Central Virginia Fringe Festival
Central Virginia Fringe Festival (CVFF) - June 13-20, 2026
Endstation Theatre Company at Randolph College’s Central Virginia Fringe Festival is back! Any art lover living around Lynchburg knows how lucky we are. The depth of talented artists is incredible. The scope of organizations and supporters is diverse and active. We here at Endstation Theatre Company want to celebrate our amazing community! The Central Virginia Fringe Festival will be a week-long community celebration centered around theatrical works and performances, June 13-20. Groups of students, community members, and professionals will be performing 16 productions over 8 days! It will culminate in the world premiere opening of Good Birth, the smash hit Endstation original from the 2024 Playwright's Initiative Reading Festival.
Fringe Schedule
June 13-20, 2026
The Shows
failure: a love story by phillip dawkins - Glass theatre
You won’t want to miss this magical dramatic comedy exploring themes of love, loss, and time, directed by E. C. Glass Theatre Director Allison Daugherty, that won E. C. Glass High School the state’s highest theatre award at the Virginia Theatre Association (VTA) conference for the first time in 17 years, earning the opportunity to compete in the prestigious Southeastern Theatre Conference.
Saturday, June 13, 2026 - 7:00 pm - Smith Hall Theatre, Randolph College
Helen Keller Wasn’t Real — Created and performed by Becky Bondurant
English teacher and monologist Becky Bondurant, praised as a “virtuoso writer and storyteller” (DC Theater Arts), sets out to prove her students wrong after they claim Helen Keller “wasn’t real.” With the same frank humor and cerebral insight she brought to her critically acclaimed solo show Penis Envy, Becky tackles misinformation through the story of her mother’s hereditary blindness, a politically charged Facebook feud within her family, and a viral meme that leads her to uncover Helen Keller’s radical complexity. Helen Keller Wasn’t Real asks us how the stories we inherit keep us from seeing what’s right before our eyes.
Sunday, June 14th, 2026 - 5:00 pm - Smith Hall Theatre
Too fat to run — Eileen Tull
Three weeks before the Chicago Marathon, Eileen Tull gets a “concerned” email from a “concerned” acquaintance who is very “concerned” that she, fat as she is, plans on running the marathon. “What are you trying to prove?” they ask. In this funny, thought-provoking 60-minute show, Eileen Tull brings the audience along her marathon journey, skillfully weaving stories touching on sizeism, access, body image, disordered eating, sobriety, self-doubt, self-advocacy, self-love, and many, many miles.
Sunday, June 14th, 2026 - 8:00 pm, SMith Hall Theatre
talking a lot, a one woman cabaret — jane hirsch goldman
Syracuse University musical theater alum, Jane Hirsch Goldman, brings her one-woman cabaret to the CVFF! Don't miss some musical theatre classics seamlessly stitched together by Jane's undeniable wit and wordplay.
Monday, June 15th, 2026 - 5:00 pm, smith Hall theatre
Red by John Logan
The play centers on abstract painter Mark Rothko as he works on a major commission, grappling with artistic purpose, legacy, and the rise of new art movements that threaten his relevance. Through his volatile relationship with his assistant Ken, the play explores the tension between creation and destruction, control and vulnerability.
Directed by local theatre artist, Erin Foreman, as the culminating thesis for Randolph College's MFA in Theatre, RED by John Logan will be an ASL SHADOW INTERPRETED performance.
Monday, June 15th, 2025 - 8:00 pm, smith Hall theatre
the play he i wrote — Meaghan Wilson
The Play He I Wrote follows Abigail Hasapis, a struggling playwright who discovers one of her father’s forgotten works and claims it as her own. As her father’s mind fades and the play grows into something bigger than she expected, Abby’s deception unravels into a haunting reflection on authorship, legacy, and the blurred lines between creation and theft in the age of artificial intelligence and generated art.
Tuesday, June 16th, 2026 - 5:00 pm, smith Hall theatre
Rusk: A Comedy Special by Nik Narain
Nik Narain's "Rusk" is a one-hour, sharp-witted, clean, and science-infused stand-up comedy show that discusses LGBTQ+ South Asian youth experiences through a culmination of personal stories, science facts, and dad jokes.
Tuesday June 16th, 2026 - 8:00 pm, smith Hall theatre
the grief and the glory by Ethan Roberts
On the night before her execution, Anne Boleyn confronts betrayal, faith, and the cost of ambition. Across the stage, her daughter Elizabeth I prepares to ascend the throne of England.
Moving between the prison cell and the coronation chamber, The Grief and The Glory explores how history reshapes women—how queens are made, unmade, and remembered. Through intimate confrontations and choral lyricism, this play examines political survival, maternal legacy, and the dangerous intersection of love and power.
Wednesday June 17th, 2026 - 5:00 pm, smith Hall
No Spring Chicken by Ginna Hoben — performed by Stephanie Holladay Earl
All Jenn wants is a baby. Easier said than done, since she's forty and the medical industry seems to take every opportunity to remind her of her waning fertility. When her pregnancy test finally comes back positive, Jenn's delighted and prepares a detailed birth plan for the baby's arrival. Will she be able to stick to it when faced with new problems and conflicting information at every turn? No Spring Chicken is a hilarious and honest show about one woman's quest for motherhood. Come see Endstation Artistic Director, Stephanie Holladay Earl, bring another hilarious one-woman show to life in this limited run.
Wednesday, June 17th, 2026 - 7:30 pm, Wimberley Recital Hall
Thursday, June 18th, 2026 - 7:30 pm, Wimberley Recital Hall
to lights, camera, action…with love by Nicci T. Carr
To Lights, Camera, Action…With Love (TLCAW4) is the first installment of A Stage of Our Own, Inc. stories of survival. This is Nicci T. Carr's true story on stage — blending faith, humor, and healing through performance, archives, and love. A solo journey from pain to purpose.
Thursday, June 18th, 2026 - 4:00 pm, Smith Hall Theatre
Empty Night by Abhisek Bhattacharya
How would you feel if you ever encountered a ferocious Bengal tiger, a female Bengal tiger with paws destroyed by bullets? Now imagine that you are a thief, not by choice, but by circumstances—you got a knife in your back while trying to steal so that your kids can eat, and on your way, you came face-to-face with a female Bengal tiger, who entered a human village to find food for her cubs.
Award-winning playwright Abhisek Bhattacharya’s Empty Night is a story of our time, when forests are dwindling and habitats are shrinking —and despite their ferocious strength and immense pride, the tigers can only survive as long as humans allow them to. On an empty stage, two individuals on the brink of death confront life, both make sacrifices, and one learns the rules of survival to find out what it means to be human.
AND….
The Day Flucy Broke The News Created and Performed by Dyllan Hutchison
Friday June 19th, 2026 - 5:00 pm, Smith Hall Theatre
From a young age, Florence Lucinda Williamson always wanted to be a news anchor. Today is her big interview! How far will one young woman go to achieve her dreams? Find out in The Day Flucy Broke The News, a new short by CVFF veteran Dyllan Hutchison.
Buying A Dog 120 Seconds Till Midnight [Workshop Edition] by Will Cloud
It's the model American family: Mom, Dad, two kids, a white picket fence. All they need is a dog to make things picture perfect. It's also 1953, the year that the Doomsday Clock reached 120 seconds till midnight, till nuclear Armageddon. Don't miss Campfire Production's workshop presentation of Will Cloud's new play!
And Other Family Disasters: A One-Act Comedy by Thomas T. Brown
Sam's Gen Z daughter is back in the house. Liv's Boomer Dad still thinks TikTok is what clocks do. In this digital age, how do we learn to communicate IRL (in real life)? Find out in this brand new one-act comedy by Thomas T. Brown!
Friday June 19th, 2026 - 8:00 pm, Smith Hall THeatre
Silk Moth Stage Presents: Above Ground by Ginna Hoben
Above Ground is an examination of death, anxiety, and the infinite mark left by social media (or any media) activity– a comedy! In 1995, Virginia made a “dead sister pledge” to carpe diem. At the same time, she began a practice of daily writing. Above Ground uncovers her decades of journal entries as she investigates her choices in the years following her sister’s fatal car accident. Did she seize the day ...?
Coming to the Fringe from Silk Moth Stage, a professional theater in Rockingham County, Above Ground is a play in conversation with No Spring Chicken, also by Ginna Hoben. This performance gives audiences a unique opportunity to see these two plays side-by-side.
June 20, 2026 - 2:00pm, Wimberly Recital Hall
good birth by patrick earl
The 2026 Playwright's Initiative World Premiere is Good Birth by Patrick Earl. This new work tells the story of the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded. This facility, right across the James River from Lynchburg, VA, is now called The Central Virginia Training Center. It became the center of the 1927 Supreme Court decision Buck v. Bell that upheld a physician’s right to forcibly sterilize a patient. Good Birth is a fictional tale of a young girl asked too soon to fight for her right to bear a child and suffer society’s misguided view of intelligence; all while facing down the brute force of the American Eugenics Movement in the early 1900s.