Philly Fringe 2026: Savannah Reich presents The Groundhog

The final class

But quick, please find your seat because class today is jam-packed! We have a film screening that never happens, a small group activity that never happens, a Brechtian gestus demonstration embodying our professor’s intense recent moment of public shame, a large group activity inspired by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief, and also student evaluations! The professor continually gets in her own way and cannot keep it together.

Throughout all this, the professor struggles to explain why Harold Ramis’s 1993 Groundhog Day must be the film to conclude the semester in her course, Comedy in Film: 1930s - Present. Coincidentally, this is also the final class of her teaching career, cut unceremoniously short by budget constraints…or are there other reasons?

Tender and hilarious

Under director Francesca Montanile Lyons, Gold’s performance is hilarious, and her treatment of the audience is tender. For those who have found themselves in a university auditorium bearing witness to an overly caffeinated and yogurt-eating professor sharing their zealous passion for the most idiosyncratic cultural phenomenon to have ever existed, then you'll agree with me: Reich gets it.

On stage, Gold is joined by Alex Braslavsky as the well-mannered, kindly smiling teaching assistant, making the perfect foil to the professor’s obsessive pursuit of meaning buried within the script history of Groundhog Day.

Staying late

The black-box theater at Asian Arts perfectly represents a classroom. On stage, just as in a university classroom, there is a desk and A/V equipment podium. It’s enough to help demonstrate a professor on the edge.

Her endless loop of barely appropriate acts of self-disclosure, word salads, false starts, mandated activities that run longer than they should, and lost trains of thought draw belly laughs from the audience, but since moving from beat to beat takes awhile, these drag a little on the runtime. The show is billed as 80 minutes, but runs closer to 90. Despite the regular “time checks” provided by the TA, our professor keeps class late.

A must-see window on higher education

Higher education and the arts are under attack in recent years, and Reich offers a timely glimpse into life in the professoriate. Professors, Reich, reminds us, are multifaceted humans with families, creative pursuits outside of work, troubles, and bad days that get a spotlight when they enter the classroom. And, as is the case here, they’re often subject to anonymous hostile reviews in student evaluations.

The Groundhog is a must-see for those who would like a glimpse of a professor who cares deeply about her students, her craft, and getting students to think more critically about their communities.

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