If you’re looking for a way to get your mind off soaring temperatures, remember that July marks the return of one of Washington’s summer delights: the Capital Fringe Festival. Running from Thursday until July 29, this is the seventh year the Capital Fringe Festival has presented comedy, drama, musical theater, puppetry and the spoken word.
Last year, the festival sold 28,000 tickets to 715 performances from 127 productions. In terms of national unjuried fringe festivals, Washington’s is second only to the Minnesota Festival.
“All of the productions are new, and 50 percent of the groups are brand new to us,” said Julianne Brienza, the festival’s executive director and founding member. “In terms of the structure of the festival itself, there’s not anything we’re doing that’s totally new this year, though last year we had two dance shows and this year we have 13. And we’ll have a sidewalk cafe, which we haven’t had before.”
Among the shows produced this year, many will be from out of town, while many of the companies are local. There will be a wide variety of philosophies and styles on display, in everything from a series of shorts by Theresa Rebeck (creator of “Smash”) called “The Madwoman in the Attic” to a theatrical song cycle to a play about a basketball coach in the final moments of a critical game.
| Onstage |
| Capital Fringe Festival |
| Where: Various venues (see website) |
| When: July 12 to 29 |
| Info: Single ticket $17, festival button $5 to $7; 866-811-4111; capfringe.org |
As with all fringe festivals, this one is structured on a first-come, first-accepted basis, with no process of elimination, no selection process. The festival stresses that the artists are the producers, that there “are no curatorial barriers between the artist and the audience.” The festival merely finds space for the shows and does marketing for them.
Although it does not give money to performing artists to support their appearance in the festival, it does give 65 percent of its ticket revenue back to the artists. “In six years, we’ve given $1.2 million back to the artists,” Brienza explained. “Every year it’s a little over $200,000.”
Most shows get five performances. If a show is really popular, it’s not held over, but it is brought back after July. “That’s why we do the Fall Fringe,” said Brienza. “The summer festival lasts 18 days. We’ve found that once it’s over, people are pretty tired.”
As for the potential for boredom built into doing the same job every summer, Brienza says simply, “There’s always so much newness, it’s impossible to get bored.” For more information, or to sign up to volunteer, visit capfringe.org.
