I just snuck into a rehearsal for METRO: In the State of Mind over in the Baldacchino.  First off, the space looks ultra-colorful and ultra-cool (check out the photos if you don’t believe me).  Only when a helicopter whirls by overhead do you remember you’re in DC.  

METRO is presented by the Pointillism Jazz Consort from Copley, Ohio.  I wondered what exactly pointillism jazz was, and from the bits and pieces I saw, it seems to involve creating a rich, textured soundscape of voices and recordings.  It certainly isn’t singing, but it isn’t Stomp either. One performer makes a “schh” noise at a certain rhythm; another performer syncopates with that; still others chime in behind and above and from the sidelines.  This all happens over a layer of Metro-inspired din: bells, whistles, door-opening announcements, general choo-choo chugging, &tc., &tc.  

The show opens tonight at 7:00 PM, and I imagine this is one of (if not the) first time the cast has gotten to rehearse in the space, if only because the space wasn’t really built until this week.  This is what Fringe is all about: guerilla theater.  Get up there and do it.  Make it work.  Cut that line out if you need to, create that tableau in half the space we rehearsed in, yell that “schh” noise at twice the normal volume to compete with New York Avenue traffic, stop wiping that sweat off your brow and just nail it now because godammit we open in 2 and a half hours.  

And to think, this kind of stuff is going on with 120 productions across the city, if not today, then at some afternoon in the next couple of weeks.  Talk about a state of mind.  

So I’m sitting in the offices at Fort Fringe right now, and things are most certainly abuzz.  I’ve been here for approximately 7 minutes, and already Julianne Brienza (DC Fringe’s executive director) has had to trek over from her desk to answer the phone (inconveniently located in the corner) 3 times. That’s one phone call every 2.333… minutes, although the frequency is sure to pick up as we get closer and closer to the first shows beginning this evening.

The phone is ringing again, here comes Julianne.  Someone else offers to get it, but she won’t have any of it.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get it, I’m on a roll.”

When she isn’t on the phone–mostly answering inane questions about tickets from chaperones of very large groups of Christian children and the like–Julianne breaks various bits of exciting news to her staff as it comes in on her computer.

For example, lots of press for the Fringe today (Express, Playbill, and City Paper for starters).

And then there’s the DC Theatre Yahoo group, whose moderators have had to limit the number of posts per Fringe production because they were too inundated with the stuff.

“I think that’s great–they have to make a policy because of us!” Julianne laughs.  ”That’s so cool!”

She says that for every email she reads, she gets about 4 more in her inbox.  I’m going to email her a link to this blog post right now from across the room, just to be annoying.  And supportive. Annoying and supportive.