Whither candor?

Theater artists, more than any group I've met, including lawyers and fundamentalist Christians, are afraid to speak honestly on the record about anything. They want to pry the scales from our eyes and bludgeon us with Big Truths onstage but regularly defer to "no comment" and "I don't want to talk about that" when asked about everyday crap like money and administration. If we can't trust you to be honest about the mundane, forget about the sublime.

Ahem.

Remember back in December 2003 when the Fringe Festival was collapsing in flames and artists were pounding at the gates, demanding the money they'd made in ticket sales? Remember when the Festival said, in effect: "Sorry, we're bankrupt and your box office money—that you earned but we were 'safeguarding'—well, you'll have to file a claim for it"? Local artists went nuts. National and international artists grumbled and you could almost hear them thinking: "This is the last time I take a chance on a two-bit burg like Seattle." Fringe Festival staffers seemed dazed and miserable. It was a bad time.

The Fringe Festival is still dead and shows no signs of resurrection, but stiffed artists and other creditors should get their checks—for 67.1194 percent of their claims—soon after the January 20 hearing, where claimants can raise any objections to the trustee's final report.

"Sixty-seven percent? That's much better than I expected," said Christian Weinmann, the Fringe's pro bono lawyer during the bankruptcy. At the time, he estimated a 20 percent return. The biggest check (for $3,586) will go to Viacom. The smallest ($97.42) is for the National Barricade Company. The majority of claimants are artists. Former Fringe staffers either could not be reached or declined to comment.

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Theater company Implied Violence, whose members are among the artists being evicted from their live-in art space in the U.S. Rubber Building ["Rubber Meets the Road," Thomas Francis, Jan 12], will perform Die Wandlung at CoCA instead. IV's Ryan Mitchell says this adaptation of the post-WWI German Expressionist play will feature waltzing, clowns, and lots of tea. Mitchell also said that since the Rubber Building isn't up to residency code, the DPD has allowed the tenants 90 days to find new lodgings. Wandlung playwright Ernst Toller could not be reached for comment, but he has a good excuse—he's been dead for 67 years.

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Aimée Bruneau, one of the original staffers and sometime managing director of the Capitol Hill Arts Center, is leaving the organization. Why? "I had grown artistically and professionally about as much as I could within the CHAC structure." What's next? "I'm teaching acting for a few months, waffling on traveling abroad in the coming year or two." There seems to be a lot of turnover at CHAC—what's up with that? "No comment."

As always, "no comment" tells nothing but speaks volumes. recommended

brendan@thestranger.com