District Fringe 2: District Fringer

Clockwise from left: Highly expressive District Fringe folk Tracey Erbacher, Marshall Bradshaw, Aubri O’Connor, Sophia Menconi, Hope Gundlah, Karen Lange, Marley Kabin. (Alan Kayanan/District Fringe)

I was on the Capital Fringe beat for so many years that I had to step away for a while. But when the summertime #DCtheatre institution announced in Jan. 2025 that it it would end, and a trio of Fringe veterans stepped into the breach to create the successor festival District Fringe, I was elated. As District Fringe enters its second year, I sweated it out for CityCast DC.

No Scrubs, No Skips: "CrazySexyCool," reviewed for CityCast DC

Holli’ Gabrielle Conway, Jade Milan and Stoney B. Woods as T-Boz, Left Eye and Chilli in CrazySexyCool. (Julieta Cervantes)

My review of CrazySexyCool is my first for CityCast DC, where I’ll be contributing regularly, I’m glad to say. The TL:DR on the new TLC show is that music and dancing are great, while director / book writer Kwame Kwei-Armah deploys his artistic license to compress and dramatize the pioneering Atlanta girl-group’s saga in some confounding ways. Considering that all of this history has been told not just in documentaries like 2024’s TLC Forever, but in name-naming dramatizations like the 2013 TV movie CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story, I didn’t get why so many easily identified figures get pseudonyms here — including longtime TLC manager Bill Diggins, who produced the musical!

As the end of the opening-night performance June 26, Diggins joined TLC’s two surviving members, Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins and Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas, on-stage to congratulate the cast and crew. In show, Diggins is called “Danny.” He’s played by DC actor Aaron Bliden, whose castmates turned to salute him after the real Chilli quipped to Diggins during their post-show remarks, “I didn’t know you could sing.”

Weird! But those two-dozen TLC bangers still bang.