Of course, not every Fringe can stay fringey. “Look at the New York Fringe, and when it became a commercial thing, when it was taken over by commercial interests trying out musicals to see if they could hit the jackpot,” Zinoman says.
One thing is clear: a bigger, better run Fringe means a more visible one. Hence: America’s Got Talent.
At the same time, the festival’s unjuried approach helps preserve its anything-goes ethos. (Some festivals have gone to a lottery system to admit applicants.) And Capital Fringe has at least one other thing going for it, too: For all its cultural growth, D.C. is still a small arts town. Nobody’s going to road-test a big-budget jukebox musical at Capital Fringe. At least not yet.
This fall, Brienza will convene the festival’s 19-member advisory board—an eclectic group that includes Whitney and Sinclair, monologuist Mike Daisey, the directors of the Minnesota and Orlando Fringe Festivals, Shakespeare Theatre Company honcho Michael Kahn, and the Washington Post’s Marc Fisher, among others—to map out the next three years. She plans to stay at least that long, but the idea is to get the organization to a place where a regime change would be survivable.
She has goals that remain unrealized: she wants more international acts, long a strength of the Philly Fringe, in her festival. But things are generally good. The ink on the balance sheet is black.
And the festival was accepted into the Catalogue of Philanthropy for the first time this year. “We’ve gotten a lot of donations through that,” Brienza says. Capital Fringe earns more than 70 percent of its operating budget, relying on grants and contributions for the rest.“It’s a model I have come to learn, through my journey of doing this, that many people envy, because we’re not reliant on that contributed revenue so much.”
Undoubtedly, Capital Fringe is growing up. It might even be, well, professional. But Zinoman, an observer who knows plenty about starting something and watching it grow, says that growing up doesn’t necessarily mean growing huge.
“It’s not about size,” she says. “It’s about the purpose of it, the mission. If the mission stays pure, then I don’t know if the size matters.”
A Critical Taxonomy of Fringe Performers
Everyone wants in on the Fringe party, and extent area companies are no exception. Take the Washington Shakespeare company, whose Secret Obscenities finds Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud fighting for the privilege of robbing a gaggle of Chilean school girls of their innocence.
A handful of groups that came together to perform at Fringe have made the evolutionary leap into programming outside the festival. Dedicated to reviving the grisly French theatrical tradition of Grand Guignol, Molotov Theatre debuted at the ’07 Capital Fringe with For Boston. Molotov does two shows per year outside of the festival, but is at home at Fringe. “It brings in the audience that’s really our audience,” says artistic director Lucas Maloney, 28. “It’s not a typical theater audience. It’s people who are young, who have weird inclinations, and who want to see something bizarre.”
There are at least 25 solo acts on the docket this year, many of them among the most seasoned performers in the festival. By and large, these are the contenders hoping their participation could translate directly to a career break. San Diego-based Mark Whitney is bringing Fool for a Client, his biography-laced critique of the criminal justice system, back to D.C. for the fourth consecutive year. Whitney, 51, didn’t focus seriously on performing until his mid-40s. Before that, he was an entrepreneur — and a convict. When he was 28, Whitney lied to a New Hampshire bank while seeking a loan to purchase Ben & Jerry’s franchise rights. He now operates an online legal database that lawyers subscribe to for $500 per year. “I sell them legal research data, and then I take that money and use it produce a show that’s very critical of the justice system,” Whitney says. “So God bless the lawyers.”
What makes Fringe Fringe. “There are a lot of those,” says the festival’s head honcho, Julianna Brienza. “Sometimes people will blow it out of the water and they’re really awesome. And other times they have a really horrible time, and I get yelled at. Like it’s all my fault.”
Our Readers Say
The Fringe has accomplished something that is entirely secondary to its purpose, but nonetheless important. The Fringe has redefined theatre criticism, and put it on a footing more like the one it was on "pre-snark" - in the days before just having a job at a newspaper gave you legitimacy as a critic.
That is, the Fringe couldn't care less what critics say; therefore, critics have to earn a place in the conversation the Fringe artists are having with their (repeat: "THEIR") audience. In order to earn that place, critics have to pay attention, learn about the terms under which the artists judge themselves, understand the interests and proclivities of the audience ... and then try hard to add something of value to the equation.
This article is yet another step in that direction.
Leave a Comment