The BSR Weekly Arts and Culture Roundup, April 30-May 6, 2026

Ain’t Misbehavin’, The Fats Waller Musical Show
April 29-May 17
Theatre Horizon, 401 DeKalb Street, Norristown

The Tony Award-winning musical comes to Norristown, with the music and spirit of the Harlem Renaissance, including a six-piece band and an ensemble cast.

The 8th Annual College of Physicians Story Slam
Thursday, April 30, 6:30-8:30pm
Mütter Museum, 19 South 22nd Street

Local medical students and healthcare providers share their personal experiences through stories. They’ll each have five minutes to speak, and at the end, the audience will select the best stories.

Dance Like It’s 1829
April 30-May 2, 7pm
Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 North American Street

Coming as part of the America 250 and Philadelphia Dance Projects’ Dance Up Close ‘26 series, Dance Like It’s 1829 is a work that celebrates the city’s shared history through movement, exploring how dance has always been a language for connection across race, class, and neighborhood, and how Philadelphians have found freedom, belonging, and joy through rhythm. The program is presented by Putty Dance Project, and is led by choreographer Lauren Putty White and trombonist and composer Brent White.

Steal this Story, Please!
May 1-7
Film Society Bourse, 400 Ranstead Street

This documentary revisits some of the most urgent and underreported stories of our time, while revealing the determination, integrity, and humanity behind independent journalist Amy Goodman’s approach.

Homo Economicus
May 1-10
God’s Automatic Body & Spa, 5522 Baltimore Avenue

This co-production from singer and composer Emily Bate and worker-owned theatre cooperative Obvious Agency dubs itself as part performance art, part lecture, and part dance club—a multidisciplinary performance featuring music, striptease, and heaps of garbage. The piece examines the economy as expressed through our individual lives and imagines pathways to rebuilding it from the ground up.

Lobby Hero
May 1-16
614 Fairview Road, Swarthmore, PA

PCS Theater opens its production of Lobby Hero this weekend. The story is set in the lobby of a Manhattan apartment building, following luckless young security guard Jeff, who becomes entangled in a local murder investigation where loyalties are tested and moral lines blur.

Wild Horizon
May 2-3
Cherry Street Pier, 121 North Columbus Boulevard

A free public, family-friendly circus pops up at the riverfront this weekend, celebrating boundary-pushing performance in public space while expanding access to one of humanity’s most essential instincts: play. Almanac Projects, Ninth Planet, and Rebel Arts Movement are collaborating on the experience, which features youth workshops and interactive experiences in addition to the performances.

Philadelphia Children’s Festival
May 3-5
Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 3680 Walnut Street

This year’s festival brings weekend performances and school-day matinees. See master illusionist and magician Bill Blagg, check out TheaterWorksUSA’s production of The Magic School Bus, jam with jazz with Jazz Reach’s Hanging With the Giants, and see a stage adaptation of coming-of-age novel I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.

Docs & Dialogues
Mondays and Tuesdays, May 4-19, 2026
The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, 101 South Independence Mall East

The Weitzman’s Philadelphia Jewish Film + Media program begins a new spring series Docs & Dialogues, bringing new documentaries to the screen. Tying in conversations with the filmmakers on both sides of the camera, the films will include stories that explore pivotal people and places in American Jewish history, personal accounts of the Holocaust, and explorations of cultural ties in South America and the Middle East.

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