Check ‘em out here—some nice snapshots from the Audience Awards and subsequent revelry.

We live-tweeted them here: http://twitter.com/FringePurge. And we’ll be back, eventually, with some closing thoughts on CapFringe 2009.

For now, the party’s still on, so come on down to the tent:

D.C. singer-songwriter John Bustine and Rose (yup, just Rose) sing ‘The Wreck of the Good Ship Lollipop’ — from Bustine’s album “Waltzes and Pleas” –while a fan dances. 6:38 pm under the Baldacchino

FlagBoy
Warehouse – Next Door

Remaining performances:
Sunday, July 26 at 5 pm

They say: FlagBoy, a true and authentic coming-of-age story about family, friends, and HIV. Cornelius Jones Jr., a young southern black boy, explores his sexual identity as he navigates from the urban worlds of Virginia and D.C. to NYC.

Aaron’s take: It takes a good deal of courage to open up one’s life to an audience of strangers. And in some ways, Cornelius Jones’ life is a profile in courage. But I doubt he would describe it that way. More than anything else, FlagBoy is about coming to terms with who you are—and what’s impressive is Jones’ ability to transform that self-awareness into a frank, funny, and revealing one-man show.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Attack of the Big Angry Booty

The Bedroom

Remaining Performance: Sunday, July 26 at 7:00 pm.

They say: Dieting sucks!  Whether it’s 1 pound or 100 pounds losing weight is never easy.  Come experience the roller coaster ride on the one hellish trip that we all will eventually have to take, getting in shape.

Ann’s take: Have you ever gone out for happy hour with your coworkers, and there’s that one colleague who won’t stop with his stories about the various and ridiculous customer interactions he had that day… and you laugh politely but you’re really thinking, ‘it is not a unique experience to have to deal with difficult people and these stories really aren’t that funny’… and he’s not letting anyone else have the floor during his little stand-up routine… so you just sit there, for an hour, silently sipping your half-priced vodka and soda until you can finally blurt out that you have to leave immediately to pick up your dry cleaning before it closes?  Les Kurkendaal is that coworker, and The Attack of the Big Angry Booty is that happy hour, minus the cheap drinks.

Read the rest of this entry »

Not much time left, but plenty of shows.  I’m doing three today (Children of Medea, Riding the Bull, and Irish Authors Held Hostage) and four tomorrow (The Quick Brown Fox …, Herbie: Poet of the Wild West, FlagBoy, and Dorks On the Loose). Hey, gotta make up for some of the time I spent away last weekend — and besides, we haven’t reviewed a couple of those, so I thought I’d check ‘em out.

Meanwhile, Fringe diversions, Never-Know-Who-You’ll-Run-Into department: That was activist and brother-annoyer Candace Gingrich at this afternoon’s performance of Children of Medea.

And the street was abuzz about the Secret Service-fueled delay at today’s closing performance of Peace Warriors. The First Lady? The Boss Himself, even, ducking the beer-with-Gates buzz for a bit?

Nope: Apparently it was Rahm Emanuel, whose daughter (so the word on the street had it) was in the show.

So: Y’all seen anybody fun?

Two major components of my review of Dancing to Ancient Rhythms were that it featured mostly white female dancers performing cultural tourism, and that it looked like a dance recital for a dance class. Karen McLane, the head of the Ancient Rhythms dancce company, responded to my criticism in the comments, but seeing as she also pointed out two errors, I think that her remarks deserve their own post.

McLane writes: “The ladies performing were Indian, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese rather than “mostly Caucasian”, and the company is most certainly not comprised of my students. Rather, they are performers with extensive professional performance background coming from ballet, modern, and Georgian dance companies, and we perform regularly for corporate, embassy, and special events. I am loath to categorize these women as students performing in a recital (ouch). Finally, the majority of the choreography is a far cry from “belly dance”, but rather a fuller fusion of many dance forms.”

I stand by my initial assessment that it looked like a recital (though not a bad one: In my review I wrote, “the costumes are exquisite, the performers are elegant and seductive, and the dancing is very, very good.”) I also stand by my criticism that it lacked a compelling narrative or sense of plot, to which McLane also responded in her comment.

Captain Squishy’s Yeehaw Jamboree
The Baldacchino at Fort Fringe

Remaining performances: Saturday, July 25 (tonight!) at 5 p.m.

They say: From the writers of last year’s hit I Like Nuts! comes a ridiculous new musical about a comedy variety show, with a murderous ingenue, a WWI German spy, and of course, bacon!!! It’s Captain Squishy’s Yee Haw Jamboree!

Brian says: Hey Teddyo, you ever been to the American South?

Ted says: Nah man. It’s too silly down there for me.

Brian: That’s true. You are really serious. Well it’s a good thing you didn’t see Captain Squishy’s Yeehaw Jamboree then. It would’ve sillied your poor little brains out.

Ted: But I did see Captain Squishy’s Yeehaw Jamboree. In fact, you and I saw it together.

Brian: Wait a secorino—that’s right! You were that guy sitting behind me ticklin’ my earlobe all night.

Ted: If you say so.

Brian: Well listen, you were so good at ticklin’ that I forgot to ask what you thought of the show.

Ted: No time like the present….

Brian: So what’d you think of the show?

Read the rest of this entry »

Sezze Sun
@ The Bodega

Remaining performances:
7/24 @ 6:30pm; 7/25 @ 9pm; 7/26 @ 4:30pm

They say: A struggling actor invites friends and family to his parents’ Italian villa for great food, drink and festivities. But he has ulterior motives. Secrets are revealed and covertly filmed in this multi-media exploration of the digitalization and destruction of relationships.

Sheffy says: MTV is filming its 23rd season of The Real World right here in Washington, in Dupont Circle. What’s most surprising is not that the Fringer to your left might soon be a cable TV mini-celebrity, but that this show is still on the air. Who would’ve thought that broadcasting the “unscripted” lives of seven co-habitating strangers would spark a new genre called “Reality TV?” And after Big Brother, Survivor, Jon & Kate, doesn’t the concept ever get stale?

Well how about this play’s angle:  You lock a motley crew of characters in an Italian villa and videotape the unfolding drama without their knowledge. You can probably already guess some of the skeletons that come out when illuminated by the Sezze sun. The conniving mastermind behind the plot is the petulant Ben (Matthew Charles), a British actor-director whose egomania becomes clear in his ranting asides directly into the videocamera.

Read the rest of this entry »

Fringefolk,

Sure, we’ve seen a fair bit of theater, sweated buckets in some overheated venues, learned to turn hangovers into inspiration, and covered 88 shows so far (make that 100 after tomorrow!). No big deal, right? But we can’t be everywhere at all times—just ask this individual—so we rely on you all to keep us honest.

Let us know what you’re loving, what you’re loathing, and what we’ve missed. Our ears, and this blog, are yours.

*That old-school engraving above? William Hogarth’s “Lame theater.” We think it’s neat.