Philadelphia Fringe Festival is back for 26th season

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- The 26th annual Philadelphia Fringe Festival kicks off Sept. 8 with about 200 shows, the vast majority of which are from independent local artists.

R.T. Bowersox, who you may recognize from the long-running "In the Kitchen with Bob" on QVC is staging Fresh Ink Shorts at Plays and Players with his wife, Melody.

It's a series of 11 miniature plays, some as short as a minute, stitched together through lighting and music.

The Fringe is known for experimental works. It's a platform for artists to try anything and for audience members, for a small or no fee, to come-as President and Producing Director, Nick Stuccio puts it-with the widest open mind possible.

And while independent local artists are the bedrock of the festival, there are eight curated shows in this year's Fringe.

There's a twist on karaoke called "Spokaoke" where audience members recite a famous speech from history.

A play called "Speech" takes a satirical stab at cancel culture.

"The Path of Pins or the Path of the Needles", set at Germantown's Rigby Mansion, is a dark fairy tale from Philadelphia-based and Fringe perennial favorite, Pig Iron Theater.

Pig Iron partnered with West Coast filmmaker, Josephine Decker, who has directed such films as "Shirley" starring Elizabeth Moss, to create a highly immersive piece with audience members becoming pregnant dreamers trying to fend off a witch who's trying to steal their baby.

It's a create your own adventure kind of experience with audience members navigating scene by scene what they decide to see. There are more than 200 possibilities of the show

"An Untitled Love", a dance piece with dialogue by Kyle Abraham's A.I.M, is a story about Black love with music by D'Angelo. Philadelphia born and raised Donovan Reed is one of 10 dancers in the show and it is his very first Fringe.

In founding the Fringe in 1996, Nick Stuccio based it on the Edinburgh Fringe. Twenty-six years later, the festival is famous for turning crazy places into performance spaces all over the city.

The festival's year-round headquarters, FringeArts, becomes a performance hub during Fringe and this year there are three other hubs as well, with as many as 30 artists in each hub staging multiple works daily.

This year's festival runs Sept. 8-Oct. 2.

On opening night, there's a party at FringeArts starting at 10pm with a live band and karaoke.

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215-413-1318

September 8-October 2

FringeArts

140 N. Columbus Blvd.(at Race St.), Philadelphia, Pa. 19106