Let’s Sing Gospel 101!
Goethe Mainstage

Remaining performances:
Saturday, July 11, 2009 @ 7:15 pm
Sunday, July 12, 2009 @ 3:15 pm
Saturday, July 18, 2009 @ 2:30 pm
Thursday, July 23, 2009 @ 5:30 pm

They say: YES YOU CAN! Sing gospel! In this interactive show, you are the cast and choir as you learn to sing gospel music. All ages, races, and voices are invited to sing, clap and move to Rosita’s piano beats. Only enthusiasm is required!

Suzyn says: One of the lovely things about the Fringe Festival is that you can be sitting in Georgetown University Law Center’s Williams Library at 5:30 and be a gospel singer by 6:05.  That pretty much sums up my Friday evening.

I abandoned the paper I was writing and attended this show on a whim, and was actually a couple of minutes late.  Three minutes into the show Rosita Mathews was already leading the audience in song.   As I guiltily made my way to the so-far-empty Soprano section, she finished out the verse and addressed me.

“You’re a soprano?” she asked

“A second soprano” I mumbled. “Sort of.”

“Well, we only have one other Soprano, so you can stand next to her in front of the altos.”

And so my gospel singing career began.

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Last night, 23 Fringe groups converged on a makeshift stage in the backroom of RFD’s for the fourth annual Fringe Previews. (Video, methinks, forthcoming.) The beer was abundant, the crowd somewhat rowdier and less attentive than last year’s, and the performances less…well, performative than declarative. That is to say: it was a lot more tell than show.

Not without its highlights, though, and certainly replete with the requisite Fringe-isms. Fake breasts? Check. Um, more fake breasts? Double-check. Duplicitous robots from space? Indeed. Desultory allusions to Beckett, Wilde, Shakespeare, et al. wielded with the weight of a French tickler? Duh.

Below the jump, a telegraphic rundown on last night’s 23 previews.

Deep breath!~ Here we go:

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