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2019 Fringe Festival ~ Our Guide To Top Shows

September 4, 2019 By
FringeArts Headquarters

FringeArts Headquarters

‘Enjoying All Types Of Performing Arts In Philly’

The 2019 Fringe Festival, now in its 23rd year, is one of Philadelphia’s signature fall arts events celebrating innovation and creativity in contemporary performance from artists around the world.

From September 5 to 22, the Festival will feature hundreds of dance, theater, visual arts, music and spoken-word performances in traditional venues as well as on street corners and in cars, galleries, cabarets and restaurants.

History of Fringe Festival

The Fringe started life when eight theatre companies turned up uninvited to the inaugural Edinburgh International Festival in 1947. In 1997, five Philadelphia artists banded together to create an outlet for other contemporary and experimental performers to present their works.

The first Festival took over Philadelphia’s Old City for five days, and featured 60 performing groups that presented their work in theaters, nightclubs, galleries, alleys, abandoned buildings and at least one parked car.

Since then, the Fringe Festival, which is organized by Fringe Arts, has grown into more than two weeks of high-quality, highly innovative artistic presentations.

Our 2019 Guide To The Fringe Festival

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Held at Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N American St 

Stand clear of the closing doors! In this new circus-theater show, nine women climb silks and hang from trapezes as subway rides and bus trips become a platform for aerial dance and intimate moments between strangers. Tangle’s acrobats travel through our public spaces to find love, frustration, and missing umbrellas.

Held at Philly Improv Theater at the Adrienne at 2030 Sansom Street 

An improvised hero’s journey. The ensemble encounters mythical beasts, mad gods, and trickster spirits in a transformational epic of self-discovery. Never the same performance twice–the audience discovers how Joseph Campbell’s theory of the monomyth could have a thousand faces and still be written anew.

Held at FringeArts at 140 N Columbus Blvd

The B-Side: “Negro Folklore from Texas State Prisons,” A Record Album Interpretation is an original performance by The Wooster Group based on an LP of work songs, spirituals, and toasts recorded in 1964 in Texas’ then-segregated prison farms.

The LP had been in performer Eric Berryman’s personal record collection for many years when, in 2015, he had a chance meeting with Wooster Group associate director Kate Valk. He had just seen the Group’s Early Shaker Spirituals: A Record Album Interpretation, which Valk directed. Berryman asked to work with the Group on a record album interpretation of Negro Folklore from Texas State Prisons.

In The B-Side, Berryman and fellow performers Jasper McGruder and Philip Moore channel the inmates’ voices from the record via in-ear receivers and transmit the full album live. In between tracks, Berryman reads from the liner notes and provides context from the book Wake Up Dead Man: Hard Labor and Southern Blues by Bruce Jackson, the folklorist who recorded the album. The voices of the live performers blend with and complement the voices on the record, creating a moving and intense performance.

Held at 2300 Arena, 2300 South Swanson Street

On the outskirts of an unknown city, massive structures emerge from the murk. Nine performers embody our hunger for permanence and our dreams of utopia in a melancholy contemplation of our skin, our organs, and our deepest urges. Superterranean is a new work of visual theater driven by Lien’s fascinations with urban infrastructure and the human body’s place within it. Food and beverages are available for purchase at 2300 Arena before and after the show.

Held at the Independence Seaport Museum at 211 S Christopher Columbus Blvd 

Like any good play about the sea, this one opens with a storm. A band of privateers find themselves stranded on an island seemingly inhabited by a lone castaway. When the island’s other residents surge onto the scene, a war of love and duty breaks out. A true maritime romp of the Jacobean era, The Sea Voyage will be like its luckless pirates: raw, bold and devilishly funny. A voyage you won’t want to miss.

  • September 5 – 8, 10 – 15, 17 – 22  |  Basement  |  Times Vary  |  $35 & $40  |  Tickets

Held at  The Latvian Society at 531 N. 7th St 

Gunnar Montana transports us once again, this time downward into the dark depths of terror. Follow one man’s frightening descent into deranged madness and witness his unrelenting, visceral nightmare unfold. Graphic content.

Held at A Literal Apartment at 247 South Juniper Street 

This deconstruction of Ibsen’s Victorian classic A Doll House features the entire play acted out by a girl playing with literal dolls. Do not be fooled: There is more to this show than meets the eye. A struggle that rings true throughout the ages. This is not a one-woman show. Come and find out why.

Held at Philadelphia Ethical Society at 1906 Rittenhouse Square 

Amber and Tom, freshmen at Princeton, spend a night together that changes their lives. They agree on the drinking and attraction, but not on how or whether consent was given. This new play by Anna Ziegler investigates gender and race politics, our desire to fit in, and the three sides to every story.

Held on the The Internet

Highlighting traditional and modern African dance forms of the African diaspora, Ancestral Movements expresses the dance experiences of the enslaved who were forced to dance on the decks of slave ships and on the auction block, and explores how they used dance as a source of spiritual strength. 

Held at various locations throughout East Passyunk

Cabaret connoisseurs the Bearded Ladies return with another platter of deliciously dangerous, sensationally sweet, and provocatively pleasurable Late Night Snacks. Running throughout the Fringe Festival in a refitted East Passyunk industrial space, these after-hours performances feature different artists every night—from opera singers to drag queens, cabaret stars to art clowns, and everything in between.

Held at FringeArts, 140 N Columbus BLVD ~

Time: 10:00 pm

Celebrate 23 years of defying expectation, challenging convention and inspiring new ways of thinking. Join them for a toast to 23 more years while supporting the mission of FringeArts. Celebrate opening weekend of the 2019 Fringe Festival with a late night rager, featuring The Illustrious Blacks. The acclaimed duo fuse music, dance, theater & fashion as the main ingredients to expand minds, shake bootys and encourage all to be bold, be brave, and be you! ~ Info ~

Held at Hamilton Family Arts Center – Arden Theatre at 62 N 2nd Street 

Florence and Texas have three things in common: liquor, death, and music. Real and real-crazy drunken tales of fame and violence from the 1920s fuse with jazzy riffs on modern pop songs for a night of high notes, low blows, and bespoke cocktails.

  • September 7, 8, 14, 15, 21 & 22  |  An Iliad  |  Times Vary  |  $10  |  Tickets

Held at Millésimé at 33 North 2nd Street 

Obie Award–winning director Lisa Peterson and Tony Award–winning actor Denis O’Hare skillfully adapt Robert Fagles’s lauded translation of Homer’s The Iliad into a captivating solo performance piece.  Compelled by the Greek gods, an ancient poet is doomed to tell the story of the Trojan War to anyone who will listen. The Poet’s sentence: to recount the tale until all of humanity abandons its propensity for violence.  While enacting the stories of Achilles and Hector, the Poet oscillates between contemporary and poetic language. An Iliad explores the brutality and heroism of war and sublimely rejuvenates this timeless story.

Held at Csz Philadelphia at the Adrienne at 2030 Sansom St

Dungeons & Dragons & Improv! Like Whose Line Is It Anyway? meets The Lord of the Rings, Roll Play cleverly combines fantasy storytelling games with interactive improv comedy. With YOUR suggestions shaping the world, the characters, and their quest, every show is a brand new adventure!

Held at 954 Dance Movement Collective at 954 N 8th Street

In this live reading of the unauthorized Star Trek parody, Captain Picard and Data present an uproarious comedy adaptation of the iconic film The Wrath of Khan. Written for Trekkies and Broadway fans alike, Khan!!! is equal parts snarky, slapstick, and heartfelt. Come for the Vulcan tap dancing, stay for the mutant space chickens! 110 minutes plus 10-minute intermission.

Held at Immersive HQ at 1004 Buttonwood St.

Agent, you must infiltrate the Future Summit conference to investigate a new threat against your country. Keep in touch with your Spy Handler via text message as you navigate drinks, lightning talks, overenthusiastic influencers, and dad jokes. Maybe you saved the world before. Time to do it again.

Held at Philly Improv Theater at the Adrienne at 2030 Sansom Street

Sketch comedy about New Philadelphia—not what we were, but what we’re becoming. A show about Philadelphia by Philadelphians, but also by non-Philadelphians, but also by people who lived here but moved. This is getting confusing—just get down here before the theater gets turned into luxury condos.

Held at Wilma Theater at 265 South Broad Street

World Premier! “Where are we? where? There is a where, because we are, stubbornly, and have been, and who are we, if not you and me?“

Visual arts pioneer Rosa Barba and Wilma’s innovative artistic director Blanka Zizka collaborate to bring a seminal work of contemporary poetry to the stage.

Mining English phrases for the essential thoughts from which language was born, Etel Adnan’s book-length meditation on conflict and identity makes an ideal vehicle for the critically acclaimed Wilma HotHouse Company. This diverse group of Philadelphia actors use full-body expressions to go beneath the surface meanings of the text to its emotional core.

Barba’s set reconfigures the Wilma’s proscenium space, stretching over the usual seating plan and serving as both a stage and a projection surface, recasting the audience as an active observer-participant in Adnan’s self-discovery. And as Wilma HotHouse’s interpretation reveals, when we seek to discover ourselves (a search which is inherently also a consideration of other people) what we are really embarking upon is a quest for love.

Held at Gloria Dei (Old Swedes’) Church at 916 South Swanson Street

We live with fear everyday. Fear Itself  takes the audience on a tour through a real historical cemetery to explore the concept of fear, the lost souls we encounter along the way, and the choices we get to make to either save these souls or leave them behind.

Held at Mascher Space Cooperative at 155 Cecil B. Moore Avenue

I Spy, With My Little Eye slides down the Chutes and Ladders of youth into the Scrabble of your earliest memories. This interactive dance performance provides an opportunity to Connect Four a moment in the shared joys and toys of childhood experience. Through five sections of movement, eight dancers search for unified experiences that highlight moments of togetherness, of childhood friends, of special places that inspire our imaginations, of collecting precious items that define our personalities. Accompanied by original music by Alina John, we move together in spontaneous games of I Spy, Tag, Hopscotch, and Whisper Down The Lane in an exploration of presence and fun, dancing ourselves into a playful reflection on what it was like to be a kid. Children are welcome!

Held at Jed Williams Gallery at 615 Bainbridge Street

The life of a witch is revealed from a lost journal that traces her journey through the world. A woman reads from the manuscript, relating the story the witch tells.

Held at The Iron Factory at 118 Fontain Street, 3rd Floor 

Three scary stories told in fragments, moments, and installations: “The Ghost of Mediocrity”, “The Body that Wouldn’t Be”, and “Papa’s Done Gone Crazy”. Marshmallows, tragic dogs, guitars, deadbeats, abandoned farmhouses, campfires, dreams, diaries of the dead, hot chocolate, shades, surgeries, and dirges gather in the dark.

Held at The Rotunda at 4014 Walnut Street

This year is the 50th anniversary of the original Woodstock! Rock on Pointe, the dance company that dances to rock music on pointe shoes, revisits that unforgettable concert, performing to the music that was recorded live that weekend, including Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, and more.

Held at Caplan Studio Theater at University of the Arts at 211 South Broad Street, 16th floor

Misplaced time and tales of traveling carnivals convene into an expressive and design-led exploration of what it means to look to the women of our past for present strength. The Illustrated Woman by Nancy Kiefer, directed by Anastassia Vertjanova (’19), is an odyssey of flourishing beyond trauma under the guise of a sadly all-too-familiar coming-of-age story.

Held at Asian Arts Initiative, Studio B at 1219 Vine St

September 21  |  Late Night Snacks With Martha Graham Cracker  |  11:30 pm  |  $30 General, $15 Student  |  Tickets

Held at 1316 South Percy Street

“The Drag Queen King of Philadelphia.” The Philadelphia Inquirer ~ The hairy-chested, fake eyelash-laden alter-ego of thespian Dito Van Reigersberg performs a balls-to-the-wall drag cabaret. Backed by her stellar band and with her killer voice, Miss Martha Graham Cracker takes you on a raucous, joyous, uninhibited ride around her world.

  • September 26  |  Feastival (Special) |  7:00 pm – 10:00 pm

Held at Cheery Street Pier at 121 N Christopher Columbus Blvd

The annual Festival brings the best in contemporary, innovative and ground-breaking art to Philadelphia and fills the city with daring artistic performances, international legends, and local pioneers. FEASTIVAL celebrates both our artistic and culinary scenes! | More About Feastival  |  Get Tickets

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Fringe Festival

Location

City-Wide  |  Held in different Philadelphia neighborhoods

Dates

September 5 – 22, 2019

Cost

Costs vary at different events  |  Shows Listed By Days  |  Buy Tickets

Web Site

Photo Courtesy FringeArts

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