The Washington Festival With the Fringe on Top

Washington is getting a new fixture on the cultural scene: the Capital Fringe Festival.

The 10-day event, planned for July 2006, will showcase experimental performers -- local and visiting -- who work in theater, dance, music and other disciplines.

Like other fringe festivals throughout the world, the District's newest arts festival can trace its heritage to Scotland's Edinburgh Festival Fringe -- a 58-year-old alternative, open to all performers, to the Edinburgh International Festival. U.S. cities with fringe festivals include New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, San Francisco as well as Orlando, Cincinnati, Boulder, Colo., and Des Moines.

According to festival founder Damian Sinclair, Capital Fringe will be concentrated downtown along the Seventh Street corridor, offering multiple events in 20 venues, ranging from traditional theaters to alternative spaces such as galleries, lobbies, vacant storefronts and outdoor areas.

Sinclair, 27, is leading a small group of volunteer organizers and establishing a nonprofit organization to produce Capital Fringe annually.

Scheduling about five events per day in each venue, Sinclair projects, could offer 1,000 performances by the end of the festival, which would boost a traditionally slow period in Washington's arts calendar.

Tickets will average $10 per event to encourage attendees to take in several productions in the same outing.

Sinclair, director of marketing for Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, moved to Washington in 2002 from Philadelphia, where he was managing director of the experimental Pig Iron Theatre Company, whose growth was fostered by involvement in that city's fringe festival. He says he started thinking about launching a festival in Washington "the second I came down here."

"I was surprised there wasn't one here already," Sinclair says. "The time is ripe.

"We could see lots of physical theater, experimental dance, site-specific performances (in a garden, a pool, a parked car), street performers. Stuff that brings an energy to the town.

"But I'm not an artistic director with a vision of what I want to see happen. I'm much more concerned about having outlets for the art to happen. I want to see where the artists take it."

Sinclair estimates it will cost $100,000 to $200,000 to cover Capital Fringe's venue, marketing and box-office costs. He will host a "town hall" meeting for interested performers June 27 at the Warehouse Theater. Additional information about the festival is available online at http://www.capfringe.org/ .