Capital Fringe: Godiva Dates and One Night Stands

– by guest writer Matt Ripa –

This year Doorway Arts Ensemble is producing Godiva Dates & One Night Stands at the Capital Fringe Festival. This production marks our third trip to Fringe. Previously, we produced Herbie: Poet of the Wild West and Sex and Education.  Our latest offering is a a detour from our usual fare.

Godiva Dates & One Night Stands is Regie Cabico’s latest spoken word play, chronicling his encounters with poet stalkers, Canadian Thanksgiving, sextings and astrological whimsy. Trying not to have his life turn into a Barbra Streisand movie, Regie is on an eternal mission to get his groove back. The performance features spoken word poetry intertwined with storytelling to bring the audience a truly one of a kind experience. We are very excited about the opportunity to work with Regie and bring his work to the audiences at Capital Fringe.

If you have not encountered the fabulosity that is Regie Cabico, then you have missed out. Regie is a gem of the spoken word and slam poetry scene. He can be seen every Monday at his show La-Ti-Do at Black Fox Lounge. He also performs and hosts an open mic at Busboys and Poets called Sparkle.

I read his poetry when I was younger – his work is published in over 40 anthologies including Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café, Spoken Word Revolution & The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. I also watched him perform first on two seasons of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. So I was floored when I got to work with him We became friends when producing the DC Queer Theatre Festival.

As I was searching for a new and innovative performance for this year’s Fringe, Regie was the first person to come to mind. I think audiences will relate to Regie’s stories about one night stands and be touched by his craftsmanship with words.

I recently became Producing Artistic Director of Doorway Arts Ensemble,and want to bring a new voice to the local mix and look not just at traditional “plays,” but at performance as a whole. I want to give voice to the writers in the area who are writing all types of performances. I think that we often overlook spoken work and poetry and its ability to weave an intricate story and captivate and audience. I hope to bring more spoken word performance to the DC area and to highlight work by local artists.

This production is presented as a part of the 2013 Capital Fringe Festival, a program of the Washington, DC non-profit Capital Fringe.

— Guest writer Matt Ripa is the Producing Artistic Director of  Doorway Arts Ensemble and Co-Producer of the DC Queer Theatre Festival. He is also a freelance theatre artist, who, most recently, has directed for Forum Theatre and Pinky Swear Productions.

Fringe Peeks is part of our ‘in their own words’ series.