Fringe Benefits

The DC Fringe Festival is almost over, and my volunteering time is done. For each time that you volunteer you get a chip that you can turn in to get a free ticket to a show. Two of my chips I used last night to see a play that someone I work with was acting in – Thinking Under the Influence. The room that the play was held in was seriously no larger than a small master bedroom, and they managed to shove in there about 50 folding chairs for an audience and leave about 3 feet for the actors to work with. I mean we were really crammed into that room – it was about as edgy and small-time as you could get, as if someone decided to put on a show in her efficiency apartment, with no air conditioner, and fifty people showed up. And then add the 11 or so actors in the play . . .

The play was only an hour long and was pretty good – my only complaint was that the ending was rather abrupt. No one was quite sure that it was actually over when it ended and people just sort of sat puzzled for a few minutes. My workmate did a fine job, although it wasn’t a very good showcase of his acting – his role, while not small, was sort of cancelled out by the other ten actors.

Tonight we are going to see another short play, using up the other two volunteer chips that I had. This one is a comedy about how male friendships change over the course of the college years through the twenties. I gave Mr. Random several options and this was the play he picked. I actually was somewhat interested in seeing the Sahara Dance Company’s Belly Dancing performance, since I haven’t seen belly dancing live before, outside of a Moroccan restaurant, and I thought it would be fun and might inspire me to take some belly dancing classes or something. But, when I broached the idea by Mr. Random, he seemed less than enthused. I’ll just have to seek them out another time . . .

I’m so glad I got involved in the festival this year and I hope that I’ll get to help out again next year if it happens again. The response seemed to be quite favorable to the whole event, and many of the shows were sold out, or close to it.

The only problem that will have to be worked out next year is the whole issue of late seating. Even though it says quite clearly that we won’t seat anyone once a performance starts, I’ve had to deal with too many irate people demanding to be let into a performance late, because they ran into traffic or whatever and they already paid for the tickets. While I understand that traffic sucks around here, it is not fair to either the performers or to the audience who actually arrived early or on time to have to disrupt a performance just to find latecomers seats. Especially in the smaller venues, where latecomers can break a performer’s concentration and basically ruin the show. Just because you bought a ticket doesn’t mean that you can be nasty to people just because you came late. People just feel so entitled! And the shows are less than and hour long, so if you’ve missed 15 to 20 minutes, you’ve pretty much missed most of it anyway. Can you tell I’m way upset about this?

On a random side note, my hair is just a constant big ball of frizz and it is driving me just batty. I can’t complain though – DC in the summer means H-U-M-I-D-I-T-Y to go along with the 90 degree days. Southern California may not have this horrible humidity, but it doesn’t have the pretty greens either . . .

Another random side note: I think the Today Show is much better with the rotating hosts. I was never a real Katie fan. I especially love Campbell Brown and David Gregory together . . . I guess I have an affection for them because they were White House Correspondents and I have actually been lucky enough to meet them and hear them speak.

Yet another random side note: I guessed right on which famous boy band member was gay . . . I called that one a long time ago . . .