2019 Fringe Festival Spotlight: Family-Friendly Fringe
Fringe isn’t just for grown-ups. These family friendly Fringe Festival works provide engaging entertainment to people of all ages, including the youngsters in your life. Get the kids together and treat them to some family-friendly Fringe.
Billy the Baaadly Behaving Bully Goat: The Musical
Play Nice Productions
Billy’s parents and teachers are at their wits’ end! They cannot stop this Bully Goat from picking on the kids in his class. Luckily, the Wise Old Goat has a plan. Will it work? Can Billy change his behavior? Laugh and sing along with this original musical. Ages 4–9.
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Brown-Eyed Rapunzel
Philly PACK
Rinnie studies fairy tales and spins a story she doesn’t need. (She’s biracial.) Her mom Karen tucks them away, especially the tough ones. (Yep, she’s white.) On a rooftop under the clouds, they must learn how to tell a new story together. A dance/shadow/time-travel poem about what it’s like to mother a multiracial family.
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Cartography
Kaneza Schaal and Christopher Myers
Five young people from around the world map their histories, their memories, and their futures as they navigate the refugee journey. Combining simple storytelling and interactive video technology, this is theater for our times, theater for all ages, theater at its most relevant.
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Give Your Heart
Eric Thayer
This open-ended participatory performance is designed to both involve and reflect the Philadelphia community. Using medical technology, audience members will have their heartbeats simultaneously recorded, looped, and played back into LOVE Park as an abstract soundscape, reminiscent of a communal drum circle.
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Happy Days
SpArc Services
SpArc Services presents a new take on an old classic. A lonely girl is transported to a mystical land where she meets new friends, conquers fears, and faces challenges. Join Jill, Evil Batman, Peter, Paul, Fabulous, and more as they sing and dance their way through Peaceful Meadow in search of a way home.
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Howie Hypnotize
Howie Jones
Mind blown! The Howie Hypnotize Show is an interactive experience that makes you the star! Whether you stay in the audience or make it on stage, you’ll laugh, laugh, and laugh some more. Howie has performed at the NYC FRIGID, Rochester and Pittsburgh Fringe Festivals, and all over the East Coast.
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I Spy, With My Little Eye
Kalila Kingsford Smith Dance
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. Children are welcome!
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Late Night Snacks: Family Cabaret
The Bearded Ladies Cabaret
The Bearded Ladies’ after-hours performance series isn’t exactly the ideal kids show, but the cabaret connoisseurs offer something for the young ones with two Sunday afternoon performances designed especially for families.
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Shimmy your Fringe
State Street Tribal
Dance performance with a short workshop featuring American Tribal Style® made famous by FatChanceBellyDance®. We will show you some fun tribal belly dance steps, then invite you up on the dance floor to get your Fringe moving! Come for the show and stay for the fun!
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Sunset CypHER
Ani/Malayaworks / Drum Like a Lady
A collaboration between three notable Philadelphia female artists—Ani Gavino (movement artist), Latreice Branson (percussionist), and Jasmine Lynea (director)—Sunset CypHER is an improvisational performance between dance, drums, the sunset, and an audience that actively takes part in the communal expression.
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Tesla’s Dream
The Franklin Institute
Visually stunning ensemble storytelling fuses with elaborate video and sound design to tell the story of Nikola Tesla’s 1893 visit to The Franklin Institute. Was Tesla mad or a prophetic visionary? Join us as we plunge into the nightmares and daydreams of history’s most enigmatic inventor. Ages 9–99.
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Úumbal: Nomadic Choreography for Inhabitants
Mariana Arteaga
The U.S. Premiere of Mexican choreographer Mariana Arteaga’s ambulatory dance performance. Philadelphia residents come together in a joyful procession through a South Philly neighborhood. Philadelphia is the choreographer. Its streets the setting. Its people the dancers.
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You Are Not a Shining Star
UMA presents: Mark “Metal” Wong and Vince Johnson
Have you ever thought about your legacy? I mean, what makes you SPECIAL? What does it mean to be YOU? Are you the experiences you’ve accumulated? Are you the thoughts in your brain? If you’ve never pondered this, don’t worry. We’re here to help. Shining Star is a movement-based performance that is weird but not boring.
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Bring the little ones to Fringe!