An encore for Fringe Fest

By Lavanya Ramanathan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 6, 2009

Next summer, the Capital Fringe Festival reaches a landmark anniversary: five years. That's a minor miracle for a theater festival that seemingly came out of nowhere in 2006, with no major theater companies taking part and no big-name shows.

"This year, it really hit me," says Fringe executive director Julianne Brienza. "People were like, 'Oh, my God. You're so successful. You're really an institution now.' I'm like, whoa, wait a minute -- we still have so much work to do. . . . We're not done. Every year we're going to continue to grow and change."

Next week brings with it one big change: Fall Fringe, a new mini-showcase that will reprise a couple of popular festival shows and, hopefully, keep the buzz going. On the playbill are two recent Capital Fringe successes, "The Terrorism of Everyday Life" and "Fool for a Client," and "Splitting the Difference," a new work by previous Fringer Kelly Bond.

If the mini-festival doesn't have the scope of the summer event, it certainly has the length: Shows will repeat for dozens of performances over 12 days, beginning Wednesday at Fort Fringe, the Fringe headquarters. All proceeds benefit the festival.

Fall Fringe came together organically, Brienza says. She was kicking around ways to raise money for Capital Fringe before year's end, and California playwright Mark Whitney offered to bring back his one-man show "Fool for a Client." Bond, whose show "Franko B Killed Me or an Exercise in Self-Control" was performed at the 2007 Fringe Festival, was working on a play that needed time in front of an audience. And Ed Hamell's "Terrorism," well, that just sort of fell into place.

"'The Terrorism of Everyday Life' is an amazing show," Brienza says. "I'm not supposed to say that I like shows, but I love it. I saw it twice. And so I chatted with Ed, and he's coming to do it."

Plans are already in the works for a spring Fringe, with more shows from recent festivals.

"Maybe it's not random anymore," Brienza says. "It wasn't really the intention, but that's the way things start."