(Photo courtesy of Billie Krishawn)

Two to three days a week last month, Billie Krishawn’s schedule looked something like this: Wake up at 2 a.m. Head from her Capitol Hill home to Union Station for a 3 a.m. bus. Arrive in New York City around 8 a.m. for work until 2 p.m. Catch another bus an hour later back to D.C. Arrive just in time for another work shift at 7 until 11 p.m. Go home, get some sleep, start all over the next day.

Once you’ve woken up from your own exhaustion after reading that paragraph, consider what your demeanor might be like if that were your schedule. Irritable? Unfocused? Maybe even delusional?

Not Billie Krishawn, whose work in D.C. last month consisted of rehearsing for starring roles in not one, but two shows at this year’s Capital Fringe Festival: Andromeda Breaks and America’s Wives. At the same time, she was working as a teaching artist in New York with the Manhattan Theatre Club and the Tectonic Theater Project, where she mentors aspiring performers.

“I had to do my best to come into each room with a brand new energy, fresh and ready to work,” Krishawn says. “That, I think, was probably a big learning process.”

The festival tends to have a couple performers each year who appear in multiple shows, according to Capital Fringe co-founder and CEO Julianne Brienza. “I would not say it is normal—but it is not unheard of,” Brienza says.

Krishawn found herself courted by the two productions a few months ago, when she was deep in tech rehearsals for Caucasian Chalk Circle at Constellation Theatre Company. Her director, Nick Martin, pulled her aside to gauge her interest in auditioning to play a modernized version of the Greek heroine Andromeda in his new Fringe show. Krishawn never says no to an audition, so she quickly signed up.

Around the same time, she got a cold email from Jared Shamberger, who had Krishawn in mind for a role in his new show America’s Wives. Per her “never say no” policy, she took this audition too. Only later did she find out that both shows would run during Capital Fringe. Both worked out.

Booking gigs “piecemeal” is nothing new for a working theater actor, Krishawn says—it’s essentially full-time freelancing. But she says she can’t remember simultaneously rehearsing two similar-size roles in two similar-size shows that would be premiering and running within the same period of a few weeks.

Each play brings its own challenges. Andromeda Breaks unfolds on a simple set between two differently motivated characters. America’s Wives has a wider scope, and her character Olayemi, a first-generation Nigerian, goes on a massive geographic and emotional journey through romance and heartbreak. The heady dialogue (and a few lines of song) in Andromeda engaged Krishawn’s intellectual side, while the cultural sweep of America’s Wives let Krishawn tap into deeper emotions.

“The one commonality they have is when both characters are experiencing anger and frustration,” Krishawn says. But, she says, “the anger for Andromeda isn’t the same as the anger for Olayemi.”

Fringe sort of brings things full circle for Krishawn, as the festival was her first gig as a professional actor. Krishawn, a D.C. native, graduated in 2010 from the highly competitive Duke Ellington School for the Arts, where she entered among a class of 25 and graduated with a class of 12.

“You either stepped up to the bat, put your best foot forward, or you kind of fell by the wayside,” Krishawn says.

Her first taste of the Fringe lifestyle came the summer after high school, when a friend invited her to stage manage her show The People. It was her first paid gig, her first taste of the theater lifestyle, and her first inkling of what a future with Fringe could look like.

“The fact that a playwright can be actively editing something during the rehearsal process was mind-boggling to me,” Krishawn says. “Getting a chance to see the inside of how a director pitches, hiring actors, rehearsing with them, working with a space you only get a day or so in—it was definitely a great way to start my student career.”

Billie Krishawn, right, stars in “Andromeda Breaks” at Capital Fringe. (Photo courtesy of Billie Krishawn)

After graduating with a theater degree from Drew University in Madison, N.J., she returned to D.C. in 2014 and auditioned for an improv-based Fringe show. It was one of her first auditions in her home city, and she thought it went well. But she didn’t get the part, and the email from the company was less than encouraging.

“They told me, ‘Hey, Billie, it was great having you at the audition, you have a wonderful energy, everybody on the other side of the table enjoyed watching you, all of your counterparts enjoyed being in the scenes with you. But unfortunately we’re going in another direction. Your resume is very underdeveloped. It would be helpful to do something to fix that.’” Krishawn recalls. “I didn’t know whether to say thank you or feel offended,”

The joke was on them, though—a little later on, Krishawn booked the award-winning Jumanji at Adventure Theater, having submitted the exact same “underdeveloped” resume.

“You’ll get a thousand “nos” in a lifetime…but you can’t let that derail you into missing the ‘yes.'” Krishawn says.

Krishawn has since performed on stages around D.C., including at Constellation and Avant Bard, and has even brought her acting chops to the National Museum of American History, where she performs in an interactive re-enactment of the Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins. That experience has informed her work on the two Fringe productions.

“In that show I learned how to invite an audience in a more visceral way into a show, interact with them, take the vibes that they’re giving,” Krishawn says. “I took what I learned from that show and applied it to the moments in America’s Wives where it’s direct address to the audience, trying my best to make eye contact, really look at them.”

The teams on Andromeda Breaks and America’s Wives were accommodating to Krishawn’s schedule, so she didn’t have to worry about coordinating rehearsal and performance schedules between the two. Otherwise, these two commitments wouldn’t have been possible, especially in conjunction with her work in New York.

“Through it all she maintained perfect poise and was a fantastic collaborator in the rehearsal room,” Martin, the director of Andromeda Breaks says. “I honestly cannot fathom the schedule she maintained during our rehearsal process.”

Both Fringe shows have their closing nights on July 22. That’s right—one day, two different performances.

“If this were to come up again, I doubt it would be wrapped in the beautiful wrapping paper and a bow tie, ‘We’ll schedule both shows [for you],’” Krishawn says.

But what if everything lined up perfectly again?

“If it came in this package, I think I’d jump at it in a heartbeat.”

Catch Billie Krishawn in Andromeda Breaks at Arena Stage on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. and Sunday at 6 p.m.; and in America’s Wives Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3:30 p.m.

Check out all of DCist’s coverage of Capital Fringe here.