Capital Fringe: From Godot to Trump

One hundred-plus productions and shows, embracing all sorts of entertainment in all sorts of venues, running all the way through the last day of the month … Ladies and Gentlemen, Meine Damen und Herren, we give you the 2016 edition of the Capital Fringe Festival, a new edition with familiar and unfamiliar tropes and in new digs.

We have jugglers, we have fairy tales, we have one-man shows and one-woman shows, we have Shakespeare shaken but not stirred, we have high dudgeon in low dungeons, we have the funnies and the willies, we have performing arts and performance art (and probably at least one performer named Art).

The festival takes place at the Atlas Performing Arts Center in the hot H Street Corridor, at the Flashpoint Theatre Lab, at Caos on F and at the Fringe Arts Bar Courtyard, part of the festival’s new space, the Logan Fringe Arts Space at 1358 Florida Ave. NE, which also includes the Trinidad Theatre.

From the dozens of productions, we’ve selected a few highlights. The selections are not meant to be critiques or denoters of quality — no stars or numbers system here — but rather projects of interest for reasons both particular and possibly perverse. Sometimes, it’s the title, sometimes the subject. Sometimes just because. (Sometimes the titles or the names of groups alone are worth the price: $17 plus a Fringe Button.)

For details, including a complete list of productions, visit capitalfringe.org. Can anyone see everything? It is said to have been done by someone…

Herewith, here we go:

**15 Villainous Fools** — The 601 Theatre sends up Shakespeare (lots of that in this festival) and his “Comedy of Errors” (maybe as close to burlesque as the Bard gets), with “Nerf guns, Goldfish, bike chains and a camera tripod.” Rap and puppetry included.

**22 Boom!** — You won’t fall asleep in this one, an evening of short plays by Nu Sass Productions in the manner of the last-seen-at-Woolly-Mammoth “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.”

**Power! Stokely Carmichael** — The summer of 1966, presented by playwright Meshaun Labrone.

**Adolescence 2.0** — Former Santa Cruz Fringe Festival Director Dixie Lee Mills offers her take on weight loss, pilates, shaving, masturbation and internet dating, plus love and transformation.

**Aliens, Nazi and Angels** — An unholy trinity story by Leah Harris riffs on a childhood that includes discovering John Waters films in an adolescent mental institution.

**A Midsummer’s Burlesque Dream** — From Burlesque Classique, the Bard again, with burlesque, singing and dancing.

**Better a Witty Fool** — More fools, from the gamely titled Falstaff Productions and Bucharest Inside the Beltway, in which Falstaff manages Titania’s bid for the presidency. How would that be as a ticket: Titania/Trump?

**Brownie and Lolli Go to Hollywood** — Two Drunk Nuns Productions (aha) presents a show in which a broke song and dance duo becomes TV stars (aha).

**Concrete Devotion** — The Motion X Dance DC company offers contemporary movement, accented by abstract visuals, exploring the tension between relationship and career. Not Arthur Miller, but movement.

**Confederates** — July 22, 1861, Northern Virginia. The Union hovers on the edge of defeat. James F. Bruns imagines a different story than the one we know, obviously.

**Cracked** — From the Rude Mechanicals of Fredericksburg, a saga of “one man motorcycle gang” Willie Brown and his meeting with Gale McDonald.

**Dial R For Robot** — From Djesben, a reboot of the classic Hitchcocker “Rope” by way of “Blade Runner” for “I, Robot” fans.

**Hello/Brother** — Two thrillers in one presented by Annexus Theatre Company.

**Hunt** — A show by Jean P. Bordewich about one senator’s battle against Senator Joe McCarthy during the 1950s witch hunts.

**Let Trump Be Trump** — Already a Trump play? In this work by John Krizel, Trump is presented as our 45th president, struggling to make America great again.

**Love in the Ruins** — Outside of GALA Hispanic Theatre, the only place you might catch a play set in the 1930s Spanish Civil War, brought to you by El Toro Theatre.

**Macbeth in the Basement** — More Bard, from Dodgeball Theatre, as a game played by a 16-year-old.

**One Mutual Happiness** — From the Uncle Funsy Productions, about marriage, couples, cellos, chimes, drums, prayer bowls and a ceremony.

**Paul Gonsalves on the Road** — Duke Ellington’s saxophonist is the focus of Lena Productions’ play, in which he gives himself a master class in jazz while fighting for his job. A jazzy show about jazz with jazz players.

**Petunia and Chicken** — From Animal Engine, a love story inspired by, of all writers, Willa Cather, with a hat and a scarf and a song.

**Poe, Times Two** — From Guillotine Theatre (previously known as the Georgetown Theatre Company): “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Black Cat.”

**Rain Follows the Plow** — A big musical about the dust bowl from Steve Coffee with a host of Americana musicians.

**Reflecting Antigone** — Presented by the Rude Mechanicals, set in the Baltimore uprising and ancient Egypt.

**The Elephant in the Room** — Right Brain Performancelab about (you guessed it) the elephant in the room.

**Waiting for Godot** — From the Imperial Theatre Live, for all of those of us still waiting and hoping and always glad to see the play by Samuel Beckett.