Doubleplusgood World Premiere of "QBF"

Tickets Going Fast for Remaining Shows

The world premiere of The Quick Brown Fox Jumped over the Lazy Dogs was a tremendous success at the Capital Fringe Festival this weekend, with full houses on Saturday and Sunday. The show received an incredibly astute review in the Washington City Paper.

In the 13 varied vignettes that wry writer Michael Merino has alertly assembled ... the uses, misuses, abuses, disabuses, ruses, muses, tenses and tensions of language and its rocky on-again off-again relationship with the truth are explored and exploded for our entertainment and edification.

Brett Abelman
Fringe and Purge - posted July 19, 2009
Digests from the Capital Fringe Festival

Don't miss this thought-provoking political satire on language and communication. The future of democracy and "truthiness" depends upon your participation.

When and Where

- Friday, July 24 @ 9:30 pm
- Saturday, July 25 @ 9:30 pm
- Sunday, July 26 @ Noon

Ticket Information
Redrum @ Fort Fringe
612 L Street NW, Washington, DC

Tickets are $15 can be purchased at www.capitalfringe.org
or by calling 866-811-4111.

Cast and Crew

Carlos Bustamante as Stage Directions

Melissa-Leigh Bustamante as Woman 2

Jason Lott* as Man 1

Brent Lowder as Man 2

Michael Merino as Playwright

Kerri Rambow as Director

Elizabeth M. Richards* as Woman 2

April Whaley as Stage Manager

(*Appearing courtsey of Actors' Equity Association)

Click here for more information about the production.
This production presented as part of the 2009 Capital Fringe Festival.

Five Characters in Search of Meaning at an Absurdist Linguistic Tea Party

The Quick Brown Fox Jumped over the Lazy Dogs will have its world premiere at the Capital Fringe Festival, July 18 - 26.

Written by Michael Merino and directed by Kerri Rambow, this funny, political satire about language and intent explores how we communicate and mis-underestimate each other. Guided by works of Lewis Carroll and Donald Rumsfeld and inspired by messages of fear and hope, the play reveals the “sub” and “con” of “text.”

When:
- Saturday July 18 @ 2:45pm
- Sunday July 19 @ Noon
- Friday July 24 @ 9:30pm
- Saturday July 25 @ 9:30pm
- Sunday July 26 @ Noon

Where:
Redrum - at Fort Fringe
612 L Street NW, Washington DC

Tickets can be purchased at:
607 New York Avenue, Washington, DC
or online at http://www.capfringe.org/fringe-festival.html

This production presented as part of the 2009 Capital Fringe Festival.

Pluto: Dog or Planet - You Decide

What gives, man? There I was, just sitting there. Actually just tilting there, 17 degrees with respect to the plane of the solar system, minding my own business, checking out Neptune's back side. And I get this call from the International Astronomical Union. I thought the same thing -- who? "You've been downsized," they tell me. "You are no longer a planet."

Huh? You kidding me. I'll be the first to admit I am kinda tiny. So what if I am smaller than the Moon. And Io. And Europa. Okay, I admit it. I am smaller than Ganymede, Callisto, Titan, and Triton as well. So what? It's the motion in the Milky Way that counts, right?

And yes, I like the fermented Tang, and sometimes have an irregular orbit, weaving into Neptune, making him the ninth planet at times. Rules are made to be broken. Tell it to those heliocentrists, Copernicus.

Now my major concern is the kids. Pluto is always thinking about the kids. They're the future, you know. How are they gonna remember the planets now. The mnemonic device is just gonna go: My Very Educated Mother Just Sat Upon Nine .... "Nine what?" Timmy is gonna ask. It aint right. It doesn't make any sense.

Come on people. Throw Pluto a bone here. Write your congressmen or astronaut. Heck, write John Glenn -- he's both. Save yourself a stamp. See, Pluto is full of ideas. Just saved you 42 cents.

Save Pluto.
He's good for astronomy.
Good for the galaxy.

25 Things You Didn't Know About Me

1. Guilty pleasure: Smiting people.

2. I had another universe once that was so much better than this one. But I got really wasted one night and lost it in a game of craps. :( I'm never doing that again.

3. In my old universe, the really cool one, the dominant species was a race of hyper-intelligent beetles. It was so cool. Unfortunately, when I lost that universe, I also lost the beetles-as-master-race patent, so now I have to settle for primates.

4. I picked up this universe at a 50%-off sale. I thought I was getting a bargain. But as soon as I took it out of the box at home, I figured out why: space and time are both a bit bent in places, and most of the mass is missing. I wish I had saved the receipt.

Content stolen from:

Moses is Departing Egypt: A Facebook Haggadah

Stop Taking My Coffee Mug

Someone keeps taking my coffee mug at work. I need to get a mug that says something like "World's Greatest Pederast" to keep people from using it.

I went to the the NAMBLA website to see if they have an online store. The site was black and ominous and only had a field where you enter a password. I tried "scout leader," "priest," "limbaugh." Nothing seemed to work.

I picked up the phone and called a guy in programming and asked for his password. At first he pretended to not know what NAMBLA was. Reluctantly he suggested "entrapment."

Smell the Hell

Fans of writing about New Orleans but not about Katrina will dazzle at the news of Brett Evans' new collection of poetry, Slosh Models, a gathering of ten mini-"books" [think: Spicer's Book of Magazine Verse] which capture the sights and sounds and smells -- heavy on the smells -- of the Crescent City and other places, like To Hell And Back, with winsome excursions into the worlds of pornography and the Iroquois [not to be confused with the popular genre of "Iroquois porn"].

Available by check of $14 (includes s & h) from the author at:

Brett Evans

3331 Dumaine Street

New Orleans, LA 70119-3910

Also available from Small Press Distribution.

"Maybe" at the Lincoln Theatre

The Emerging Playwrights Competition has recently named Maybe, a short play by Michael Merino, as a winner in their inaugural competition. Along with four other works, the play will receive a staged reading at the historic Lincoln Theatre on Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 7PM.

Merino’s play addresses the impossibility of clear and precise communication. The work involves two actors (Man and Woman), whose only words are "yes" and "no," respectively. An additional character called Stage Directions provides guidance regarding inflection and the actors' movements.

The work will be presented along with Line Two is for You by Sharon E. Moore, Bread by Randy Gross, Moral Support by Dean Poynor, and Firefly by Amanda F. Healy. All plays will be directed by theater veteran Eric Ruffin and performed by a cast of professional actors. Ruffin is the founder of The Acting Studio at the Newark School of the Arts, a professional training program in acting, and is the Founder and Artistic Director for the Newark Youth Ensemble, Newark, NJ.

The performance at the Lincoln Theater is free, but reservations through the box office are required by calling 202-328-6000 or via email at rsvp@thelincolntheatre.org.

About the Lincoln Theatre:
The historic Lincoln Theatre is a non profit performing arts venue located in the vibrant U Street district and managed by the U Street Theatre Foundation. Originally a vaudeville theatre and movie house open in the 1920s, the “Jewel on U” has reopened as DC’s National Theatre and a cultural crossroads where diverse and stimulating entertainment programming is offered.