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Fringe encores, Sappho’s Salon, and Stories My Father Told Me
The BSR Weekly Arts and Culture Roundup, November 13-19, 2025
Kyle V. Hiller
This week, Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture opens a new solo exhibition that looks at life in Lebanon. Scribe Video Center screens a film that captures Black queer joy, and a handful of Fringe shows see encores at Yellow Bicycle Theater. The Wilma’s first family production opens, and a Thanksgiving play tries to tackle the holiday in a way that pleases everyone—surely something will go wrong there.
The Snow Queen
November 11-23
The Wilma Theater, 265 South Broad Street
The Wilma’s first family production hopes to invite a new generation of young theatergoers to the theater, starting with the classic adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s story about the power of love and the courage to defy a world turned cold.
Stories My Father Told Me
November 13-January 8, 2026
Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture Gallery, 310 West Master Street
Through 25 paintings, artist Helen Zughaib’s solo exhibition brings a world derived from the stories that her father would relay to her and her siblings while growing up in Lebanon. An opening reception is happening on Thursday, November 13 at 6-8pm.
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Friday, November 14, 7pm
Scribe Video Center, 3908 Lancaster Avenue
This new experimental documentary film by artist Osadolor Osawemwenze transforms memory and lived experience into a dynamic visual archive that celebrates Black queer joy, intimacy, and the ongoing process of self-becoming. The film is told through fragmented soundscapes and layered conversations.
The Thanksgiving Play
November 14-29
Players Club of Swarthmore, 614 Fairview Road, Swarthmore, PA
PCS Theater’s production of The Thanksgiving Play opens this week. It’s a comedy where a troupe of terminally woke teaching artists scramble to devise a holiday pageant that somehow honors both Turkey Day and Native American Heritage Month without offending anyone.
Philly Fringe Encores
November 14-16
Yellow Bicycle Theater, 1435 Arch Street
The 2025 Philly Fringe Festival is getting a few encores this weekend. Productions include immersive and interactive experience Slideshow, a laugh-out-loud solo show about learning to drive How I Learned (Not) to Drive, improv show Infinite Gs, and the documentary A Marine Goes to Washington.
Sappho’s Salon
Friday, November 14, 7:30-9:30pm
Dyke+ ArtHaus, 709 North 40th Street
This intimate and immersive performance experience honors the lives and artistic communities of FLINTA+ (women, lesbian, intersex, nonbinary, trans, agender) artists who created radical spaces of love, art, and community. The pilot production that plans to keep developing into a multi-floor theatrical experience in 2026-27 asks: what worlds are we building together now?
Womanhood: An American Horror Story
Sunday, November 16, 2-4pm
Nikki Lopez, 304 South Street
Presented by the Philadelphia Women’s Theatre Festival, this staged reading series showcases new plays and monologues by local women playwrights that highlight the witchy, the eerie, the supernatural, and the horrors of our world today.
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