposing herself to the brutal treatments of the 'unfortunates' of her day. Descend into madness with Nellie Bly, Laura Kieler (the inspiration for 'A Doll's House') and Charlotte Perkins Gilman ('The Yellow Wallpaper')."
Jaime Coronado
"Condomless gay sex in the age of HIV/AIDS is anathema. In an era when some gay men remember sex without condoms and others don't know sex without them, three defiant men describe their lives about the one thing they have in common: unprotected sex known as barebacking."
Neelam Patel
"Understanding her world and her soul through her body, one woman transforms from powerlessness to authority and creativity. Watch as she faces life's messy conflicts head on. The show combines a dancer's grace with poetry laced in natural feminine sensuality."
Infinite Stage
"What do we see when we go Site-Seeing? Places, stories, memories or dreams? Site-Seeing explores the myth of America in the style of theatrical clown as it metaphorically follows the arrival of immigrants, their discovery of the 'new land,' and their struggles with the melting pot."
Monstah Black
"Explores gender complexity in American Society through the eyes of an androgynous, black, queer growing up in the dirty south. With original music ranging from Afro Punk, Drum and Bass, Soul and House Music, Monstah Black weaves vocals, movement, text and fashion together with seamless precission."
Mpresentations
"Marley's arrival in heaven is not what he expected. Greeted by a surprisingly human God, Marley begins a journey that answers questions he doesn't even know to ask. Filled with laughter and wisdom, The Divine Mr. Average offers fresh and provocative insights into traditional conceptions of God and the afterlife."
Odyssey Productions
"Bursting with feminine machismo, The True Tragedy of the Mortician is a cataclysmic comedy that unfolds in Manhattan’s hottest new restaurant. As the characters battle for life and love in a post-9/11 surreality, explosions of violence, sexuality, and horror will leave you howling with laughter and questioning what you’re doing."
Flowerfox Productions/Rick Fiori
"Poor Dub-ya! Why are so many turning against him? Come find out! Through spider holes and trillion dollar deficits, loyalties will be tested, the truth reinterpreted, character and standards sacrificed, and war justified. New material every performance—keep coming back!"
Margaret Contreras
"This one-woman show was taken from the WWII diaries of Joan Wyndham. As a young, upper class Bohemian woman maturing in a time of great change in London, Wyndham's brute honesty takes us with her on a personal journey of love and war."
The Art Riot Theatrical Co. & AccokeekCreek TheatreCo
"The life and times of Vice President Dick Cheney, as imagined by five D.C. area playwrights. From an undisclosed location, Dick keeps his fingers on the pulse of the Apocalypse, confronts his younger self, tangles with his daughter's lesbian lover, and inspires two views of America at Perpetual War."
