Interview with Julianne Brienza, Executive Director of the Capital Fringe Festival

By Joe Flood on Dec 08, 2009 | Add a Comment (0)

Julianne Brienza

Every summer, the Capital Fringe Festival fills the streets of Washington with fun, challenging, exasperating and riotously entertaining performing arts. Topless swordplay, a singing Elephant Man, escaped monkeys, gospel choirs, Irish authors held hostage, banjo-playing jamborees, dancing in the street and more one-person confessionals than seems possible. This isn’t people Twittering or wryly commenting – these are live performers sweating, cursing, shouting and singing just inches in front of you.

The Fringe Festival, with its small spaces and cheap ticket prices, has an inescapable immediacy to it. Like it or hate it, you will have a reaction. With more than 600 performances over a couple weeks, it’s like a buffet of the new and outlandish.

More than 20,000 people attended Fringe last summer, drawn to its warren of theaters along New York Avenue. Fringe has its own devotees, who go to everything, but the festival has been a hit among “non-traditional audiences” – those who like PBR with their musicals and don’t want to wear a tie to see Hamlet.

It takes a three person staff, a passionate 12-member board, an ever expanding advisory board, 12 venue owners, 30 plus festival staff, more than 200 artists groups, thousands of individual artists and technicians, and hundreds of volunteers to pull of the Capital Fringe Festival. At the vortex of this storm is Julianne Brienza, Executive Director of the festival. Running a festival like this is not something you can train for – or can you? Pink Line recently interviewed Julianne about how she got involved in this unique event.

Why does Washington need a Fringe Festival?

DC is full of companies, institutions and individuals that curate and filter the performing arts. They tell audiences what value is, and communicate to many artists that their story/work does not quite fit. Having a festival in DC that does not make judgments or have an artistic mission like a theatre company – but simply gives artists a platform to be independent self-producers – is key to telling the story of the performing arts in the city. Also, since Fringe is a worldwide community it opens many doors to local artists to touring festivals around the USA, Canada and Europe. We have had many local Fringe artists who created their shows in our festival tour the Fringe circuit nationally and internationally. That is pretty cool and good for the city – it communicates to a national and international audience that DC has a strong local performing arts community.

Are DC audiences different from audiences in other cities? Do they respond differently?

Our audiences are quite varied in ages, races and economic class. Sometimes when I go to shows, I position myself so I can watch the audience. Most of our houses are small and the light spills onto their faces… I love seeing people so engaged, not just interacting with those they came with but strangers as well. Our festival survey showed that 30% of respondents met three new people. That is awesome. The Fringe audience is also an adventurous one. They like seeing shows in the venues we create and exploring different parts of the city. They also seem to be really getting into the adrenaline rush of seeing multiple shows in a day. In 2009, 20% of Fringe-goers saw four or more shows and 15% saw more than ten.

Why did you decide to start the Capital Fringe Festival?

Well, back in 2005, Damian Sinclair and I began talking about it….and kept talking and then the whole thing just snowballed. At the same time at my “day-job” I was beginning to put together the Mead Theatre Lab program… and it just seemed like it was apparent that creating a platform for artists to produce was the path for me.

Honestly, a real defining moment for me was during the 2006 Fringe… we had just gotten the majority of our sound and light equipment and were driving down New York Avenue in a 25 foot truck…literally had to pull on to the sidewalk because we really didn’t know what to do with it all. It was in that moment, I realized that this thing was big and that people looked to me for answers and to take responsibility.

What's your background? Did you ever imagine that you would one day do something so crazy?

I grew up in a small town in Montana. Many in my family are artists so I have always had the arts in my life. I was in my first play when I was three. All through high school I worked at the local vaudeville theatre as an actress. I graduated from college with a major in theatre performance and two minors sculpture and philosophy. So, I was not really sure what to do after college.

I tried to sell my artwork while living in my sister’s basement in Chicago. I ended up moving to Iowa, working at a small paper as a graphic designer and running a political campaign for a man running for the state legislature…. it was sometime around when we lost the election that I began questioning if I was using my degree and what I was actually doing. I applied for apprenticeships at many theatres all over the country and got hired over the phone by the Arden Theatre Company. I began my apprenticeship and moved to Philadelphia in 2000. I learned a lot about how to run and start a theater company. After my apprenticeship, I worked many, many places: 1812 Productions, Philly Fringe, Mum Puppettheatre, Spiral Q and even spent a summer up in Vermont at what I like to call ‘puppet boot camp’. My time in Philly and at the Arden was essentially my grad school.

I moved to DC in 2003 after I got a job at the Cultural Development Corporation. I had come down to Washington a year or so before to attend Kurt Varnedoe’s final lecture series Picture of Nothing at the National Gallery. Those lectures were amazing and I was really struck by the city and how it was in the beginning stage of being reborn. Looking back at the visit, I could not of imagined that I would be doing what I am doing today. I had always had the goal to start an artist colony somewhere – where people could come to stay and create new work. I never thought I would be doing something in such an urban environment or live on the East Coast for this long. I am continually inspired and energized with artists and developers in DC. I feel very blessed to have journeyed here.

What's the biggest challenge you've run into with Fringe?

What hasn’t been? There have been so many challenges over the past five years, from personal to professional, some comical and some rather painful. At the end of the 2007 Festival, I took on the role of Executive Director, which means I shoulder fundraising and running the business. I juggle a lot in managing the business of Fringe. I am sometimes too obsessed with our cash flow report. It is very important to me that Fringe remains a sustainable business.

A big part of that is to keep us from becoming an institution too quickly. At the festival last year, I had many tell me that Fringe was now an institution. DC can be a tricky place when it comes to institutions. When you think of DC arts institutions, it usually conjures up images of bricks and mortar. I am trying to keep us as nomadic as possible. We need to be able to react to our ever-evolving city and not be tied down by anything.

I had someone say to me last year that they were confused that we kept changing. They were referring to our image and brand for the festival each year. Now, they did not mean this as a compliment – but it was awesome to me! We very much view ourselves like we’re a band and each year we release a new album. So, of course the image will change but the core is always the same.

Do you think Fringe has inspired people in this city? How so?

Yes, I really do think so – and in the right way. I think a lot of artists and just regular folks who may have relied upon someone or something that they perceived as more powerful than they are, no longer wait for approval… they just do what they believe in. I have said from the beginning that the Fringe is not the important thing… it is what it inspires people to do outside of the festival.

What’s next for Fringe? Is it becoming a year-round festival? Will it stay in Mount Vernon Square?

The festival is just one of Capital Fringe’s programs. It just happens to be rather large… so folks may not be familiar or aware that we have been a year-round organization since 2006. In 2010, you will see a growth in our Training Factory program in both shows and workshops that we will produce at Fort Fringe, and in our Producer Youth-Led program we’re currently running with our partner Sasha Bruce. As far as where we will be physically, we moved into Fort Fringe two years ago, after being in my group house, coffee shops, Flashpoint and the fourth floor of a gym. We will probably be at Fort Fringe through the 2011 Festival. After that, we will be where be where our city’s opportunities and chance takes us.

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