Welcome back to BSR in the Wild, our subscribers-only tips for where our team is heading this month. BUT FIRST: A huge thank you to everyone who has stepped up to join our Fringe Coverage Friends Drive, which ends on Monday (August 31). We were thrilled to meet our initial campaign goal earlier this month, but we’re keeping the campaign open as planned because every extra dollar supports our hardworking writers in September.
Also on Monday: Did you know we’re teaming up with FringeArts for a happy hour? It’s part of a series of Fringe Artist Mixers. It’s happening 5-7pm in the FringeArts Biergarten, and the drinks are free, but you need to RSVP in advance. Come through! Artists and audiences alike are welcome to grab a beer and mingle as we count down to the fest.
Neil is directing a show!
This month’s In the Wild is a little different than usual because it’s Alaina coming to you instead of Neil, sharing some of my Fringe picks before anyone else gets them. But did you know you can still find Neil next month? He’s directing a Fringe show!
It’s called Single Woman: Work in Progress, by storyteller and comedian Tess L. It’s running for three performances (September 12, 17, 23) at the Yellow Bicycle Theater (1435 Arch St), and I’m shouting it out here not just because Neil directed it, but because I saw an earlier version of the show a couple months ago, and enjoyed it. It’s a show about Tess L.’s dating life, and it’s really funny, relatable, and vulnerable. “There’s something for everyone in this cathartic experience,” Neil says, “but please, single male adults who date women, do attend.”
First look Fringe picks
This year’s Fringe runs September 8-27, and there are more than 300 shows on offer. Some top themes for me this year are grief, queer and trans stories, puppetry, and multi-sensory experiences. And clowning. SO much clowning. You can search the full lineup here, but if you need a hand before diving in, here are some of my emerging top picks.
Karen Tenderness in DOPPLE BÄNGER by Daniel Kitrosser
September 9-19 at the Magic Gardens Studio
I met Karen Tenderness in QUEER WINDOW! in last year’s Fringe, which I loved. In this world-premiere adventure, Karen is “newly single and aggressively ready to mingle” on a Self-Love Cruise, but someone onboard has stolen her identity. “Trapped at sea with stormy waters, heartbroken saps, and unmotivated tap dancing, Karen launches a glitter-soaked investigation to uncover the mystery woman wearing her face,” until she digs deep enough to face the ultimate question: “What if your biggest obstacle to living your best life…is you?” Read BSR’s QUEER WINDOW! review to see why you should get tickets to Kitrosser’s newest show.
Plausible Deniability v 0.1 by Ben Grinberg/Almanac Projects
September 8-9 at Box Spring Gallery
The description is cryptic: “It both is and isn't a steam room and you both are and aren't there to cruise. Be careful where you put your eyes.” But Grinberg’s 2025 Fringe show, Helpful Hints for Strength and Health for Busy People, co-created with Rhonda Moore, was a highlight of last year’s fest (here’s the BSR review). I want to see what he’s up to now, even though the run is only two days. I bet this is something that will continue to develop, and maybe return in the future.
TRAD by Hannah Mitchell
September 11-13 at Pig Iron Theatre Company
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, some aspect of the tradwife discourse must have reached you. Young women embrace America’s white Christian nationalist project by proclaiming their lives as submissive wives, having as many kids as they can while running a farm. Of course these ladies are also running social-media business empires while telling other women to obey their husbands and get out of the workforce. I just finished debut novelist Caro Claire Burke’s pitch-black satire of tradwife influencers, Yesteryear, and want to keep thinking. This show is “a theatrical tear-down of the modern phenomenon of trad–-or traditional—wives and the associated Christian nationalist arsenal of beliefs, which also indulges our collective yearning for fantasies of escape.”
BAD CLAY by Justin Jain
September 8-19 at Asian Arts Initiative Project Space
Jain is an interesting artist on the Philly scene: not only a creator, actor, and director, but an accomplished ceramicist (I own one of his bowls). I love festival shows that blend different genres of art together, and here, Jain promises to “weave text from performance scores and personal poetry” with live ceramic construction by hand and at a potter’s wheel. The work explores questions of migration and immigration, intimacy, and performance art, and the title comes from the ceramicist concept that “some clays are less useful or desirable to other materials.” Jain wants to “embrace the tension between irony and sincerity as material.” I can’t really picture what the performance will be, but that’s part of the appeal.
This is just a peek at the shows on my list! I’ll be with you next week for a fuller tour, including shows like Situational Beaver, Cold Beer Reading, Priority Hoarding, Americana Cosplay, Stoop Bitch, and lots more. I encourage you to dive into the catalog for yourself, and look out for lots more coverage coming your way, to help you decide what to see.
