The Guide: Introduction

How to Decide What to See at Capital Fringe Festival, 2009: An Only Slightly Biased Guide

Salutations, gentle readers and Fringegoers-to-be. My name is Brett, and I will attempt to guide you in choosing what shows to see at this year’s Capital Fringe Festival. With over 120 performances, choosing what to see is no easy task.

The Guide itself consists of three parts. Part One) I make an attempt to categorize the kinds of shows you see at Fringe, and try to include all or nearly all of the shows in these categories. Part Two) I suggest different ways you might go about selecting your shows. Part Three) I make concrete suggestions for shows to see, including some “package” recommendations.

My aim is for this to be the most central location for going about the business of deciding what shows you want to see. In Part One, the heart of the Guide, I will try to connect each show to 1) its ticket page, 2) its capfringe.org wall page, 3) its artist homepage when it exists, and 4) every review that comes out about it. I will also summarize the prevailing critical and audience opinion, in addition to including my own and categorizing it.

The links to the right go to the major sites connected with Fringe. I am a guest reviewer with Fringe and Purge blog and recommend them for a more down-n'-dirty and in-depth observation of Fringe.

If you are completely new to Fringe, I recommend starting at the Capital Fringe homepage. In this guide I will assume you know what Fringe is and how to buy tickets & use the Fringe button.

Read on for an extended introduction, or scroll down for the rest of the Guide.

Last Updated July 27.
WHAT'S NEW: ALL reviews I'm aware of added. ALL shows (except the unnoticed Two Girls) categorized. Post-Fringe roundup post posted, including a list of the best-received shows. My thoughts on the venues added to my complete Personal Fringe list.


So what is it, you may ask, that makes me think I am capable of such a monumental task as a guide to Fringe? Well, first of all, the fact that I seem to have the patience/insanity to go attempt it in the first place. Second of all, I’m not directly affiliated with any shows or with Capital Fringe this year (which means I’m free to speak my opinion), but I did participate two years ago (which means I have had something of an insider’s view). Third of all, this is the third (out of four) Fringes I’ll have attended, and between the previous two Fringes I saw 36 shows combined. 28 of those shows I saw last year acting as a reviewer for the City Paper’s Fringe and Purge blog, reviewing some dozen of them, and I will be reviewing with the Paper again this year. (Admittedly, while I saw a lot, that number doesn’t put me close to last year’s Fringe Fantatic winner Mike Riley, who saw a whopping 47.) So with my experience, a certain amount of intuition, and what hearsay I can I gather, I feel I can put a decent guide together here.

Please note, that while I am reviewing for the City Paper separeately, this blog is not directly affiliated with the Paper, and should not be attributed to the Paper. Attribution should be to some variation of "DC Fringe Guide blog" or "Brett Abelman."

So what about “slightly biased?” Besides having strong opinions about performing arts, I must tell you, in full disclosure, that I am friendly or personally acquainted with a number of the people putting Fringe shows on, so you may question my judgment of those shows. Throughout this guide, any show title I mark with a (*) is one that has a personal acquaintance of mine in its cast or crew. Full disclosure complete.

But enough about me. Before we get to the guide itself, let me direct you to the Capital Fringe website and the ticket purchase website. Between the two, you can get the show listings organized by almost any heading – genre, age-appropriateness, venue, time, etc. Also, the Fringe folks will probably include in the official program, like they did last year, a general ‘guide’ to Fringegoing – transportation, ticketing, and how to handle those Fringe buttons. The ticket website, on the other hand, contains not only the ticket information, but the official blurbs from the artists themselves. (Beware – the listings on the Fringe site do not precisely match the Theatermania listings – some shows are listed only on one, not the other.) Go to those sites for that more cut-and-dry and from-the-horse’s-mouth information, because I will not be attempting to duplicate the official efforts in any way, although I will quote and link to them often. No, friend, my guide will be much more opinionated and, I hope, helpful when it comes to making decisions on shows to see.

The Guide begins in the three blog posts below:

Part One, The Seven Kinds of Fringe Shows
Part Two, Show-Picking Methodology
Part Three, Package Deals