Before making my way up to the Gallery at the Goethe Institut for Red Knight Productions’ sketch comedy show Smellin’ Up The Den, I was honestly surprised by how diverse an audience they had brought in on their opening night. Young and old, first-time Fringers and seasoned pros, the whole gamut.

If you loved choose-your-own-adventure stories as a kid, Lore is the show for you.

Violent Delights: A Shakespearean Brawl-esque Sideshow is the first creation of the new company Off the Quill. It’s an ambitious undertaking, particularly for a brand new group, and their enthusiasm is much appreciated.

The Black-Jew Dialogues, presented by Mabel and Esther Productions, is first and foremost an educational piece. Like most productions of its kind, it attempts to straddle the line between entertaining and informative. Facts, figures and a bit of fun. Unfortunately, in this case, there was a bit too much of the former and a lack […]

Misfortune, misfits, and mis-direction. All plague the “D.C. State Players” and as Tonee Bollocks (a.k.a. Tony Bollocks), the “Director,” leans toward the audience, he pontificates, “the best laid plans of mice and men… ” “…are like sands through the hourglass,” finishes Gabriel Sweetbottom, (a.k.a. Gabriel Swee) the “Producer.” Laughter sounds, and three minutes in, it’s […]

There’s a racket ascending on New York Avenue over the debut buzz of Fringe Festival, and the happy hour buzz of Baldacchino Gypsy Tent Bar. There are bass and guitar riffs and crash rides, and voices who want to know one thing:  Who are you? Cabaret XXXY is making a gorgeously musical racket, and they’re […]

Blind Pug Arts Collective’s remount of Naomi Iizuka’s dark and gritty Polaroid Stories delivers a gut-punch of love lost, violence, homelessness and addiction.  Sure, it will kill your buzz and ruin your date night.  Sometimes good theater does. And Polaroid Stories is brutally good.

“Am I going to Heaven? Can we, with what we’ve done? I’ve put a check in every damn box, but I know that doesn’t change the past.”

Characters in musicals break out into song when they cannot contain their feelings any longer, when they are experiencing such overwhelming passion that an eruption of music is the only way to accurately convey the depth of emotion they are experiencing. According to The Snuff Musical, when are emotions the most passionate? Why, right before […]

Some Fringe shows grab their audiences with techniques that are humorous or shocking, others move in more mysterious ways. The Clocks belongs in this “other” category. Both spare and surrealist it unfolds at a meticulous pace.

James Judd is that guy you meet at a party and end up spending the whole night listening to and laughing with in a corner. In Funny Stories 2, the second edition of his first showing at last year’s Capital Fringe, that party is Caos on F.

Rosemary is a prickly herb that makes its presence known, announcing itself boldly wherever it shows up. Ginger, in a similar way, is another assertive flavor that’s impossible to ignore. And so it’s appropriate that Tiger’s Blood Theater’s production of Rosemary with Ginger presents the clash of two sisters who share a common past and […]