September 21, 2019
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 the audience that actively takes part in the communal expression.
$10 / 50 minutes
Learn more:
anigavino.com
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September 20, 22, 24, 26 + 27, 2019
Staged in the 100-year-old Racquets court inside the members-only confines of The Racquet Club of Philadelphia, rail. is a play about the cyclical nature of relationships in our lives and the ways we struggle to break free from past events to forge new paths. Sarah, a therapist and former championship squash player, is stuck in a cycle of rotating men in her life, all played by the same actor. She must decide how to break the cycle and find her most singular life.
$16 / 90 minutes
DRESS CODE: Please note that The Racquet Club of Philadelphia enforces a ‘Smart Casual’ dress code that prohibits t-shirts, hooded sweatshirts, sweatpants, spandex, halter tops, cargo pants, shorts, sneakers, flip flops, and hats.
Learn more:
railtheplay.com
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September 19–22, 2019
Sharp in wit, frail in body, Philly’s favorite Founding Father eloquently holds court on life, liberty, and love. Family, royalty, lady friends, and surprise visitors join in. Is it truth? Exaggeration? Vanity? Legend informs the words. You decide the matter.
“Extraordinarily splendid” (Phindie)
$15 / 60 minutes
Kudos to Ben Franklin’s parents, without whom this theater experience, and the formation of our Republic, may have proved impractical.
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September 7, 8, 13–15 + 20–22, 2019
Dancing Again in Love is an ode to Black love, a choreopoem that puts the Black femme at the forefront of her story. Taking us on a journey through dance, poetry, and song, it asks whether we choose to repeat generational ways of love or break the cycle and redefine love for ourselves!
$10 / 70 minutes
Black Love as a citing of resistance to oppression and stereotypes. This piece features many Black & Brown intersectional voices not often heard on stage. Inspired by Audre Lorde’s notion of women having to love in order to survive and the necessity for the “erotic.”
There will be a brief talkback and Q&A with the cast, crew, and playwright, Sabriaya Shipley, after each performance.
Cast Niya Colbert, Eric Carter, Imani Rothwell, Racine Lancaster Original Music by Jaymarie Santana, Shanel Edwards, Aaron Ball, Niles Bronze, Ronniere Spacely
Learn More:
msbriaya.wixsite.com
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September 7 + 8, 2019
The world has ended. Vodka is now made from seashells and the only music to have survived the apocalypse is Tchaikovsky and Britney Spears. The survivors must begin to build a new world. Step one: build a library? The reading of this new play is sponsored by EveryLibrary and presented by Love Drunk Life.
$5 / 60 minutes
Love Drunk Life is an arts production and creative lifestyle company working to cultivate theatre, film, books, music, and product for the artistic soul.
We are thrilled to be coming back to Fringe. Past Fringe productions include Herlock Sholmes and the Mysterious Case of the Jersey Devil or The Living Dragon (2018), public screenings of Happy Yummy Chicken (2016), and The Most Awkward Love Life of Peabody Magoo (2015).
The Murder & Booze Cabaret will also be presented as a part of this year’s NJ Fringe Festival. This will be the second year that Love Drunk Life has presented in NJ Fringe.
Love Drunk Life has collaborated with the Princeton Public Library, EveryLibrary, the New Cannan Library, and the Burlington County Footlighters.
Check out Love Drunk Life’s line of products for artists of all types at etsy.com/shop/lovedrunklife.
EveryLibrary is the first and only national organization dedicated exclusively to political action at a local level to create, renew, and protect public funding for libraries of all types. We are a nonprofit Political Action Committee chartered to work exclusively on local library ballot initiatives.
EveryLibrary helps secure funding for libraries at the ballot box. We train, coach, and consult with library communities on Information Only and Vote YES campaigns. EveryLibrary is donor supported in our pro-bono work. We believe that any library campaign anywhere should matter to every library everywhere.
Part of the mission of EveryLibrary is an artist in residency program which explores the intersection of politics and libraries through art. EveryLibrary hosts in-person and virtual exhibits, performances, and showcases to engage the library community and their network of Americans who support librarians in this country.
Learn More:
lovedrunklife.com
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September 7, 8, 14, 15, 21 + 22, 2019
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.
$10 / 100 minutes
Jason Greenfield (The Poet / director) is thrilled to make his Fringe Festival debut! Acting credits include: Hamlet, As You Like It (Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival); Everybody Loves Opal (Montgomery Theatre); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan, Fashion (Theatricum Botanicum, Los Angeles); Plastic Crystal, The Illusion (Open Fist Theatre, Los Angeles); The Author’s Voice (Theatre Tribe, Los Angeles); Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Powerhouse Theatre, Los Angeles); and True West (Promenade Playhouse, Los Angeles).
Jason is Chair of the PALCS Center for Performing & Fine Arts Theatre Department where he is about to direct his 20th production. Directing credits include: Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, Three Sisters, Dancing at Lughnasa, The Beaux’ Stratagem, The Illusion, Almost, Maine, Summer Brave, and The Children’s Hour.
Training: British American Drama Academy, B.A. in Theatre Arts (UPenn), M.F.A. in Acting (UCLA). Teaching Certifications: Assistant Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework®, Knight-Thompson Speechwork.
Union Affiliations: AEA, SAG-AFTRA.
September 7, 8, 14, 15, 21 + 22, 2019
Friends try to be disappointed by each other while waiting in line at the Los Angeles Museum of Art in 1978.
$10 / 90 minutes
A failed teacher runs into her former mentor at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art while waiting in line for tickets to the King Tutankhamun exhibit. The failed teacher, Leigh, and her mentor, Mr. Porko, awkwardly reminisce and trace the paths their lives have taken, never straying far from the comfort of their own pitiable angst. Wandering LACMA, Leigh and Mr. Porko stumble upon an exhibit of an obscure Chicana artist and take comfort in being aware of a marginalized talent. Featuring an art installation by Osiris Zuniga.
All performances at 2pm
Written and directed by John Rosenberg Starring Laura Sukonick & John Rosenberg Art installation by Osiris Zuniga
Hella Fresh Theater is the resident DIY company of the Papermill Theater in Kensington, a space they built in 2010. Hella Fresh Theater champions producing outstanding plays for as little money as possible. Champagne taste on a beer budget.
Learn More:
hellafreshtheater.com
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September 6–8, 2019
A formal presentation on the Divine Ecstasy of St. Teresa of Avila. Forgive the lecturer for being out of sorts, it’s a weirdly stressful subject. Please consider in advance: What makes something sacred? Do you think hallucinations make you feel more lonely or less? Can divine figures be sexy?! There may be a pop quiz!
Free / 50 minutes
*Content Warning Adult language, some sexual content, mild gore (fake blood), poetic descriptions of self-mutilation/suicide ideation/depression/anxiety
About the Artists
Sasha Wolfe is a Providence-based performer who studied dance at The New School. Her work uses somatic and environmental information to generate improvised movement, solo and in collaboration with writers and musicians. She has performed at the Vanishing Performance Festival in New Orleans, and two consecutive years at the Providence Fringe Festival, as well as various other DIY shows in Providence, Boston, and New York.
Ellen Zahniser is a Providence-based performer/writer/artist with a BA in Theatre Arts and Performance Studies from Brown. Primarily centering text, sound, and movement, she has performed new works in collaboration or solo at FringePVD 2016-2018, AS220, The Wilbury Group’s Festival of New Works, NYNW Theatre Festival, Spaceus Boston, Vanishing Performance Festival NOLA, and various other majestic locations around New England.
Together, we make work that insists upon saying aloud the things we have been told to keep silent and taking up space in ways we have been shamed out of. Rather than prioritizing “prettiness” and acceptability of product, we focus on process/processing; we strive for an ethic of accountability and care for each other (before care for the audience) by centering the humanity/tenderness/power of all involved, and attempt to embody both a fundamental opposition to white supremacist heteropatriarchy and a collaborative togetherness—which we perceive as being both aesthetically crucial (allowing creativity to grow exponentially in the space between multiple brainbodies) and politically significant (realizing the forms of togetherness that we want the world to be based upon). We engage with disruptions and ghosts, pure intensities and radical capacities, ritual and heightened states in order to enter a space beyond narrow reality where we may encounter disturbed moments of pure aesthetic pleasure and maybe even glimpses of revelation, all while pursuing an agenda of transgressive visioning. Through a lens of queerness, we ultimately imagine creative work that manifests both a future of radiant possibility and a more tenable present.
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September 5–7, 10–12 + 17–21, 2019
Deep underground, underneath the subways, Dolores is waiting to tell her story. A story of gentrification, survival, and murder inspired by the legend of Sweeney Todd, Empanada Loca is a solo Grand Guignol of one woman’s fight to survive in a bloody-minded world of reckless consumerism.
$20 / 90 minutes
Warning: Contains graphic depictions of sex, violence, and brief usage of racial/sexual identity slurs
September 5–8, 2019
A musically diverse adaptation of the Pied Piper exploring the oppression of women, people with disabilities, freelance artists, and children by their own society, featuring a cast of women and nonbinary performers. Mystery to myth, myth to story, story to poem, and all pain fades. Childcare for parents in audience and open captioning for all performances by request, contact patronservices@FringeArts.com.
$10 / 90 minutes
September 5–8, 10, 12, 13 + 15, 2019
A verbatim-styled theatrical piece focused on the topic of addiction and substance use disorder. Cultivated from first person interviews, Siren Songs follows seven individuals on their tumultuous journeys through addiction and shows how they fought their way to recovery. Representation. Humanization. Community. #endthestigma
$20 / 90 minutes
Funded by a small grant from the U.S Department of State
Free Narcan workshops are available prior to performances on September 6, 10 + 13
Learn more:
TheaterOblivion.com
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September 4, 5, 7, 8, 11–16 + 18–20, 2019
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 from the company that brought you The Sea Plays, 2013, Fair Maid of the West, 2015, and Iphigenia at Aulis, 2017. Produced in collaboration with the Independence Seaport Museum.
$25 / 140 minutes
Written by John Fletcher & Philip Massinger Directed by Dan Hodge Cast Linnea Bond as Crocale, Andrew Criss as Tibalt, Cameron DelGrosso as Albert, Nathan Foley as Sebastian, Joel Guerrero as Franville, Stephanie Hodge as Aminta, Eli Lynn as Raimondo, Eric Mills as LaMure, Kimie Muroya as Clarinda, Yajaira Paredes as Rosellia, and Natajia Sconiers as Juletta Fight Director Eli Lynn Production Manager Elizabeth Miesenzahl
About PAC
At the PAC we’re dedicated to creating unique theatrical events that celebrate our humanity: through the lens of rare classical theater, and through multidisciplinary, site-specific collaboration. We stage our plays with engaging and visceral clarity, presenting classical stories full of human complexity that bring audiences to the edge of their seats. Through interdisciplinary presentations of rare classical plays in non-traditional venues, we strive to reach an ever-growing and more engaged audience, challenge assumptions of classical theater, and enrich the Philadelphia cultural community. PAC is built by Philadelphia artists who are vital and active members of the Philadelphia theater community as actors, directors, teachers and coaches. The projects that PAC embarks upon are entirely built by Philadelphia talent. All designers, crew, and actors are based in and around the city. Our partnerships with various arts organizations all have Philadelphia at their core.
In our history, we have paired with the following organizations: Rosenbach (A Christmas Carol and The Rape of Lucrece); Athenaeum (An Open Rehearsal of Shakespeare Scenes); USS Olympia (Iphigenia at Aulis); National Constitution Center (Troilus & Cressida); Powell House (The Captive); Drexel University (Enemy of the People and Blood Wedding); Piffaro Renaissance Band (Life is a Dream and Ay Amor!) Through these pairings, PAC audiences mingle and intertwine with audiences of these organizations to create a rich mix of collaborative pieces that greatly enhance the cultural life of the city.
Previous Fringe Festival Performances:
2010 La Vida Es Sueno at Broad Street Ministry
2012 Creditors at The Franklin Inn Club
2013 The Sea Plays on Tall Ship Gazela at Penn’s Landing
2014 The Rape of Lucrece at Broad Street Ministry
2015 The Captive at The Hill-Physick House
2017 Iphigenia at Aulis on the USS Olympia at Penn’s Landing
2018 Mary Rose at The Woodlands Mansion and Cemetery
Learn More:
Philartistscollective.org
September 3–8, 10–15 + 17–22, 2019
Precarious sobriety: poignant and potent with humor to spare, the quietness of quiet desperation explodes the claustrophobic lives of Lola and Doc. Inge’s 1950 classic comes alive amid outsider art in The Bethany Mission Gallery, illustrating how the pursuit of primal instincts derails and illuminates everyday lives.
$15–$28 / 100 minutes
Founded in 2006, the Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium (IRC) is the only theater company in the nation dedicated solely to the production, preservation, and study of absurdist drama. The IRC’s mission and signature style has repeatedly earned the company the title “absurdist masters.” The poignancy of repression defining a Midwestern marriage in crisis provides the undercurrent for William Inge’s resilient 1950 classic Come Back, Little Sheba. The pursuit of primal instincts and how they derail everyday lives frames the 1950 play—Inge’s first—written while he was a teacher at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. “…an old house in one of those semi-respectable neighborhoods in a Midwestern city …” is the setting for Come Back, Little Sheba.
The humor and psychological undercurrent of Inge’s classic will come to life amidst over two hundred works of outsider art including drawings & paintings by James Castle, Sam Doyle, Howard Finster, William Hawkins, Martin Ramirez, Bill Traylor and George Widener. Modern renovations to the 1869 Quaker meeting house were completed in February 2012 to accommodate and display the internationally-recognized collection, which also features objects including radios, antique metal toys and milk glass. The gallery will be open to the public one hour prior and following each performance. The Bethany Mission Gallery was the setting for the IRC’s critically-recognized 2018 Fringe production of Tennessee Williams’ The Eccentricities of a Nightingale, and their 2017 production of Eugene Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano.
History of the Play
Come Back, Little Sheba premiered on Broadway at the Booth Theatre on February 15, 1950. The cast included Shirley Booth as Lola, Sidney Blackmer as Doc, and Joan Lorring as Marie. Booth won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play and Blackmer won Best Actor. Reprising her Broadway role, Booth starred opposite Burt Lancaster as Doc and Terry Moore as Marie in a 1952 film adaptation. Booth won both the 1953 Best Actress Academy award and Best Actress – Drama Golden Globe for her portrayal of Lola. William Inge, (born May 3, 1913, Independence, KS—died June 10, 1973, Hollywood Hills, CA) was an American playwright best known for his plays Come Back, Little Sheba (1950; filmed 1952); Picnic (1953; filmed 1956), for which he won a Pulitzer Prize; and Bus Stop (1955; filmed 1956). Inge was educated at the University of Kansas at Lawrence and at the George Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville, Tennessee.
Learn More:
IdiopathicRidiculopathyConsortium.org
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The United States government may be pursuing an isolationist policy but the Philadelphia Fringe is doing the opposite: opening its doors not only to the most creative American performers and performances but also to the best and most creative theater artists and their productions from around the world—overcoming the ancient fear of the symbolic Tower of Babel with people not understanding each other.
To show the worldwide scope of the 22nd Philadelphia Fringe Festival, we offer this spotlight on performers from abroad and productions by American artists that present a global perspective.
Theater writer Henrik Eger, editor of Drama Around the Globe and contributor to Phindie and Broad Street Review, among other publications, has lived in six countries on three continents and has visited Africa and Australia as well. He bids everyone a hearty WELCOME to the City of Brotherly Love—this year in 18 different languages: Arabic, Celtic, Chinese, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Irish, Italian, Latin, Polish, Romanian, and Spanish.
We start this year’s overview with a special welcome to two programs featuring a wide range of global creators:
INTERNATIONAL CREATIVES
Bienvenue & welcome to Montreal-based choreographer Sylvain Émard and Le Super Grand Continental. Le Grand Continental wowed audiences during its run at the 2012 Fringe Festival and has garnered enthusiastic response across the world. Fully realizing a blissful marriage between the pure delight of line dancing and the fluidity and expressiveness of contemporary dance, the celebratory event enlists hundreds of local people to perform its synchronized choreography in large-scale public performances. The world’s most infectious performance event returns to the front steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in an even larger spectacle of dance.
Bonvenon, willkommen, bienvenido, witamy, bienvenue & welcome to Do You Want A Cookie? from The Bearded Ladies Cabaret—a world premiere with an international cast. Do You Want A Cookie? serves up a delicious romp through cabaret history, with an international cast of artists performing a live revue of cabaret from the Chat Noir to Weimar nightlife to 21st-century drag. The all-star cast comes draws from around the world, including Bridge Markland (Berlin), Malgorzata Kasprzycka (Paris/Warsaw), Dieter Rita Scholl (Berlin), and Tareke Ortiz (Mexico City).REFUGEES and EXILES
As Far As My Fingertips Take Me. Photo by
وسهلا اهلا (ahlaan wasahlan) & bienvenu. Welcome to Tania El Khoury who lives in Lebanon and the UK with her multifaceted program ear-whispered. Little is known about Palestinian refugee camps and their communities. El Khoury presents her Fringe work in five parts through interactive performances and installations at Bryn Mawr College:
Bienvenido & welcome to the bilingual (Spanish & English) cast of La Fábrica performing Gustave Ott’s Passport. Lost in a foreign country, Eugenia is detained and thrown into a vicious maelstrom of miscommunication. This poetic and immersive Kafkaesque thriller delves into the question of immigration—exposing the mechanics of language and power. Some performances will be presented in English, some in Spanish, and some will be decided at the toss of a coin. 
