Capital Fringe Festival will come to the Southwest Waterfront for the first time in its 13-year history. Churches, Arena Stage, and Blind Whino will host all 90+ productions. All five venues containing 11 stages are easily accessible from public transportation and are within a five-minute walk of each other.
The Capital Fringe Festival is a program produced by the DC nonprofit Capital Fringe. Fringe’s focus is on expanding audiences’ appetites for independent, fringe theater, music, art, and dance. Fringe welcomes independent artists year-round, encouraging their creative work by offering them affordable space to make art, congregate, and innovate.
Capital Fringe has commissioned three new plays set to premiere at this year’s festival. Each production is an adaptation of non-Western folklores or myths.
America’s Wives by Farah Laval Harris is adapted from a Yoruba folktale. This show of one older wife, one younger wife, and one bald eagle is a timely and surprising exploration of identity, love, and greed in today’s world.
Andromeda Breaks by Stephen Spotswood is a Southern gothic horror infused with an updated version of the Greek myth of Andromeda. Here we find the heroine, Andromeda, in a police interrogation room, accused of murder. But all is not what it seems in this shocking contemporary thriller!
The City of… by Matthew Capodicasa was inspired by the Jorge Luis Borges short story, Funes the Memorious. This new play tells the story of Irene and Arthur and their struggle as the world around them starts to lose its collective memory. This poetic, intimately beautiful play explores what it means to forget, and more importantly, to remember.
Along with these commissioned plays, Capital Fringe will also present two productions from well-established theater companies that will introduce DC audiences to new experimental performances:
BAROCOCO — The award-winning ensemble of Happenstance Theater takes a dive into the late Baroque, where six clowns portray oblivious entitlement on the brink of extinction.
O Monsters — New Paradise Laboratories (Philadelphia, Penn.) is a visual and experimental performance of a world of weirdness and beauty, an unstable reality where nothing can be predicted, where meteors make beautiful music and blades falling from the sky can save your life.
WANT TO GO
June 18: Tickets go on sale
July 7: Festival opens
July 8: Fringe Festival Preview at 7 p.m. at Pearl Street Warehouse at The Wharf
July 29: Festival ends with Capital Fringe Festival Audience Awards at Pearl Street Warehouse at The Wharf
Festival venues include:
Westminster Church, 400 I St. SW
Arena Stage, 1101 6th St. SW
Saint Augustine’s Church, 555 Water St. SW
Christ United Church, 900 4th St. SW
Blind Whino, 700 Delaware Ave. SW
Gathering points are:
SW Market, 4th and M Streets SW, open Tuesday thru Sunday July 7–29. Full service box office available at the market along with community events.
City Bar, 400 E St. SW, a rooftop bar for nightly gatherings, food, and drink.
Follow all of the Capital Fringe Festival activities on social media with #capfringe18. For more information, visit capitalfringe.org.