The Fringe Shows Worth Dressing Up For
September 2026
These are the Fringe events worth dressing up for — the kind of performances you go out to see because you want to be inspired, surprised, overwhelmed, maybe even hit by something you didn’t see coming.
We chose works that invite you to step inside a beautiful artistic universe and let it do something to you. Dress a little strange, dress beautifully, have a drink before the show, walk into the theater — and see what happens.
KRAMER / FAUCI — Daniel Fish — FringeArts
September 8–11
$50
For me, this is the major theatrical event opening this year’s Fringe.
Daniel Fish is the director behind the radical reimagining of Oklahoma! that made its way to Broadway and won a Tony Award. Here, he takes on the real-life 1993 televised confrontation between playwright and AIDS activist Larry Kramer and Anthony Fauci — two men who initially seemed to despise each other, but eventually became allies.
It’s a fascinating collision of theater, politics, activism, and recent American history — and one of the festival’s most substantial productions.
KRAMER / FAUCI — tickets & details
September 8–11
$50
For me, this is the major theatrical event opening this year’s Fringe.
Daniel Fish is the director behind the radical reimagining of Oklahoma! that made its way to Broadway and won a Tony Award. Here, he takes on the real-life 1993 televised confrontation between playwright and AIDS activist Larry Kramer and Anthony Fauci — two men who initially seemed to despise each other, but eventually became allies.
It’s a fascinating collision of theater, politics, activism, and recent American history — and one of the festival’s most substantial productions.
KRAMER / FAUCI — tickets & details
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha — Julia Masli — The Proscenium at The Drake
September 10–13
$35
This is one I really wouldn’t miss.
Estonian performer Julia Masli has become one of the breakout figures of the international clown and contemporary performance scene. The show was nominated for the top comedy awards at both the Edinburgh Fringe and Melbourne International Comedy Festival, as well as two Helen Hayes Awards. The Guardian gave it five stars and called it “Genius,” while The New York Times described the work as “Transcendent.”
Masli begins with absurd comedy and improvisation with the audience, but gradually the whole thing transforms into a strange collective ritual — hilarious, tender, unpredictable, and just a little unhinged. Every performance is different. After sold-out runs in New York, London, Washington, and beyond, she’s bringing it to Philadelphia.
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha — tickets & details
September 10–13
$35
This is one I really wouldn’t miss.
Estonian performer Julia Masli has become one of the breakout figures of the international clown and contemporary performance scene. The show was nominated for the top comedy awards at both the Edinburgh Fringe and Melbourne International Comedy Festival, as well as two Helen Hayes Awards. The Guardian gave it five stars and called it “Genius,” while The New York Times described the work as “Transcendent.”
Masli begins with absurd comedy and improvisation with the audience, but gradually the whole thing transforms into a strange collective ritual — hilarious, tender, unpredictable, and just a little unhinged. Every performance is different. After sold-out runs in New York, London, Washington, and beyond, she’s bringing it to Philadelphia.
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha — tickets & details
Lunar Retreat — Nichole Canuso / Branching Paths — Pearlstein Gallery
September 9–20
$35
This is an immersive performance and installation — not something you simply sit down and watch from a theater seat.
The work begins with a strangely beautiful fact: the Moon is slowly moving away from the Earth. Choreographer Nichole Canuso uses that idea to create a world about distance, loss, care, the ocean, the Moon, and the invisible connections between people.
Audiences enter in small groups and wander through the space, receive individual prompts, encounter performers, sound, video, and installation, and choose their own path through the experience.
It feels less like attending a conventional performance and more like stepping inside someone else’s artistic universe.
Lunar Retreat — tickets & details
September 9–20
$35
This is an immersive performance and installation — not something you simply sit down and watch from a theater seat.
The work begins with a strangely beautiful fact: the Moon is slowly moving away from the Earth. Choreographer Nichole Canuso uses that idea to create a world about distance, loss, care, the ocean, the Moon, and the invisible connections between people.
Audiences enter in small groups and wander through the space, receive individual prompts, encounter performers, sound, video, and installation, and choose their own path through the experience.
It feels less like attending a conventional performance and more like stepping inside someone else’s artistic universe.
Lunar Retreat — tickets & details
The Holy Fool — Ninth Planet — The Gym at Impact Services
September 10–19
$35
This is my pick among the major Philadelphia-made world premieres at this year’s festival.
A cavernous industrial space. A family. A mother prepares dinner, a daughter sets the table, and one chair remains empty. Someone knocks at the door. The cameras are rolling. The Fool keeps dancing.
It’s a 90-minute dance-theater ghost story about aging, grief, family, and what happens when private life becomes public spectacle. The performance unfolds alongside an original score of trumpet, percussion, and synthesizers.
Atmospheric, physical, eerie — and exactly the kind of work that feels at home at Fringe.
The Holy Fool — tickets & details
September 10–19
$35
This is my pick among the major Philadelphia-made world premieres at this year’s festival.
A cavernous industrial space. A family. A mother prepares dinner, a daughter sets the table, and one chair remains empty. Someone knocks at the door. The cameras are rolling. The Fool keeps dancing.
It’s a 90-minute dance-theater ghost story about aging, grief, family, and what happens when private life becomes public spectacle. The performance unfolds alongside an original score of trumpet, percussion, and synthesizers.
Atmospheric, physical, eerie — and exactly the kind of work that feels at home at Fringe.
The Holy Fool — tickets & details
Friday Night Rat Catchers — Lisa Fagan & Lena Engelstein — FringeArts
September 17–19
$35
A strong contender for the most stylish, WTF night of the festival.
It’s 1976. Disco ball. Martinis. Two contestants dance as though they’ve just hit the jackpot. Then the game show begins to malfunction. Concrete invades the dance hall. The party starts collapsing, and something much darker crawls out from underneath it.
Dance theater + performance art + game-show nightmare.
And this isn’t some unknown work-in-progress: the production arrives in Philadelphia following sold-out runs at New York’s Under the Radar Festival and Live Artery Festival. Fagan and Engelstein are joined onstage by actress Marianne Rendón.
This is the night to dress a little strangely, have a drink beforehand, and go see what happens to you.
Friday Night Rat Catchers — tickets & details
September 17–19
$35
A strong contender for the most stylish, WTF night of the festival.
It’s 1976. Disco ball. Martinis. Two contestants dance as though they’ve just hit the jackpot. Then the game show begins to malfunction. Concrete invades the dance hall. The party starts collapsing, and something much darker crawls out from underneath it.
Dance theater + performance art + game-show nightmare.
And this isn’t some unknown work-in-progress: the production arrives in Philadelphia following sold-out runs at New York’s Under the Radar Festival and Live Artery Festival. Fagan and Engelstein are joined onstage by actress Marianne Rendón.
This is the night to dress a little strangely, have a drink beforehand, and go see what happens to you.
Friday Night Rat Catchers — tickets & details
Utopian Hotline — Mitu — Fels Planetarium, The Franklin Institute
September 24–26
$35
Here, the venue itself becomes part of the work.
In 1977, NASA sent Voyager into space carrying the Golden Record — a message from humanity intended for whoever, or whatever, might someday find it.
Mitu asks a contemporary version of that question:
If we were sending a message into the distant future today, what would we say?
The artists created a public hotline and collected people’s messages, alongside interviews with NASA astronauts, astrophysicists, astronomers, and schoolchildren. They transform all of that material into a live performance under the dome of the Fels Planetarium.
Planetarium + Voyager + human voices + theater + sound + our collective imagination of the future. The setting alone makes this one of the festival’s most intriguing experiences.
Utopian Hotline — tickets & details
September 24–26
$35
Here, the venue itself becomes part of the work.
In 1977, NASA sent Voyager into space carrying the Golden Record — a message from humanity intended for whoever, or whatever, might someday find it.
Mitu asks a contemporary version of that question:
If we were sending a message into the distant future today, what would we say?
The artists created a public hotline and collected people’s messages, alongside interviews with NASA astronauts, astrophysicists, astronomers, and schoolchildren. They transform all of that material into a live performance under the dome of the Fels Planetarium.
Planetarium + Voyager + human voices + theater + sound + our collective imagination of the future. The setting alone makes this one of the festival’s most intriguing experiences.
Utopian Hotline — tickets & details
How does it feel to look at nothing — Holland Andrews + yuniya edi kwon — FringeArts
September 25–27
$35
This is how I would close out the festival.
It’s the world premiere of a new experimental opera by composer-performers and multi-instrumentalists Holland Andrews and yuniya edi kwon.
And the combination of artistic languages here is wild:
Korean shamanic ritual + experimental voice + hardcore punk + Japanese Butoh + dance + projection + opera.
The artists even create their own improvised language to tell the story of a Deity of Nothingness. The work moves through parenthood, pregnancy, dissolution, memory, and the transformation of identity.
And the larger context makes it even more exciting: after Philadelphia, the production travels to On the Boards in Seattle and BAM’s Next Wave Festival in Brooklyn.
It’s exactly the kind of work you want from a contemporary performance festival — something you can’t quite classify as opera, ritual, concert, dance, or installation, because somehow it is all of them at once.
How does it feel to look at nothing — tickets & details
September 25–27
$35
This is how I would close out the festival.
It’s the world premiere of a new experimental opera by composer-performers and multi-instrumentalists Holland Andrews and yuniya edi kwon.
And the combination of artistic languages here is wild:
Korean shamanic ritual + experimental voice + hardcore punk + Japanese Butoh + dance + projection + opera.
The artists even create their own improvised language to tell the story of a Deity of Nothingness. The work moves through parenthood, pregnancy, dissolution, memory, and the transformation of identity.
And the larger context makes it even more exciting: after Philadelphia, the production travels to On the Boards in Seattle and BAM’s Next Wave Festival in Brooklyn.
It’s exactly the kind of work you want from a contemporary performance festival — something you can’t quite classify as opera, ritual, concert, dance, or installation, because somehow it is all of them at once.
How does it feel to look at nothing — tickets & details
