Postcards From the Fringe

Was it magic? Mentalist Alain Nu's show, "Circus of the Mind" -- one of many offered during the Capital Fringe Festival -- may leave you wondering. The festival continues through July 30. (Mark Finkenstaedt - For The Washington Post)

LUXURY LOFTS COMING SOON! Saturday at 8 and Sunday at 6. At the Woolly Mammoth Theatre main stage. $15.

A Different Kind of Lounge Act

Say, Eddie, what's a lounge act like you doing in a Fringe Festival like this?

"It's very easy and fun to watch but a little hard to categorize," says Eddie Lounge (Ed Spitzberg), leader of the Cosmos and host of "The Eddie Lounge Show."

"It's a lounge act, but it has characters; it has music, comedy and a very, very loose plot," he explains. "It's a little of everything, and it's off the beaten path, not something you'd see in a main stage theater or a concert club. It's its own thing on the fringe, so a fringe festival is the perfect place for it."

Spitzberg, development director at Arena Stage, birthed Eddie in 1999 when he was living and working in the Bay Area. What started as lounge lizard Eddie and a pianist gradually grew into a small ensemble after the Internet bubble burst in 2001 and Spitzberg (who'd been working for a Web company called Comedy World) and some of his creative pals found themselves with enough time on their hands to come up with a daffy plot involving a one-night gig at a posh lounge that could lead to a big contract and star billing, only to be thwarted by romantic shenanigans and jealous intrigues.

Ironically, when Spitzberg was invited to perform the show for one night at Harrah's Las Vegas, "they didn't want any shtick, and I realized halfway through that I really was a lounge singer!"

"The Eddie Lounge Show" played off and on in the Bay Area, but only Eddie made the transition when Spitzberg moved to Washington in early 2002 to work at Arena. He talked to Warehouse owner Paul Rupert early on about doing the show there, but it wasn't until Spitzberg applied to participate in the Fringe Festival that he was able to relaunch it.

"It's new and improved, and I'm five years older and wiser," says Spitzberg, suggesting "San Francisco was an out-of-town tryout with a big rest in between."

"The Eddie Lounge Show" sure sounds like it would have been welcomed in the early '90s, when a national lounge revival was in full swing.

"These things go in cycles," says Spitzberg, adding, "I'm on the cusp of the new lounge revival."

-- Richard Harrington