The editor’s guide to the 2026 Philly Fringe

We’ll have the shows I’m attending up top (updated with mini-reviews as I go), but don’t miss the themed bonus picks at the bottom, including honorable mentions of the shows I wish I had time to catch. Let’s dive in.

Goblet of Light
September 8 & 9 at Icebox’s Box Spring Gallery

“A glimpse into a larger project exploring the intersection of acrobatic performance, sensor technology, and live reactive environments.” Multi-sensory experiences seem to be a theme of this year’s fest (see more below).

MY REVIEW: Creator/performer Axl Osborne plays with digitally responsive light, sound, motion, and body percussion. There are some arresting visuals in the small (and stuffy) gallery space, and some charming, gently participatory moments. Appropriately billed as a work in progress, the show as it stands (about 25 minutes long) is embryonic, without a clear arc, but it’s the seed of something interesting. After the performance, Osborne spoke briefly about the potential applications of light and sound programmed to be responsive to human movement, and how these could be adapted into art-making tools for people with a variety of disabilities.

Anarchy
September 8-12 at Icebox Project Space Gallery

“Burn it down. Build it UP! The revolution continues in this immersive production filled with aerials, fierce dancing , and raw theatrical truth. This show is for the troublemakers and those who continue to RESIST!” This is the energy I need in 2026.

MY REVIEW: This high-energy performance, part of International Black and Indigenous Circus Week (IBICW), comes from The Rebellion Circus (founded in 2023), part of a collective of performers known as Rebel Arts Movement (founded in 2020 by Alyssa Bigbee and based in Kensington). It was great to see ensemble members with varying skills and skill levels all performing together, each with their own flair. Eye-catching aerials are a highlight of the performance.

The boxy, cavernous Icebox Project Space is a difficult venue because of its terrible acoustics—any spoken performance suffers greatly here. Anarchy includes interstitial passages of spoken text, but from where I was seated on the side, I could not understand the speaker, who needs a microphone and much clearer delivery. I am sad to have missed what was clearly a core piece of the show. And while the audience is seated on three sides, the performance is staged and choreographed for the center section, with difficult sightlines for everyone else. Grab seats in the center if you go.

The choreography is very tight, timed with admirable precision to different songs, but unfocused, drawing the eye ceaselessly around the stage even when one performer is suspended in the hoop or silks. Maybe this refusal to conform to a more focused pattern is apt for a show titled Anarchy. The whole cast brings unmistakable joy and skill. At the opening-night curtain call, Bigbee highlighted Philly’s arts funding crisis and urged engagement and advocacy for our cultural scene. IBICW is a great Fringe destination. Check out the full lineup here.

Know before you go: Anachy contains flashing lights.

Plausible Deniability v 0.1
September 8 & 9 at Icebox’s Box Spring Gallery

“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.” I loved creator Ben Grinberg’s 2025 show.

MY REVIEW: This is another work in progress from Ben Grinberg and his Almanac Projects, featuring co-performer Axl Osborne. Before entering the small gallery space, styled as a sauna with theatrical haze, audience members had to surrender their phones, and got the option to remove some clothing and don a towel. Several men did, stripping down to their undies. Spoken text mixes with Grinberg’s trademark daring and symbiotic movements and lifts, raising questions about looking, seeing, and connection. The involving movement is by turns sensual, tender, belligerent, surprising, and funny (I will never look at rice paper the same way), though the space is too small for some of the lifts—an accident or slip could be dangerous to the audience at such close quarters. At the end, Grinberg noted that the work is still in development, and it certainly does not feel finished here, but I look forward to future iterations. The second and final performance of this run is already sold out. Look out for a full review by Evan Schares.

Know before you go: This performance includes theatrical haze and nudity.

The Sicilian Dilemma
September 8-12 at The Parlor (formerly Headlong Dance Studio)

From creator Joe Canuso: a “play about Identity. Using stories of my childhood growing up with a Sicilian grandfather who emigrated to America in 1914, I explore the prism through which I see myself today. The play uses video and song to tell the story of a complex man who lived a life of mystery and adventure, but was not the person he seemed to be on closer inspection.” An interesting stop close to home in South Philly.

MY REVIEW: Creator/performer Joe Canuso wonders about how we shape our own identities with tales of the Sicilian grandfather who dominated his childhood. In a monologue aided by gentle live strings from Chris Sannino and some charmingly wobbling songs, Canuso explores his grandfather’s larger-than-life exploits along with scraps of evocative ephemera like photos and letters (projections by Michael Long). He also reflects on the enduring mysteries of his family life—why did he never meet his own grandmother despite often being in the same building? As it stands, the piece feels unfinished and lacks a satisfying arc, but it’s genuine, and a sold-out matinee crowd on Wednesday proved the interest in Canuso’s story. It’s just the kind of thing to experiment with in a Fringe.

Lunar Retreat
September 9-20 at The Pearlstein Gallery

“Lunar Retreat is an interactive, multi-sensory performance inspired by the gradual distance growing between the moon and the earth. This immersive journey invites audiences to wander, witness, and reflect on how we move through care, loss, and transformation—both individually and collectively.” BSR dance critic Camille Bacon-Smith will be reviewing, and I get to tag along.

MY REVIEW: One day, dancers and movement artists will realize that not everyone can walk comfortably in sock feet, or sit on tiny hard stools, small chairs crowded together, backless benches, or the floor. Today is not that day! The latest work by dancer/choreographer Nichole Canoso creates a meditative, immersive environment of movement, light, texture, and sound. The dance ensemble is excellent, and choreography inspired by the ocean and all of the cyclical rhythms of the Earth and the Moon is a highlight. The full experience runs bit long, especially given physically uncomfortable aspects of the space, but I recommend giving yourself over fully to the individual prompts. I found them unexpectedly emotional. Look out for a full review by Camille Bacon-Smith.

Kramer/Fauci
September 8-11 at FringeArts

“Internationally acclaimed director Daniel Fish (Oklahoma!) turns his eye to one of the most combustible conversations of the AIDS crisis: the 1993 televised clash between Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading AIDS researcher, and playwright-activist Larry Kramer.” Sounds fascinating and rich with relevant history.

MY REVIEW: The text of this performance is based directly on the transcript of a C-SPAN interview recorded in late 1993 between Dr. Anthony Fauci (the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health from 1984-2002), and writer, activist, and ACT UP instigator Larry Kramer. The conversation concerns a fractious and deeply founded debate over the role of the US government in the AIDS epidemic. It is performed here with a mix of startling realism from actors Pete Simpson (Fauci) and Thomas Jay Ryan (Kramer) and surreal, eye-catching stage elements. The entire conversation about the role of government in a public health crisis is, sadly, incredibly trenchant today. Every moment of this performance held my attention. Look out for a full review by Josh Herren.

My Carmilla
September 11-26 at Plays and Players Skinner Studio

“A bold reimagining of J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 vampire novella Carmilla through a queer, feminist, and postcolonial lens.” I wanted to catch this show last year and wasn’t able, and now I have another chance.

MY REVIEW: I’m not familiar with the original source material here, but the Fringe is a great time to expand your horizons. This play follows a late-19^th-century American household: a domineering preacher, his 18-year-old daughter, and her bitter governess. A mysterious young woman in rich clothing shows up on their doorstep one night, and a queer, unsettling vampiric romance ensues with unexpected consequences, making us wonder what makes a monster. The lead actors swap roles each night; I saw Asha Bagal Kelly as Laura and Sabrina Caruso as Carmilla. Especially given the demand to master both roles, their performances are compellingly grounded and lived-in. Under director Rayne, the cast handles both intimacy and combat with aplomb, and quick scene-changes with minimal, versatile props and set. Lights by Bless Rudisill are hot and spooky, but sound by Ray Levitt is a bit overpowering (especially in the small black-box space upstairs at Plays & Players) in moments when the onstage chemistry could speak for itself.

Declaration
September 10-20 at the Bob & Selma Horan Studio at the Arden

“Reckoning with a life of ambition, compromise and service, a former public official uses the Declaration of Independence to interrogate his life—and ours.” After this Semiquincentennial year, as a cultural journalist, I may need a break from the Declaration. But I’ll give this new show developed with Whit MacLaughlin a chance.

MY REVIEW: Speaking of state government officials who go on to create works of theater, there should be a stringent state licensing board for any solo show longer than 45 minutes. Joe Torsella, former diplomat and one-term treasurer of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (he lost his re-election bid to Republican Stacy Garrity in 2020), reflects on his life in public service alongside his desire to be an artist, through the lens of his lifelong obsession with the Declaration. The show features effective sound (Natali Merrill), projections (Taj Rauch), and lights (Thom Weaver), which are also probably the touch of Whit MacLaughlin and New Paradise Laboratories, credited as developers. But Torsella’s one-man show quickly devolves into a bloated actor’s showcase.

Torsella performs vignettes of the perks and challenges of being treasurer and then seeing Garrity win the election. Onstage, he watches an excerpt of the video of himself making a notably gracious concession speech. A noble moment in politics? Sure. Great theater? No. Then he takes us to his years in an acting conservatory, and then things get truly deadly as a sojourn in Italy puts him in conversation with a priest about coming to terms with life not turning out the way he wanted. Billed as 75 minutes on the Fringe site, the runtime is noted in the playbill as 80 minutes. A little while after the 80-minute mark, Torsella embarks on a dramatized recitation of the entire text of the Declaration. It’s the only time I have ever wished Jefferson made more edits.

Torsella does some nice dialect work and his reflections on failure are admirable, but he does not have the stage presence to carry a 90-minute solo show (Robbie Hill plays a silent but charmingly implacable assistant dressed as a stage manager). Somewhere inside this play is an interesting 45-minute monologue about public service, but as it stands, this desultory series of vignettes and characters lacks any semblance of dramatic stakes or a satisfying arc.

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
September 10-13 at the Proscenium at the Drake

“Performer Julia Masli creates a hilarious, yet moving and unpredictable live experience at the intersection of comedy and performance. What begins as playful improvisation evolves into a collective ritual of care, vulnerability, and unexpected humor.” I’m very curious!

MY REVIEW: I can see why the buzzy pull quotes about this solo performance are so cryptic. It’s not something you want to spoil for anyone who hasn’t experienced it themselves. Masli is probably what every clown working today wishes they could be. I have now seen things at the Proscenium at the Drake I have never seen before, and will never see again. The house was completely sold out, and crowds of hopeful walk-ups were allowed to stand around the edges for a sublime 75 minutes of delicately precise, big-hearted human chaos.

Stoop Bitch
September 8-13 at the Louis Bluver Theatre at the Drake

“Taking stock of the world on her block in South Philly, Dolores Finnegan tells it like it is and takes no prisoners. Yep, she’s the STOOP BITCH, native to many a neighborhood block and a downright Philly institution. You seen her, you fear her, you trust her—and face it, you know she’s right.” As a 10-year resident of South Philly, I’m starting to know stoop life.

MY REVIEW: This world-premiere solo show, written by Daniel Neer and directed by his collaborator Ted Gorodetzky (together, they’re The LAB, a company dedicated to new visual and theatrical works), stars veteran actor and singer Lois Sach as Dolores Finnegan, who rules the block from her South Philly stoop. The show is more emotionally layered than I expected, and if the creators stage another iteration, I would love to see a deeper exploration of a woman’s midlife experience (public, private, sexual, medical) woven into the exploits Dolores recounts. The show has a lot to recommend it. I’ve lived on a small South Philly block for more than 10 years, and my own incarnation of this particular lady is named Rachel and she lives across from me in East Passyunk (yes, that’s PASH-yunk).

But some things don’t fit. The dialect, so important for this concept, is notably off. Sach hits some of the right vowels and expressions, but her dialect is a messy mix of Brooklyn and South Philly (nobody in South Philly says their R’s like that). And should Dolores be Italian, not Irish? The last segment of the show becomes a cabaret vehicle for Sach, and it feels tacked on, dragging out the runtime. It’d be interesting to see if this musical element could be incorporated more into the body of the show, but either way, it needs shortening, despite Sach’s obvious talent. The show could also benefit from some sound design (South Philly is certainly a rich sonic landscape, for better or worse) and maybe projections to help set the scene.

Nothing in the show materials or creators’ bios clues me into why this character is meaningful to them, and there is a decent sprinkling of hyper-local flavor, but not enough to convince me that this work is really rooted in my neighborhood. But I’m glad I saw it and enjoyed many aspects of the performance. One day recently Rachel, talking on the phone with her body wedged halfway out of her glass front door, to keep a weather eye on the block, waved to me as I set off. “Oh, I was just sayin’ hi tuh my nice neighbor,” she said into the phone. One of my proudest moments.

TRAD
September 11-13 at Pig Iron Theatre Company

“TRAD 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.” I grew up with expectations similar to today’s “tradwives” and always appreciate the chance to deconstruct.

MY REVIEW: I agree with Jill Ivey’s review of this solo show about a tradwife (Hannah Mitchell) leading a seminar on wifely Christian submission. Mitchell is a talented physical comedian, but her show also asks a lot of the audience in several participatory vignettes. I attended the closing performance, and it was often hard going for Mitchell to find audience volunteers (several people flat-out refused, including one woman who was sitting squarely in the front row), including a scene that required about seven participants. But Mitchell never missed a beat. And I don’t think the audience’s apparent reluctance was due to any flaw in her performance.

I don’t know if the show I attended was typical, or if the audience was more reticent than usual. But it did leave me reflecting on why some people might find it hard to raise their hand at a show like this. I personally had an upbringing similar to the evangelical churches that promote “traditional” marriage today, and I'm still coping with religious trauma. The show is funny, but it could also be a teense triggering, depending on your background.

Mitchell leans courageously into some of the darker themes of trafwifery, and the show has an unsettling finish that’s hard to categorize, taking a marked tonal departure from the rest of the work. I would be interested to see Mitchell lean even more into this, dealing more explicitly with the overt white supremacy baked into today’s viral tradwives, and a growing movement within their political realm to take away women’s right to vote.

Cold Beer Reading
September 14-22 at The Bottle Shop

“A panel of actors and comedians employ randomly assigned character stereotypes to perform dramatic interpretations of crowd-sourced beer reviews.” Could be inane, or really really fun. It’s right around the corner from home, so why not?

MY REVIEW: I had no idea that my friend and BSR colleague, An Nichols, one of our writers, would be performing at this show! So it was an extra treat. This more-than-slightly unhinged event from Cease and Desist Productions features five performers who read real beer reviews from a very legit beer-review site that remains nameless for legal reasons. The twist is that before each reading, they are randomly assigned a different character, like surfer dude, goth kid, cheerleader, hardboiled detective, William Shatner, gangster, opera singer, pirate, and many more. The result is lots of fun, though the caveat is that the tight seating area in the back of The Bottle Shop on East Passyunk Avenue was not air-conditioned on the night I attended, and since this September is proving extremely sweaty, it was sweltering. But there’s tons of cold beer to purchase. Some of the lengthier reviews could use judicious edits, to spare the extremely game performers and the runtime in the hot room. But overall, a good time, and very Fringe-y. It’s free, and there’s one more performance on Tuesday, September 22.

Priority Hoarding: A Retrospectacle
September 10-27 (and ongoing after the fest)

“Made for anyone who has ever lost a bag, gotten stuck, or missed a (metaphoric) flight, this trans(formational) installation asks: how do you know it’s time to move on when you don’t know where you’re going?” I’m up for anything the Bearded Ladies have cooking.

MY REVIEW: Don’t miss Evan Schares’s full review of this experience. Disclosure: I am currently serving on a Philly-based arts economy study with Bearded Ladies founder and artistic director Rose Jarboe.

Installed in an industrial space on the north edge of Old City, The Hairport is walkable from the Spring Garden stop on the El (or the L Metro line, per SEPTA’s rebrand). Visitors arrive for staggered entry times, with the recommendation of spending 60-90 minutes. With the help of several hospitable Stewardexes, we process through many rooms and experiences, including a cavernous, luxuriantly furred space with suitcase dioramas, including audio elements, paying homage to Bearded Ladies shows over the years.

There’s a Dito Van Reigersberg memorial wall, where visitors can share a remembrance of him, or of any beloved ancestor who has made their lives possible today. A nearby audio option featuring Van Reigersberg singing with Jarboe is a bittersweet interlude.

The Hairport is crammed with textures from crinkly and shiny to velvety to faux-furry, with many chances to handle props and costume pieces from 16 years of the Beards’ productions. Interactive elements contain a trove of videos, immersive anecdotes, and oral histories. We never spend more than about 15-20 minutes in any one area, but as someone who reads EVERY museum plaque, I could probably have spent hours. After a solid 75 minutes, I feel like I didn’t even scratch the surface before I had to head to my next show.

We kept hearing from the staff that we can come back again to experience the aspects we missed, which for me augments the question I had going in: who is this installation for? With prompts to consider what we hold onto, and whether, how, and why to let it go, this experience could appeal to anyone, but I think anyone not already familiar with the Beards might be a little at sea—for example, they may not regard re-creations and remembrances of the kitchen where the artists dreamed up the company (a major theme) as hallowed ground. The first room of the installation features an opportunity to indicate where, on the Beards’ 16-year timeline, you first met them. As of September 17, a majority of the markers fall in the past few years, with a large cluster on 2026—I assume from visitors whose first experience with the troupe will be this show.

I would be interested to know how these Beards newbies, like my plus one, found the show and what they thought, given that they weren’t familiar with the company’s body of work, and therefore might not resonate emotionally with the featured stories, settings, and objects. My companion exited feeling that it was an experience for those already in the club, and perhaps a bit navel-gazing. Is this primarily meant for people who know the Beards’ work, and dedicated fans who will come back multiple times to explore more of the Hairport, versus new audiences?

Either way, Priority Hoarding is a unique and worthwhile experience, and a love letter to an army of Philly artists. And I appreciate the obvious attention to disability access by the creators.

DOPPEL BÄNGER
September 9-19 at the Magic Gardens Studio

“Newly single and aggressively ready to mingle, Philly’s favorite chaos-cabaret icon Karen Tenderness sets sail on a Self-Love Cruise—only to discover that someone onboard has stolen her identity … But the deeper she digs, the harder it becomes to avoid the ultimate question: what if the biggest obstacle to living your best life... is you?” I loved Dan Kitrosser’s 2025 QUEER WINDOW! and I need more Karen Tenderness in my life.

MY REVIEW: Dan Kitrosser’s Karen Tenderness is back with a new adventure set, like last year, in the artful starry chaos of the Magic Gardens Studio (NOT the Magic Gardens on South Street; this is in East Passyunk on Watkins Street). DOPPEL BÄNGER doesn’t have as clear a story or arc as last year’s QUEER WINDOW!, and repurposes several incidents and themes, but it’s crammed with charming and hilarious crowd work. Midnight Karen is probably worth the price of admission on her own, and Kitrosser adds skilled musical flair by accompanying himself live on the keyboard.

But Kitrosser joins many artists this year with an incorrect time listing—a show billed as one hour runs 90 minutes, due in part to elongated crowd-work. It’s especially important to keep your promises to ticket-buyers during a festival, when we may be hustling to multiple shows. I was almost late for my next curtain.

In a post-show speech, Kitrosser paid homage to Isaiah Zagar, who passed away earlier this year, and Dito Van Reigersberg, noting that Karen Tenderness was born in one of Van Reigersberg’s drag workshops. I love Karen because she truly does have a tender heart, and her vulnerable moments shine through Kitrosser’s comedy. It makes perfect sense that the artist behind Martha Graham Cracker helped to shape her, and Karen Tenderness is a beautiful reminder that Martha will echo forever.

Single Woman: Work in Progress
September 12-23 at Yellow Bicycle Theater

“In the absence of a romantic relationship, the next best thing is the attention of a rapt audience. For as long as Tess has been single (forever), the best part of dates has been telling stories about them after. Now she’s ready to share them with everyone else.” Our own Neil Bardhan directs! Single straight men are HIGHLY encouraged to attend.

MY REVIEW: I enjoyed seeing director Neil, who was running the show, at last night’s performance. The entrance to this little second-floor venue is tucked on the east side of 15^th Street, just north of Arch. This iteration of Tess L’s funny but tender solo show about her romantic misadventures, and her earnest search for love, feels tighter than the version I saw last spring. If she continues to perform it, I would love to see it evolve into something that is not so tied to the stationary mic and the script on the podium, with more visual and interactive elements. Are you a single man in his 30s or 40s who dates women, located in or near Philly, who is left-leaning, humorous, intellectually curious, present, and down to date someone with the vulnerability and the guts to put herself out there onstage in her search for love? We can connect you.

The 40-Year-Old Ballerino
September 12-26 at Studio 34

“At 40 years old, Chris Davis seizes on ballet class as a way to replace all other addictions—drugs, alcohol, Modern Family and the toxic tropes of 90s John Cusack movies. With only a barre for support, he mixes dance and storytelling in a 50-minute comedy that shows you change is always possible, no matter what your age.” I reviewed this when it premiered in 2024 and am excited to see what Davis says are significant updates.

MY REVIEW: Disclosure: Since I reviewed the premiere of Ballerino in 2024, Davis and I have crossed over at shows often enough that he’s become a friend. He performed at BSR’s 20th anniversary party last January. I enjoyed Ballerino in its first iteration despite thinking that the latter half needed more shaping, and this version, which is home fresh from the Edinburgh Fringe, is tighter, darker, and feels even more physically fine-tuned, including in Davis’s facial expressions. Not to say that it isn’t very funny—it is—but the ending is raw and ambivalent in a way that feels earned and lived and relatable instead of messy. And unlike a lot of artists, Davis is a master of his medium in every way: this show is truly a tight 50-55 minutes, and when it ends, you wish it ran longer. Be sure to catch Jill Ivey’s full review.

Soseul Dawon: The Stark Garden of Presence
September 18-26 at Studio 34

“When we shut out seeing and hearing, what does the body begin to sense, feel and express?” More of the multisensory theater theme. Creator Jungwoong Kim impressed me in Seng’s Hair Salon.

MY REVIEW: I didn’t know what to expect from this performance, which is a great way to go into a Fringe show. Somehow it feels loose and experimental as well as minutely tuned and specific. Kim gives a strange, focused, multilayered physical performance incorporating sound, speech, paint, and objects, while “multimodal cultural anthropologist, ethnomusicologist, filmmaker and musician” Juan Castrillón watches intently and provides a meditative soundscape with various instruments and props, as simple as reeds scratching or sticks tapping, and clangorous as shrill bells that made many in the audience, including me, cover our ears. I could not understand the Korean Kim spoke, but my attention never flagged for the durational hour-long performance. In the spacious white yoga studio, with one butter-yellow brick wall, the play of light, reflection, shadow, movement, breath, speech, and sound was an exquisitely mindful interlude. The studio became a hotbed of sensory textures. With focused attention, a sudden absence of sound rang as loudly as the sound itself.

LIGEIA by Edgar Allan Poe
September 16-19 at Asian Arts Initiative Project Space

“Poe’s chilling tale of revivification is brought to life through physical theater. Solo performer William Trevino weaves poetic language with his four decades of martial arts training to create a visceral atmosphere of suspense.” Poe meets martial arts? This I have to see.

MY REVIEW: To me this performance is an example of why art is so innately human: something like this could never have come about without some guy’s lifelong passion and practice in both martial arts and the literature of Edgar Allan Poe. This hour-long performance is a monologue of most of the text of Poe’s Ligeia, an atmospheric story of about 6,000 words following a narrator who loves a mysterious woman, grieves her, marries again, and then watches his new wife die and physically transform into his first wife...or is it the opium? A measured yet emotional solo recitation is performed alongside a single prop (a book with a gold jacket) and two chairs, which become ballasts, platforms, partners, or prisons, and choreography inspired by Trevino’s lifelong Soo Bahk Do practice. The performance is captivating for its commitment and uniqueness.

BAD CLAY
September 8-19 at Asian Arts Initiative Project Space

Creator Justin weaves “text from performance scores and personal poetry to create a solo performance entitled BAD CLAY, an experience that experiments with the intersection of Ceramics and Performance.” Live theater combined with sculpting and a pottery wheel? Sure! Jain is one of Philly’s foremost interdisciplinary artists.

MY REVIEW: In a recorded opening monologue from Jain, who opens the show posing impassively with a slab of clay over his face, he tells us right up front that this show is experimental, and it certainly is, but I found it perhaps the most emotional experience of this year’s festival so far. Jain’s opener is frank, detailing the fact that despite many efforts, he has never been included in programming by Asian Arts Initiative (AAI), which hosts this show in a hot, narrow, liminal space with terrible sightlines. Jain points out how much more suited this performance would have been to the gallery space, instead of the strange little venue called AAI’s “project space”. He makes clear what a grind the working artist’s life can be—he says he’s lucky to clear $15K per year from his art.

An extended movement sequence follows in which he pulls and manipulates large ceramic pieces by long strings, sweat dripping off his face. It is weird, focused, effortful, and deeply precarious—just like the artist’s life. In another sequence, he interacts with a mannequin kitted out like an ICE agent who seems to surveil or menace him while Jain throws on the pottery wheel, a mylar blanket tied around the artist’s neck, obscuring his view of his own work. I appreciate BSR critic Evan Schares’s analysis of the scene.

There’s a lot to digest about this nonlinear, non-narrative performance, which incorporates speech, voice, movement, light and shadow, the wheel, clay, and thrilling sounds. I can’t unpack it all in this short reflection, especially so soon after watching it. But I found Jain’s performance to be extremely moving, managing to be both pointed and open to interpretation (it occasioned deep discussion between me and my plus one, who had each perceived something different). Jain wrestles bravely with his medium, with the artist’s life, and the artist’s life in America. At tonight’s show, I heard there are only two tickets left for the one remaining performance.

Helen Keller Wasn’t Real
September 17-20 at the Louis Bluver Theatre at the Drake

“Wry, incisive, and unexpectedly tender, this monologue explores misinformation, family, and the fragile hope that we might still find our way back to a shared reality, while asking what happens if we can’t.” This new work from Becky Bondurant sounds interesting and relevant.

MY REVIEW: The titular incident in Bondurant’s new solo show takes only a few moments of her approximately 70-minute monologue. Her high-school students come into class one day having seen a TikTok that convinced them Hellen Keller “wasn’t real”, i.e., that she was faking her deafness and blindness. Because how could a deafblind person even communicate, let alone write 14 books?

Bondurant schools them with a research assignment that leaves them abashed at their facile ableism. The story is one stop in Bondurant’s expansive spoken memoir about her family, including her father’s MAGA siblings and her liberal Facebook Boomer mom, who is losing her vision to a hereditary illness. It all ties into the theme of which information systems we become trapped in, what we refuse to see, and whether we can remove our blinders.

The piece dives deep into Bondurant’s family, detailing histories up through her great-grandparents to ground the division in her extended family today. I found it mostly engaging, but several people in the audience around me were clearly getting antsy toward the end. Except for one brief moment in which she rises to embody her mother, Bondurant delivers the monologue as herself, speaking directly to the audience while seated at a desk, turning the pages of her script. It’s not very theatrical, especially compared to a lot of the work in this year’s Fringe, but the story and themes are interesting. Yes, we can love people who have different values than we do, Bondurant observes; but perhaps it’s even harder to navigate the fact that people with different values love us.

The best memoir explores not only the foibles of others, but of the teller, exposing the author’s liabilities and vulnerabilities. To me, Bondurant’s monologue isn’t there yet. She gives her own nuclear family the kind of moral high ground that gives hives to leftists and right-wingers alike, casting her husband and kids as an oasis of harmony and morality in the divided clan. Her kids are not susceptible to their Republican cousins’ values simply because they know right from wrong. At one point, she recounts a Republican family member remarking enviously that Bondurant’s husband is a major catch because he cooks. Bondurant smugly remarks, “well, try dating a liberal sometime,” drawing a satisfied chuckle from the audience. But this kind of easy superiority doesn’t dig very deep.

Identifying as “liberal” does not turn anyone into a domestic paragon or guarantee that they’ll be a good partner or parent, and neither does being a right-winger or a leftist. Other comments, like Bondurant’s passing observation that the South is segregated while the Philly area is not, land in a similar way. Philly is extremely segregated, and anyone who regularly travels to all corners of the city can sense it. I agree with the values Bondurant is reaching for, but I wished the narrative bit deeper.

At the performance I attended, before the show, I overheard a white audience member saying that “every time I see an African American, I go up to them and ask if they’re registered to vote.” This person felt proud of their Democratic values; I felt sickly discomfort at this intrusive, paternalistic stereotyping. Does that make me a better person? Probably not, especially since I kept my thoughts to myself in the moment, rather than risk a kerfuffle with a stranger. And that only proves why we really do need work like Helen Keller Wasn’t Real, especially if future iterations can dig deeper beyond moral or political binaries.

We Can Always Tell
September 16-20

“Using dance, poetry, and visual art as mediums and their body as the instrument, Kendall Niblett transposes their experience medically transitioning into an evening length dance performance that emphasizes how all humans know the feeling of their own bodies hurting them, physical limitations, or feeling disturbed by their reflection.” These are themes I need.

MY REVIEW: This short work (about 45 minutes, including an intermission for the performer to catch their breath) is one of the most assured pieces I have seen in this year’s festival. With their design, tech, layout, and staging, Niblett harnesses the cavernous dimensions of the Icebox Project Space in a way few other performers do.

Dance is not my area of expertise, but I can tell that Niblett is a consummate performer and choreographer. They are a thrillingly articulate, graceful dancer, here demonstrating a wide range of both genre and emotion. Some of the most innovative and affecting choreography takes place on a slowly rotating platform at center stage. The performance incorporates Niblett’s own poetry in spoken or recorded interludes, as well as a reading of a poignant letter that I assume is from a real-life family member struggling with the physical changes Niblett seeks on their journey as a trans person. You can read a transcript of Niblett’s poetry in the show here.

They also demonstrate their talent for sourcing and mixing sound, dancing to their own extensive interlude of soundbites from anti-trans politicians, including Trump’s slurring, nonsensical “transgender for everybody” complaint. Effective music and lighting bridge several onstage costume changes, as Niblett explores different manifestations of gender on their journey through dance, including to Frank Sinatra’s I’ve Got You Under My Skin, which takes on new layers of meaning here.

The performance doesn’t shy away struggle and pain while still ending on a note of joy, ecstatic pride, and gratefulness to the audience for witnessing what Niblett called a fragment of what they have inside of them. They are a performer to watch.

Houndstooth
September 17-26 at Icebox Project Space Gallery

“Drag, French film, long zippers, it will be very touching.” I’ve been wanting to catch a performance by Vanessa Kamp and this is a great chance.

MY REVIEW: Disclosure: Kamp is a colleague and friend through a former Fringe collaboration. This work-in-progress is another unique multisensory entry in this year’s Fringe. In a follow-up message to me after the performance, Kamp says “expanded drag kinging is used to explore the possible haptic rub between physical and performative states,” with an extended homage to Claire Denis’s 1999 film Beau Travail, adding “layers to the themes of masculinity and identity present in the film.”

Did I know about the film reference beforehand, or all the deeper abstractions and meanings of the work? No. But it’s involving and enjoyable nonetheless. Kamp dons a variety of costumes that expand their small, sinewy frame instead of drowning it. The show has a spooky, dreamy, percussive soundscape that drives Kamp’s compelling, rhythmic, understated movement vocabulary, combined with unusual use of light, color, texture, lip synching, and a single spoken line that delights the audience.

TUZLUK
September 8-22
“Turkish-Colombian-American performer Izzy Sazak takes the audience on a wild ride; unpacking the awkward beauty of growing up mixed, caught between two empires worth of daddy issues and messy history. Tuzluk lovingly deconstructs the myth of the neo-liberal hero-man; mixing geopolitics with a hilarious, heartfelt, and fast paced examination of identity and inheritance.” Sazak was great in 2022’s Twelfth Night, O Lo Que Quieras.

MY REVIEW: I caught the closing performance of Sazak’s manic, magnetic solo show, and I was touched to see how many other Philly actors packed the audience. I recommend Krista Mar’s full review. Sazak weaves their life story—and a history of 20th-century Turkey—into a frenetic examination of the pain of every type of binary. They pour a big white circle of table salt on the stage (safe within, not safe outside) and ping-pong in and out of it while grappling with the world’s contradictions: their mixed-race heritage (Turkish and Colombian), their continent-straddling life, their hero-worship of deeply flawed parents and leaders, national narratives versus the truth, war versus genocide, art versus fear and censorship, and so many more. Sazak’s script is notable among many solo shows for its poetic quality, full of lyrical spoken motifs that overlay its distinctive physical choreography. I won’t spoil the uplifting conclusion, in case Sazak brings this show back in future and you can catch it yourself.

Situational Beaver
September 20-23 at Vox Populi Gallery

“Situational Beaver follows the Cleavers at a time before pants were short, your mom’s girlfriend was still your aunt, and your dad just wanted to know ‘what’s for dinner.’ Borrowing from the sitcom format, the show becomes a snapshot of today mixing in yesteryear, promising laughs and breaking its promises.” I'm always interested in deconstructions of the American nuclear family myth.

MY REVIEW: Vox Populi is a tough one. There’s nothing but a sandwich board to welcome you to the Fringe shows at this venue just north of the Vine. Tug the locked door, check to make sure you’re in the right place at the right time, and then notice a little doorbell on the right of the doorframe. Ring it and someone will buzz you in. Then you’re in a small, dirty vestibule full of junk, with no wayfinding signage at all. Try the small elevator on the left. Take it to the third floor (I think) and then find your way to the theater space from there.

The space was hot, and once the over-sold audience piled into stools set up in the aisle, it was hard to see the stage unless you were in the first few rows. But from my seat toward the back, I could tell that Situational Beaver, co-created by Lea Devon Sorrentin, Jake Symbol, Chip Sinton (who also co-direct and perform) is fun and funny.

The show is presented as a live taping of a 1950s-style family sitcom, with simple but evocative black-and-white painted backdrops and a tinkly, canned orchestral interlude that loops over the scene changes. Mom pretends her live-in girlfriend is her sister. Her two sons are gay (young Beaver is just discovering his sexuality), but Dad still stuffs his briefcase with sandwiches, leaves for work, and comes home to read the newspaper. His family’s arch, joyfully queer quips draw a TV-style laugh track, which is a fun way to meld the show’s competing sensibilities. The visual gags of Dad’s kink for reverse discipline ratchet up the hilarity as the performance goes on, and Dad must make peace with the fact that nobody needs him, actually.

As Situational Beaver stands, it’s more a fun concept, and a sense of artists at play, than a script that feels complete, but I enjoyed it. If they can stage it again, I hope it’s in a better-suited venue. Intrepid stagehands had to stash the different backdrops in a narrow space perpendicular to the stage and carry them in and out at each scene change. The show runs about 50 minutes, with maybe a quarter of that time dedicated to scene changes as the stagehands wrestled the backdrops in and out. But the audience was rapt and patient.

Raw Deal
September 25 & 26

“Are we in the last orgasm of the patriarchy? Armed with her sense of humor, feminist comedian Jennifer Blaine interrogates our progress, recounts personal stories of adversity, impersonates iconic figures, & uses her beloved original characters to exorcize this raw deal and empower us all.” I want to have a laugh with Blaine while thinking about stuff that matters.

MY REVIEW: This show runs at the Mister John’s venue at 904 S. 9^th Street, one of two Mister John’s locations in the neighborhood. Blaine is a Philly Fringe institution, having produced 17 original solo shows since our festival’s inception. Her resume as a performer and teaching artist is impressive, and her commitment to including and crediting other creatives in her current solo show is admirable. But her latest show (my first experience with Blaine) does not land with me.

The comedy is strained and stale, the puns are abysmal, and nonsensical character bits make the 70-minute runtime feel much longer. Yes, Brooke Shields has famous eyebrows, Emily Post never used the Internet, Marianne Williamson is a messianic weirdo, and Linda McMahon called AI “A1” that one time. I don’t know what any of this has to do with Blaine’s theme of women’s “raw deal” under patriarchy. A lot of the crowd-work drew crickets. I don’t want to discuss the songs.

Kate Gibson is credited as dramaturg and “assistant director”, but I can’t see any other director credit, and this show badly needs the perspective of a director to shape its thesis and hone its flailing and self-indulgent parts. Blaine does find genuine heart at the end, but I was left wishing that she had brought more of her own story to the topic.

The beauty of any art form is that one person’s opinion about it is just that: one person’s opinion. There were clearly others in the room who found this show funny and meaningful. Testing new work and chasing your passion is what the Fringe is all about. I hope Blaine’s fans can continue to find her there.

Never Can Say Goodbye – REV’s Graveyard Cabaret
September 24-26 at Christ Church Burial Ground

“After annual sold-out performances, New York/Philly-based REV Theatre Company will now bring their reimagined cabaret to historic, iconic Christ Church Burial Ground this fall to thrill and chill audiences amid the candle-lit tombstones and obelisks.” I caught REV’s Fringe cabaret last year and it was great. Director Rosey Hay taught me in college, so she’s a friend.

Due to this weekend's nor'easter, my planned REV performance was canceled.

Endgame by Samuel Beckett

“Endgame perfects the unity of form and content: four survivors of an unknown catastrophe—a man who can’t sit down, a man who can’t stand up, and two amputees in trash cans—perform an endless cycle of meaningless rituals as they await the end.” Endgame was my favorite Beckett back when I was getting my theater degree, so I want to catch this show by the consistently fine Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium.

MY REVIEW: You can call me a philistine, but Beckett and some of the other absurdist masters are always a hard sit for me. I try to take some in every once in awhile, though, so I don’t become too baked in my own preferences. In the case of this production, I’m glad I went.

As director Tina Ann Brock says in her playbill note, wondering what Beckett would be writing if he was alive today, “What words and filled silences could he possibly find for his characters to illustrate the existential peril of the current moment?” This play about a strange family in some kind of post-apocalyptic bunker does hit a bit different in America in 2026, and some of the lines take on even sharper meaning. Even if you struggle with Beckett, there are plenty of arresting flares of language and character to enjoy in this play, plus dark laughs.

Tydell Williams’s lights conspire with set designer Erica Hoelscher’s boxy basement to create constantly absorbing textures out of faux concrete (Hoelscher, Brock, and Bob Schmidt are all credited with the set painting), and when the lights dim, they draw us soberly in.

Brock and Schmidt play the piteously funny Nell and Nagg. David Bardeen brings gravelly, lugubrious savor to Hamm, and John Zak, his face powdered white, brings ghoulish glee and sadness to their mysterious butler Clov. Each gives a wonderful physical performance (especially notable for the three almost totally stationary characters), from Zak scaling a ladder with his bad leg to fingers creeping out from a trashcan lid.

It’s worth noting how many hats Brock is wearing at IRC: an artistic director who regularly acts and directs, and has design and construction credits as well (here, costumes, painting, and props, with Hoelscher and Schmidt). She’s the marketing/PR director and on the board of directors, too. Sometimes it spells trouble when one person wears too many hats, even in nonprofit life where it’s usually inevitable, but she’s a true artist at every level, and her passion and talent are instrumental to IRC.

Thanks to everyone who has been following along with my 2026 Fringe journey! Writing all of these reviews in one month has been a worthwhile challenge. I'm grateful for the BSR community of artists and readers who make a platform like this possible.

Bonus themed suggestions

Shows that tap into a multi-sensory experience seem to be a big theme this year. Here are some bonus picks beyond the shows I’ve listed above:

AudiOhm Sound Bath
Flood Stones Rising
Kachonk
Wherever You Are
Moral Injury

Here are some shows that embody something that I think is core to doing the Fringe right: open-ended, interactive performances where the audience determines the experience:

PhotoProv
The Deer Ones
Handle with Care
room/in/nation
Adulting

And here are a few honorable mentions: Shows I wish I could catch or that BSR was able to cover this year (we do our best, but we can never fit them all!).

Call of the Wild
Anamcara and Phoenix – Two One Acts
Born to Sing the Gospel

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