Now in its fifteenth year, the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe has expanded greatly from its Old City roots. This edition features over 200 shows at venues all across the city, including many in Northern Liberties, Fishtown, and Kensington. Here are some picks in a neighborhood near you.
Red Rovers (Live Arts Studio, 919 North 5th Street, Sept. 2-10, $25)
The festival has made Northern Liberties its home base for several years now and ongoing renovations to the Live Arts headquarters make it an ever better place for live performance. This year, the space hosts acclaimed dance troupe the Headlong Dance Theater as they team up with visual artist Chris Doyle to take you on a gripping space voyage. Did you find it hard to get a signal during last week’s earthquake? Try sending a text from 19 million miles. Featuring a Donkey Kong dream sequence, silent films, interplanetary yoga, and a Martian love story with robotic explorers, Red Rovers promises to be comic and visually entertaining dance theater at its best.
My Dad is Now Ready for His Sponge Bath (Grasso’s Magic Theater, 103 Callowhill Street, Sept. 8-17, $15)
Lung cancer doesn’t seem like obvious subject matter for a one-man comedy show, but Jay Nachman has mined the topic expertly to create a touching 60-minute conversation piece on what it’s like to have a terminally ill parent. Nachman, who entertained Fringe audiences a few years ago with I’m Not Oedipus, witnessed his father’s decline and death from cancer. Staged at the intimate Grasso’s Magic Theater, a unique space near I-95 also worth checking out for the weekly magic shows, My Dad is Now Ready for His Sponge Bath is a moving yet suitably humorous tribute to a dying parent. Nachman calls it “perfect for anyone who has, or ever had, a father.”
Jericho Road Improvement Society (Papermill Theater, 2825 Ormes Street, Sept. 3-18, $10)
California transplant HellaFresh Theatre’s 2010 Fringe show Cheap Guy Hall of Fame was one of the highlights of last year’s festival. This year’s follow-up at the company’s spacious West Kensington art and performance warehouse showcases more lowlifes and unsavory characters in another series of edgily humorous but true to life shorts.
A Vegan Kids Dance for Adults with Nudity (Mascher Space Co-op, 155 Cecil B. Moore Avenue 2B, Sept. 9-11, $12-$18)
Green Chair Dance Group is committed to making dance theater fun. Their piece “We are practical people” is a physical puzzle-solver suitable for audiences of all ages. The night of dance also features New York company devynn emory and inspired local choreographer Gabrielle Revlock. Revlock’s entertaining dance, “A Fork and Stick Thing,” about birds trying to be human, is done to music made up entirely of words.
Run Grunt Sing: An Open Air Theatric (Liberty Lands Park, 913-961 North 3rd Street, Sept. 2-11, FREE)
Billed as a mix of Charlie Chaplin, I Love Lucy, Whose Line is It Anyway? and Cirque de Soliel, Run Grunt Sing takes the traditional masked commedia dell’arte theater and revs it up for modern audiences. Presented by the Ombelico Mask Ensemble, who has wowed Fringe audiences for several years, the all-ages show is performed open air in Northern Liberties for the unbeatable price of free.
Task (Walking Fish Theatre, 2509 Frankford Avenue, Sept. 9-17, $15)
The small but adaptable Walking Fish Theatre has been a welcome entry on Kensington’s burgeoning Frankford Avenue strip. The theater is home to a number of Fringe shows this year, the highlight of which is Dave Ebersole’s Task, a brutal and funny new work impaling authority in all forms in its investigation of teen sex, drugs, racism, and suicide. Check out the Walking Fish website at bsomeday.org for more shows.
Grab Bag (The Fidget Space, 1714 North Mascher Street, Sept. 2-5, $15)
Six widely different dance pieces are presented in a different line-up each night (three or four shows a day) at this converted warehouse space in Kensington, a formal proscenium stage which feels like its been planted into a casual living room. The solo and group pieces range from acrobatic to elegant to improv. “A Description of a Solo,” choreographer Annie Wilson’s piece in the Friday and Saturday line-up, is an inventive dance solo about the process of creating a dance solo, set to music by the DJ Girl Talk and with fourth-wall breaking direct address to the audience. Not to be missed.
After any show, head to the Festival Bar at the Ruba Club in Northern Liberties (416 Green Street, no cover) for a late night drink, chill-out music, and live cabaret by top Philadelphia theater company BRAT Productions.
