The ninth Capital Fringe Festival is a mere 18 hours away. As we have for eight Capital Fringe Festivals past, back when we were known as Fringe & Purge, the Washington City Paper has assembled a discerning, personable, dynamic, and almost dangerously attractive corps of journalists, theater-makers, and other highly specialized hyphenate gadflies in a noble if Sisyphean attempt to capture as much of the vast and unknowable, 140-ish-show diaspora of Fringe as can be collected in a single blog.

Please allow us to introduce ourselves; we are women and men of modest wealth but unimpeachable taste. (Assuming you are partial to the taste of human flesh.)

You will hold your applause until the entire Fringeworthy Action News & Commentary Squad has taken the field. Meet us now!

Brett Steven Abelman is a local playwright whose work has been seen at Rorschach Klecksography, Kennedy Center Page-to-Stage, eXtreme eXchange, in self-productions at Capital Fringe, and more, and who co-moderates the DC-Area Playwrights Group. This year, he is writing and producing Balloon Plays at Fringe. Follow him at @babelwright.

Lauren Alexander is an arts administrator in D.C. and executive director of Blind Pug Arts Collective. She loves, well, pugs, avocados, and the color chartreuse. This is Lauren’s second time reviewing Fringe shows for Fringeworthy. Follow her at @lauren_alexand.

Greg Benson is happy to return for his fourth Capital Fringe Festival, after writing for and acting in a couple of other ones here and there. He works at Bluejacket Brewery in southeast DC but has decided to take some time off in July to absorb his annual dose of culture.

Lindsey Boyle likes food, theater, tacos, working, sarcasm, and spending too much time on the Internet. This is her fourth year with Fringeworthy. Follow her at @aria072 (or don’t).

Marshall Bradshaw is a first-time Fringeworthy contributor. If you see him looking faint, he did not adequately prepare for the lack of air conditioning and will either learn better for Year Two or perish, in accordance with the Capital Fringe circle of life. But until the D.C. heat takes him, you can find him working for Science‘s press office, defending the Oxford comma at alchemicalspill.wordpress.com, and deciphering cryptic messages in Bitly URLs. Follow him @dmarshallb.

Sophia Bushong has done almost every job in theater at some point, but has a soft spot for the prop shop and acting. At 18, she was cast as the shortest Helena in the history of Shakespearean rom coms. Since then she’s played everything from a number of the Bard’s queens, to the Angel in America, to a stray Labradoodle named Sylvia. On the rare occasions that her eight-month-old allows, she contributes blog posts to the Washington City Paper about theatrical goings-on around town. She has previously written for nytheatre.com. This is her fifth year writing for Fringeworthy. Follow her at @sophialefay.

Joshua Buursma is a writer, teacher, and sometime actor living in Washington, D.C.  He is a member of Baltimore’s EMP Collective, with whom he curates the Odd Tuesdays Cineclub in total compliance with U.S. copyright law.  He also holds an MFA from the University of Michigan.  As penance for 20 years’ worth of sins as a student writer, he teaches writing at George Washington University and the University of Maryland.  He tried his best not to write a twee, predictably self-deprecating/self-aggrandizing bio here, with admittedly mixed results.  This is his first year writing for Fringeworthy. You should follow him at @joshuabuursma.

Christina Cauterucci is the Washington City Paper’s arts editor. She interned at NPR Arts Desk before that; she’s also been a digital media fellow for the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies and wrote for the Georgetown Independent while an undergrad there. She’s also the D.C. editor for Where the Girls Go, a local blog about queer culture. She earned a master’s in journalism at Georgetown while working as an editor for the university’s website and magazine. Follow her @portmantina.

Camila Domonoske spends her days turning radio stories into Internet stories and hunts down Oxford commas like she’s on safari. She’d like to note that in this metaphor, Oxford commas are majestic lions and lions aren’t even a little bit endangered. This is her second year pinning on the Fringe button to take beer-stained, sweat-soaked notes for Fringeworthy. You can find her thoughts about poetry, bikes, baking and cat videos on Twitter at @camilareads and on tumblr at camilashares.

Jonathan L. Fischer is the managing editor of Washington City Paper. One day he’ll finish his one-man Fringe show about a self-doubting serial comma. Follow him at @jon_fischer.

Eva Harder is a speechwriter and ghostwriter by day (because ghosts are too scary at night) and part-time grad student. Last summer, she interned in public radio, so she’s excited to once again 1) have a byline and 2) be working (mostly) for free. Eva is also a former fellow at the Center for Media and Social Impact, where she interviewed filmmakers about midwives, the drug war in Mexico and soul food—which were all, shockingly, unrelated. A native Texan, Eva will be bringing two guns to every show: her left arm and her right arm. Follow her at @HarderNews (just don’t follow her home).

Caroline Jones is Fringeworthy’s resident scheduler and blogger-herder, and the City Lights editor at the Washington City Paper. In addition to experimental theater, she also reviews sandwiches for the Washington City Paper. Follow her at @caroline_jones_.

Chris Klimek has edited the Blog Formerly Known as Fringe & Purge since the very fifth Capital Fringe Festival back in 2010. He writes about theater and other stuff year-round for the Washington City Paper. He is a regular contributor to The Dissolve, The Village Voice, and to NPR’s pop culutre blog, Monkey See, and its companion podcast, Pop Culture Happy Hour. His writing also turns up in the Washington Post, Slate, Smithsonian Air & Space, and The Atlantic. He is the proud creator, somewhat qualified host, and way-out-of-his-depth producer of The Fringe Casting Counch, formerly known as the Fringe & Purgecast. He tweets at @ctklimek, archives his writing at chrisklimek.net, and sweats all over the place.

Rachel Kurzius is a radio producer living in Petworth and this is her second consecutive year contributing to Fringeworthy. Though generally quick to laugh, she refuses to entertain jokes about her home state of New Jersey. She has worked as a television producer and analyst, advice columnist, weekly newspaper editor, critic, doula, and debater. She, perhaps incorrectly, takes full credit for restaurants adopting her practice of cracking eggs on top of literally any kind of food. You can follow her on Twitter  at@curious_kurz.

Hazel Lozano is a victim of the Thespo-plasma gondii variety acting bug, if there is such a thing. She can be found frequenting any theater venue that will have her, and even some that won’t (classic Thespoplasmosis!). When not on stage, Hazel thinks about it while setting up PCRs, tweets about it @atypicalhaze, and now, writes about it with the beer-chugging rabble at Fringeworthy! Hazel will be on stage at Anacostia Playhouse later this month, playing Tina in The Campsite Rule with Rachel Manteuffel and the Washington Rogues.

Rachel Manteuffel works and writes for the Washington Post, except for right now when she’s writing for Fringeworthy. This is the first Capital Fringe since 2007 she’s missing out on as an actor, to do The Campsite Rule with the Washington Rogues (opens July 23!) and her third year giving Klimek crap in the Fringecast. Whatever, journalism. Follow her at @rachelman2.

Daniel Parisi is a writer, comedian, and college student living in College Park, Md. He is the creator and host of The Bureau Podcast (available on iTunes) and does jokes on Twitter at @Danny_Parisi_.

Valerie Paschall is a focus-deficient overachiever, which clearly makes her an ideal Fringe blogger. She previewed some of Fringe’s clutch music acts in 2013, so expect more (more, more!) of the same this year…at least when she’s not neck-deep in reviewing the festival’s more comedic offerings. She’s the editor of real estate/development website Curbed DC and a lifer at DCist where she served as music editor from 2010-2013. You may have also seen her work on WAMU, Dusted or Arts Desk, where she has interviewed the likes of Megan Mullally and Hannibal Buress. When not disseminating her musical opinions for the masses or interviewing funny people, she spends her nights trying to get disinterested and uptight bar patrons to laugh, dammit. Trivia: She also made a brief appearance in one (and only one) Fringe performance as a tour guide in 2012.

Joseph Price is returning for his second year with Fringeworthy. He is grizzled festival veteran with credits spread across a half-dozen productions including The Sin Show, e-Geaux (beta), and his one-man show, Operating System. He also produced 2009’s Hopelessly Devoted, a little seen Catholic comedy that, combined with Baldacchino bar tabs, put him thousands of dollars in the red for all things Capital Fringe. He also helped create Capital Fringe’s aesthetically pleasing and easy-to-use website. Follow him at @josephprice.

Cara Lea Shockley trained as an actor at the now defunct Weber-Douglas Academy in London, and remains an ardent amateur who has performed in Commedia Dell’Arte as well as Shakespeare plays and musicals. Most of the time, she’s an informed and enthusiastic audience member who loves music, performance, poetry, and dance. She works for the D.C. government and spent two years as an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner.

Ryan S. Taylor is artistic director of the Washington Rogues. Along with several Capital Fringe shows for the Rogues, Ryan has produced and directed for companies including Arena Stage, Rorschach, The Source Festival, Solas Nua. He is currently producing Fringe favorite playwright Alexandra Petri’s The Campsite Rule for the Rogues, opening July 23 at the Anacostia Playhouse. Follow him on Twitter at @RSTStatusReport.

Jonelle Walker has a notable affection for Texas, skulls, and whiskey (in that order). She pronounces her name JUH-nel, but accepts JOE-nel, JON-el, and HO-nel (if you’re sassy). By day, she works at the Kennedy Center. By night, she is a playwright and serves as the literary manager of Blind Pug Arts Collective. You can tweet her at @JonelleLWalker and read her thoughts, musings, and somesuch at lilithsside.wordpress.com.