Guide To Philadelphia Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe
Philadelphia is amping up its arts scene this September with the return of the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe! Interested in checking it out? See our guide below. – Chelsea Karnash
What: Dating back to 1997, the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe is actually two festivals in one.
The Live Arts Festival is a curated selection of the world's most cutting edge performing arts groups, who are invited by festival director Nick Stuccio. This year, about 14 shows are on the Live Arts schedule.
Similarly, Philly Fringe also features great, cutting edge performances, but these are "unfiltered," meaning artists can perform without going through a selection process. Much like the famed Edinburgh Fringe in Scotland, Philly's Fringe Fest is open to any artist that can find a venue and wants to perform a piece or promote their art to the world.
In total, there are over 180 performances scheduled over 16 days during 2012's Live Arts and Fringe Fest, including dance, spoken-word, plays, visual arts, music and more.
When: September 7 – 22, 2012
Where: Performances take place all over the city in galleries, restaurants, concert halls, theaters, etc.
Schedule: Seriously? With so many performances, there's just no way to list them all here. To browse events by day or keyword and then get tickets to your faves, click here.
Here's a list of performances broken down by genre:
COMEDY + IMPROV
3 Mad Rituals – King Friday / Philly Improv Theater (PHIT)
Angry People Building Things – Angry People Building Things
Awesome Alliteration: The Magical Musical – BetaMale Productions
Bye Bye Liver: The Philadelphia Drinking Play – The Pub Theater Company
Cambridge Footlights – Cambridge Footlights/ Philly Improv Theater (PHIT)
ComedySportz Presents: The Archdiocese of Laughter – Mark Leopold / ComedySportz
ComedySportz Presents: Beatbox Philly – ComedySportz Presents
ComedySportz Presents: Cecily and Gwendolyn – Cecily and Gwendolyn
ComedySportz Presents: CStar Warz – ComedySportz Presents
ComedySportz Presents: Dangerous Fools – Dangerous Fools
Comic Energy Sketch Comedy Show – Comic Energy Productions
Davenger – Philly Improv Theater (PHIT)
Fibber – Philly Improv Theater (PHIT)
Hot Dish presents "Backstory" – Philly Improv Theater (PHIT)
Myths & Monsters – Philly Improv Theater (PHIT)
PHIT Sketch House Team – Philly Improv Theater (PHIT)
PRO-MANIA 2K12 – Philly Improv Theater (PHIT)
Real Housewives of South Philly Play Match Game – The Waitstaff
The Grimacchio Variety Hour – Philly Improv Theater (PHIT)
Weird People Problems – Camp Woods / Philly Improv Theater (PHIT)
DANCE
Colony – Kelly Bond and Melissa Adrienne Krodman
CONVERSATIONS, A Dialog in Movement – MM2 Modern Dance Company
Counter Rotation – SomaticMovers
Dancefusion Two Views – Dancefusion
Day For A Dream – Call Me Crazy Dancers
dEvolution – Synthesis
Dynamic Surroundings – Heather Bourgeois and Jess Dixon
EINSTEIN/TAGORE: SEASHORE OF ENDLESS WORLDS – Bidisha Dasgupta
For Members Only – Lesya Popil and Eleanor Goudie-Averill
Go Together – Ellie Goudie-Averill and Pamela Vail
Hoist – Leah Stein Dance Company
modern dance explained – rebekah rickards
Navigating the Hallway – KDNY
Nichole Canuso Dance Company at the APS Museum – Nichole Canuso Dance Company and the APS Museum
RUB – Gunnar Montana & Jasmine Zieroff
S.O.A.R. – Kelli Moshen
Solos from Gdansk, Burdag and Warszawa – Polish Exchange Artists
Sticks & Stones – Rachel Oliver & Kate Speer
Tickle Me Gray – Infatuation Dance Company
Timelines – Lauren Mandilian
HAPPENINGS
Kabbalah Salon – Rabbi Rayzel Raphael
Monsters: A Workshop and Happening – Museum
Bullseye – SHADOW Company
No Rest For The Wicked: A Graveyard Cabaret – REV Theatre Company
INTERDISCIPLINARY
Change/Chance – COSACOSA art at large, Inc.
Daniel Barrow presents The Thief of Mirrors and Looking for Love in the Hall of Mirrors – Daniel Barrow
EvictionProof Peepshow – Vashti Dubois
Experiencing people as really kind of huge – BodyFields Performance Collective and Son Step
Le Mirage / Dead City Philly – DysFUNctional Theater
Scout – Fur Collective
Secret Order of the Libertines – The Sensual Life
The Last Mummer – zacherle
The Legend of Nahia. A healing story. – Duende Musical
The Lemurian Solution: Your Interactive Evolution – Mr. and Mrs. Magoo's Traveling Trash Puppet Circus
Tourettes: A Dancing Disorder – Band of Artists
WAMB – SnakeEatTail
You Don't Say – Tangle
MUSIC
Crossing Imaginary Lines: a musical yoga journey – Michal Waldfogel
Falstaff – Poor Richard's Opera
Happy Birthday Pierrot Lunaire – University of Delaware Faculty members
Iron Composer: An Evening of Speed-Composing – American Composers Forum, Philadelphia Chapter
Jawbone Junction: Live at the Twisted Tail – Jawbone Junction
Music for the Hearing Eye: Concert Atop the Crypts – The Divine Hand Ensemble
Philly Song Shuffle – Extreme Folk Scene
ROCK OPERA: An Improvised Musical Event – Ladies and Gentlemen
Sao Paolo Underground at Crossroads Music – Sao Paolo Underground
The Birth of a Diva (How I found my voice) – Julia Chalfin, Soprano
The Most Exciting Woman in the World: Eartha Kitt – Danielle Herbert
THEATER
3 Women with an Attitude – Kathy Steel
Alternative Theatre Festival – iNtuitons Experimental Theatre
Antony & Cleopatra: Infinite Lives – The Porch Room / The Underground Shakespeare Company
Ballroom Dancing Ain't For Sissies – Donald Drake and Kate Slovich
BARBIE BLENDED: A Pop Rockin' Musical – Theatre Underground
Brat RockPile: Popsicle's Departure, 1989 & Eternal Glamnation – Brat Productions
Chomsky vs. Buckley, 1969 – Bruce Walsh
City Boy – Armando Batista
ComedySportz Presents: Tongue & Groove – Tongue & Groove
Crave – Theatre Drapeau Rose
Creditors – Philadelphia Artists' Collective
Devotedly, Sincerely Yours: The Story of the USO – The Pearlman Sisters
Edges – A&B Productions and Parallax Theatre Company
Electric Jungle – Found Theatre Company
FRINGE WRAITHS: Digital Dramatic Reverb – Iron Age Theatre
Ghost Sonata – Homunculus, Inc.
Hackles – The Groundswell Players
Hair – eXposed Theatre Company
I Hate Monologues +and+ The Alphabet Plays – The MacKnight Foundation
Iminami – PuppeTyranny
Ivona, Princess of Burgundia by Witold Gombrowicz – The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium
Jeff Coon and Ben Dibble Must Die – Los Jarochos
Love/Stories (or But You Will Get Used To It) – Round Table Theatre Company
Lysistrata – Theater Cooperative & Naked Feet Productions
MONUMENT – Drexel Players
Napoleon Princess Groupie Newspaper – Amy Frear and Chelsea Sanz
Of Plastic Things and Butterfly Wings – Little Fish Theatre
Orpheus & Eurydice – Green Elephant Theatre Co.
Othello, Desdemona, & Iago Walk Into A Bar – [ad hoc theatre project]
Paint the American Eagle – One Shot Productions
Raw Stitch – Jacqueline Goldfinger
See You In Paris – Randi Hickey & Jenna Lam
Seek and Hide – Dragon's Eye Theatre
Sephro: The Vengeance – Fantasy Weavers
Silken Veils – Leila Ghaznavi and Pantea Productions
Some Other Mettle – Applied Mechanics
Stop Kiss – Kristin Heckler
The Apocalypse of John – Serious Theatre Collective
The Artists' Women – YeuxVeuxBelle Collective
The Bucket Cure – Little Sundance Productions
The Cabinet of Curiosities- A Most Unusual Magic Show – Jeff Carson
The Consul- American Opera by Gian Carlo Menotti – The Philadelphia Opera Collective
The Edge of Our Bodies – Theatre Exile
The End of Hope, The End of Desire – Tiny Dynamite / Extreme Measures
The Funeral of Enerio Lopez – Lori Felipe-Barkin
The Has Beens – ETC Theater
The Hoarder's Child – Blue Scarf Collective
The Maids – Kicking Mule Theatre Company
The Straw Girl: A Fairytale – Odd Act Theatre Group
The Walls – Ira Brind School of Theatre Arts, University of the Arts
Tomorrow I Will Start a New Life. Oblomov Revised – Aleksandra Berczynski
Wawapalooza 6: The Great Almost – IdRatherBeHere
VISUAL ART + FILM
Dostoyevsky Man – Larry Loebell and Seth Reichgott
Film Fringe Tour – Film Fringe Tour
The Big Nude Pinhole Shoot at The Rotunda – RA Friedman/Tsirkus Fotografika
What Nurtures Us – Linda Dubin Garfield/ Susan Dipronio
Free Events: The festival offers a number of free shows and performances, including a massive dance and visual arts collab, a play at Lemon Hill restaurant and an outdoor light show over the Ben Franklin Parkway. For more on the free events, visit the website here.
Admission Specials: Want to try your luck at seeing everything (impossible, we know!)? Buy your All-Access Pass here.
Festival Bar: Yes, there's an official Festival Bar! Meet the artists and performers, enjoy a well-mixed cocktail and watch cabarets and late-night shows at Underground Arts, located at 1200 Callowhill Street in NoLibs. The bar opens at 10 p.m. every night of the festival.
Live Arts Brewery: Sadly, this one isn't a bar, but it is housed inside an old brewery. The Live Arts Brewery, or LAB, provides festival artists with a complete theater facility at the Live Arts Studio, located next to the festival's administrative offices in Northern Liberties. LAB has monthly performances, workshops, lectures and more year-round in an effort to support artistic research and experimentation. For more on the LAB, click here.
