The District’s increasingly trendy Penn Quarter neighborhood will get the opportunity to show off its growing arts and cultural community with this evening’s kickoff of the inaugural Capital Fringe Festival.
The Capital Fringe Festival is a 10-day, multi-performance event dedicated to the region’s “edgier” artists. But instead of holding the festival in what could be considered one of the District’s hipper neighborhoods, such as Adams Morgan or the U Street area, organizers decided to house it in 28 venues in Penn Quarter, the heart of downtown.
“We think it’s going to be fabulous for the neighborhood and it’s a great fit,” said Jo-Ann Neuhaus, executive director of the Pennsylvania Quarter Neighborhood Association. The festival will show “that this neighborhood is one that has some of the preeminent cultural venues in the region. This neighborhood has become a theater district.”
Penn Quarter, which is located north of Pennsylvania Avenue with 7th Street at its center, is home to museums and nine theaters, including two under construction.
Festival organizers are expecting to sell about 15,000 tickets to the various events, which include dance, music, performance art and even puppetry.
“It’s good for the city because its casts the local art community in a different light,” said Rebecca Pawlowski, a spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C. Convention & Tourism Corporation. “People are familiar with the Kennedy Center and National Theatre, but this is a great way to showcase what’s really on the edge, on the fringe, that people outside the market may not know about.”
The Fringe Festival is not a new concept. The idea traces its roots back to Scotland’s Edinburgh International Festival in 1947. Groups that were shut out of the festival set up their own festival on the outskirts — or “fringe” — of town. Today, there are multiple Fringe Festivals throughout the country, including in Philadelphia, San Francisco and Orlando, Fla.
Those festivals have grown in popularity over the years and boosted the local arts community, which is the hope for D.C.’s festival, said Damian Sinclair, executive director and co-founder. Attendance at Philadelphia’s first Fringe Festival 10 years ago was 12,000. Last year, 45,000 people attended the various events.
“Washington, D.C., has one of the most highly educated populations. I think the town is craving this,” Sinclair said. “My long-term dream is that this really engulfs the city every summer, District-wide.”
