Get ready for the 28th Annual Philadelphia Fringe Festival, hosted by FringeArts! Experience over 300 cutting-edge performances and art installations that push boundaries and spark imagination. From September 5 to September 29, 2024, immerse yourself in a month-long celebration featuring local and international talent.
Curated by FringeArts' Mikaela Boone, this year's lineup pays homage to the festival's roots while embracing innovative new works from groundbreaking artists. Witness world premieres from Lightning Rod Special and Pig Iron Theatre Company, an interactive opera titled We Have Gone As Far As We Can Together, Elevator Repair Service's Ulysses, and Nichole Canuso's The Garden. Prepare to be captivated by performances from acclaimed artists like Holland Andrews, Reggie Wilson, and Trajal Harrell.
In addition to the curated program, explore over 300 independently produced shows and digital events at the Festival Hub program featuring Cannonball, Circus Campus Presents, and more exciting acts. Don't miss this unforgettable fusion of artistry at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival!
Philadelphia Fringe Festival Curated Performances
New York Times Critic’s Pick
Ulysses
By Elevator Repair Service
Presented in Association with The Rosenbach Museum & Library
September 5-7, 2024
FringeArts, 140 N Columbus Blvd, Philadelphia PA 19106
Elevator Repair Service takes on the Mount Everest of twentieth-century literature.
James Joyce’s Ulysses has fascinated, perplexed, scandalized, and/or defeated readers for over a century. Building on a rich history of staging modernist works—Gatz, The Sound and the Fury, The Select (The Sun Also Rises)—Elevator Repair Service (ERS) takes on this literary landmark.
Seven performers sit down for a sober reading but soon find themselves guzzling pints, getting in brawls, and committing debaucheries as they careen on a fast-forward tour through Joyce’s funhouse of styles. With madcap antics and a densely layered sound design, ERS presents an eclectic sampling from Joyce’s life-affirming masterpiece. Fun fact: the original Ulysses manuscript is housed in Philadelphia at the Rosenbach Museum & Library!
The Garden: River’s Edge
By Nichole Canuso Dance Company
September 7-22, 2024
Arch Street Meeting House, 320 Arch St, Philadelphia PA 19106
The Garden: River’s Edge is a guided experience for six audience members at a time. More than a performance, The Garden is a series of experiential, site-specific encounters that engage with the venue and manifests differently in each location. After years of touring, The Garden now returns to Philadelphia in a new form.
Via audio prompts on a headset, a guiding voice invites audience members along a series of playful and tender encounters with dancers, fellow audience members, and the historic architecture of Arch Street Meeting House.
Each participant follows their own distinct path of sonic exploration and gentle movement. All interactions will be from a distance and the level of physical activity will be minimal.
World Premiere
The Lightning Rod Special Production of
Nosejob
By Lightning Rod Special
September 7-21, 2024
Theatre Exile, 1340-48 S 13th St, Philadelphia PA 19147
College hook-ups, female friendship, football, and a medieval saint who cuts off her nose to spite a pack of rapacious vikings.
Set in the early 2010s at a Catholic university where boys are “burying” their faces in girls’ breasts as part of a schoolwide prank, Nosejob tells the story of a few sorority friends who plot revenge against a group of lecherous jocks. That is until one of the girls, Devon Chase—athletic trainer for the football team—finds herself distracted by more pressing urges. After hours in the locker room, she stumbles into a flirtation with the assistant football coach. She’s also contending with a looming medievalism presentation and visions of a drunken nun with a dark secret.
A ferocious satire, Nosejob looks at the messy, funny, and painful experiences that defined our past to more clearly perceive the sexual politics of the present.
World Premiere
Poor Judge
By Pig Iron Theatre Company
In association with The Wilma Theater
September 11-22, 2024
The Wilma Theatre, 265 S Broad St, Philadelphia PA 19107
Dreamed up by Philadelphia’s beloved Dito van Reigersberg, this live music mixtape is part Hollywood audition, part woeful tale of lost loves, and part spy story—all performed by a local supergroup of actor-musicians.
Through vignette and song, Poor Judge offers glimpses of an inviting, seductive Los Angeles and also its shadow: the frightening underbelly of the American success story. Be prepared for a night of lonely California highways, movie theater breakups, and sly acoustic reimaginings of Aimee Mann’s haunting catalog.
Featuring Emily Bate, Josh Machiz, izzy sazak, Jackie Soro, and Justin Yoder. Multi-instrumentalist and music director Alex Bechtel anchors the ensemble with sly new arrangements of Mann’s songs.
Holland Andrews
Co-presented with Ars Nova Workshop
September 19-20, 2024
Solar Myth, 1131 S Broad St, Philadelphia PA 19147
Charged, haunting, genre-defying music exploring themes of vulnerability and healing.
Holland Andrews is a vocalist, composer, producer, and performer whose work focuses on the abstraction of operatic and extended-technique voice to build cathartic and dissonant soundscapes. In a two-night engagement at Solar Myth, they will perform their original compositions for voice, clarinet, and electronics.
Andrews’ influences stem from a dynamic range including contemporary opera, theater, and jazz. An artist in this year’s Whitney Biennial, Andrews composes and performs for dance, theater, and film. They have collaborated with artists including Bill T. Jones, Dorothee Munyaneza, and Will Rawls.
Reggie Wilson: POWER
With The Fist and Heel Performance Group
September 20-22, 2024
FringeArts, 140 N Columbus Blvd, Philadelphia PA 19106
An inquiry and reflection on the history of Mother Rebecca Cox Jackson, a free Black woman who founded her own Shaker community in Philadelphia in the 1850s. POWER is the spirited and revelatory result of his research of the Shakers with special interest as to what Black Shakers’ practices might have looked like.
Throughout his career, award-winning choreographer Reggie Wilson has sought out the varied histories and spiritual practices of Africa and its diaspora to develop his own personal movement style, which he sometimes calls “post-African/Neo-HooDoo modern dance.”
Returning to FringeArts, Wilson and the Fist and Heel Performance Group offer audiences a simple gift: a whirling, rhythmic, exalted expression of Black Shaker worship.
American Premiere
The Listeners
By Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek
Co-presented with Opera Philadelphia
September 25-29, 2024
Academy of Music, 240 S Broad St, Philadelphia PA 19102
A thriller about social rejection, suburban loneliness, and the seductive power of cults and charismatic leaders in a divided nation.
Composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek follow up on their acclaimed 2016 world premiere Breaking the Waves. The Listeners examines the lengths to which we, as Americans, are willing to go to find a sense of place and purpose, and the ways in which confident, charming leaders can exploit these needs to their own ends.
A middle-class mother (soprano Nicole Heaston) living in a southwestern U.S. suburb notices a “hum,” a high-frequency environmental noise that only a select few people, the “Listeners,” can hear. A community organization quickly forms to solve the mystery of the hum, but when the de facto leader (Kevin Burdette) suggests a spiritual significance, the meetings become increasingly cult-like. Is this community of “Listeners” on a collision course with destruction?
Trajal Harrell: The Köln Concert
With Zürich Dance Ensemble
September 28-29, 2024
FringeArts, 140 N Columbus Blvd, Philadelphia PA 19106
What if iconic Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell opened for Keith Jarrett playing The Köln Concert—one of most famous solo jazz albums of all time?
Dancer and choreographer Trajal Harrell stages this unlikely meeting of musical geniuses in one of the most emotional works of his career.
Harrell is known for his ability to deconstruct and reimagine dance forms ranging from voguing and runway to postmodern dance and butoh, creating a singular style infused with humor and poignancy. Returning to FringeArts, Harrell performs alongside six members of his company, the Zürich Dance Ensemble. With precise movements and deep feelings, the dancers find resonances between Michell’s lyrical tracks and Jarrett’s gospel-fused improvisations. At turns statuesque and playful, the international cast delivers a moving exploration of human vulnerability.
World Premiere
We Have Gone As Far As We Can Together
Created in collaboration by Helga Davis, Charlotte Brathwaite, Sunder Ganglani and Cauleen Smith
November 1-9, 2024
FringeArts, 140 N Columbus Blvd, Philadelphia PA 19106
World Premiere We Have Gone As Far As We Can Together is a ritual opera, a collaboratively sung, meeting of voices, a ritual release. It invites the audience to sing mantras along with a chorus of Philadelphia voices, with the intention of letting go of what no longer serves and saying goodbye to old ideas.
Inspired by the sonic and spiritual resonance of artists like Alice Coltrane and Sun Ra; traditions that hold music in community like Vedic kirtan and Sufi kourel; collective compositional practices from visionary composers like Butch Morris and Pauline Oliveros – We Have Gone As Far As We Can Together is an expansive sonic conversation.
Fringe Festival Hubs
These independent satellite festivals provide a comprehensive extension of the Fringe Festival into Philadelphia’s rich neighborhoods and communities. Each hub features dozens of independently produced experiences in one centralized location:
Cannonball: With over 100 offerings – from rebellious circus, delicious dance, fearless theatre and activist art, to workshops, parties, and more – Cannonball pushes the boundaries of live performance at four different venues this Fringe. Don't miss the peer-selected “Panel Picks” including winners of the BIPOC New Work Track and Al-Bustan Award, the inaugural Black Circus Week, community-focused programming including panels and workshops, and much more. Come as you are and stay past bedtime. Blaze your own trail at cannonball festival.org. Additional media information is available at cannonballfestival.org/press
Circus Campus: This fall, the spotlight turns to Circus Campus Presents, the vibrant hub within the renowned Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Since its inception in 2017, Circus Campus has woven a tapestry of community, uniting teachers, students, performers, & creators. This hub isn’t your typical circus tent — nestled in leafy-green West Mt. Airy, their campus is a beautifully restored church—a sanctuary for creativity. Just steps from Upsal Station, it beckons curious souls. Come witness the spectacle, and who knows? Maybe you’ll find yourself balancing on a tightwire or soaring on a trapeze. September 6-29 witness 12 different circus and variety shows presented over 4 weekends at Circus Campus (6452 Greene St) Learn more at circuscampusphiladelphia.com/presents/
Glen Foerd: Glen Foerd is an 18-acre public park and historic site located along the Delaware River in Philadelphia. Built in 1850 and enlarged in 1902-03, the estate—consisting of historic gardens, an Italianate-Classical Revival style mansion, and multiple additional structures—was saved from potential development through the activism of dedicated neighbors in 1983. Today, Glen Foerd focuses on welcoming a diverse community through a wide array of programs for all ages. As one of the only cultural sites located in Northeast Philadelphia, a rapidly changing area of the city, Glen Foerd aims to connect audiences from different backgrounds by offering unique and affordable experiences to engage with the arts and the environment. www.glenfoerd.org
TICKET INFORMATION
Tickets go on sale to FringeArts Members on Tuesday, July 30 at 10am, and to the general public on Thursday, August 1 at 10am unless otherwise indicated.
Tickets can be purchased online at FringeArts.com, by phone at 215.413.1318, or by visiting the Fringe Festival Box Office at FringeArts (140 N Columbus Blvd, Philadelphia).
