Want to join an in-person conversation with me and other Philly arts media leaders? Come on out to a panel discussion at Asian Arts Initiative on Wednesday, September 17 (one week from tonight), from 6:30-7:30pm: Bringing the Outside Edge In - Philadelphia Artists, Journalists, and Audience in Dialog. It's free, and no registration is required. I'm looking forward to the discussion, including a Q&A.
The reviews!
Scroll down and you'll see more than a dozen Fringe reviews: cabaret, solo shows, music, activism, dance, world-premiere plays, old favorites like Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged). BSR has a better guide to the Fringe than anyone else in town. But if you check out some of the reviews below, I hope you notice something else: each review is part of a complex network of arts happenings we've been covering for years.
Follow those links in the individual reviews, and you will find that we've covered many of these artists before. A lot of them have a long history of fascinating work, and their 2025 Fringe show is just the latest iteration of their distinctive oeuvre. So our writers aren't just telling you which shows are "good," they're building a deep record of the work that serves both the artists and our readers over time.
The shows we cover this week include several notable emerging companies, like Pier Players, Theatre by Development, Slippery Trout Productions, and Indecorous Theatre. The work they're presenting now will shape our scene in the years to come, and when you engage with the scrappy, shoestring, risky, heartfelt work that goes onstage in a Fringe festival, you're watching the future of Philadelphia theater, and maybe even American theater at large.
Fringe frightens fascists
Our ongoing support for indie artists (and arts media) is exactly what terrifies powerful people who are trying to stamp out our history and our wonderfully diverse cultural life. We ensure our cultural future by refusing to back away from the arts today. So check out our reviews and find a show to hit this weekend (many are closing on Sunday, some continue through September). Maybe you can even help support our hardworking Fringe writers.
Alaina Johns
BSR editor-in-chief
