Philly Fringe guide 2018: Women onstage

I’m excited for many shows by and about women in this year’s Fringe Festival (September 6 through 23). Let’s take a quick tour of some of these voices.

Catch Elephant Room Productions at the opening of the fest, with the scripted drama Salamander ($20) at Plays & Players (1714 Delancey Place). The show follows “the surreal rise and fall of women in modern America, as they lose their sexual identity in exchange for something…other.” (There’s a trigger warning for sexual violence.) A portion of ticket sales go to Women Organized Against Rape. It’s running September 5 through 9.

Histories, known and unknown

Another show opening within the first week is creator/performer Pratima Agrawal’s one-woman Voided ($10) at Asian Arts Initiative (1219 Vine Street). This performance asks, “What is it to be an unconventional Indian woman trying to exist in a marginalizing world?” It’s inspired by Agrawal’s own life story, interwoven with the true story of Kalpana Chawla. Don’t remember her? Chawla was the first Indian woman astronaut in space, and she died in the 2003 Columbia re-entry disaster. Agrawal examines “culture, status quo, and representation that dares to color outside the lines.”

Sarah Mitteldorf co-creates and directs this show, which got its start in this year’s Philadelphia Asian Performing Artists mini-residency program, in partnership with Asian Arts Initiative, and then was developed within 1812’s Jilline Ringle Solo Performance Program this summer. It runs September 8 through 10.

Svaha Theatre Collective’s Long Trouble, a new work following Queen Catherine of Aragon, her daughter Mary, and the indefatigable Anne Boleyn, travels better-known territory. I always thought I disliked history until I met the Tudors in my sophomore year of college. Years later, I realized that these queens might have comprised my first history lesson focused on a woman’s life story (even if they were caught in the web of that inimitable 15th-century psychopath, Henry VIII). Long Trouble, which draws on Shakespeare and John Fletcher’s Henry VIII, brings the favorite drama of a thousand historical novels to the stage. It’s running at Mascher Space Cooperative (155 Cecil B. Moore Avenue) September 13 through 22.

Jewish beauty?

Meanwhile, Half Key Theatre Company’s Behold Her ($15), coming to the National Museum of American Jewish History, asks, “What is a ‘Jewish beauty’?” Alongside live music, Arden Kass’s script “reflects on conflicting images and changing expectations about Jewish women and beauty that started with Eve and persist today,” with “a delegation of memorable Jewish women” (real and imagined) spanning thousands of years. They deny easy answers. It’s running September 7 through 23.

Motherhood (or almost)

In the realm of motherhood, there’s Mother/Daughter ($15) from Earlie Bird Productions, coming to Philly PACK (233 Federal Street): “Steeped in history and mystery,” the show explores “dynamic relationships between mothers and daughters as told by mothers and daughters.” It runs September 15 and 16 (with a talk-back after the second show). And Denise McCormack’s standup show, Love Stories, touches on the “secret and soulful nuances of motherhood, childhood, family, and life.” Adults only. It lands at New Jersey’s Artworks Trenton (19 Everett Alley) on September 8 and at Old City’s Center for Art in Wood (141 N. 3rd Street) on September 13. Both performances are pay-what-you-wish.

And playwright Lisa Grunberger (also a professor of writing at Temple) presents Almost Pregnant ($20) at the PlayGround at the Adrienne (2030 Sansom Street), directed by Hamutal Posklinsky (of Habima, Israel’s national theater). It’s a “tragic-comic play about motherhood, fate, and God,” with the help of a pair of puppets named Estrogen and Lucky. Incorporating Grunberg’s own experiences, the show grapples with infertility and “the art and science of sex without reproduction and reproduction without sex.” It runs September 11 through 16.

In the Forest

Tangle Movement Arts, Philly’s aerial dance company that centers the queer and female experience with collaboratively devised shows from its all-women ensemble, is a Fringe favorite. This year’s premiere, In the Forest ($14 to $20), comes to West Philly’s Rotunda (4014 Walnut Street). It’s a 360-degree experience with live music and an immersive set from interdisciplinary artist Jenna Reece, using thousands of yards of yarn and fabric thanks to the knitters of West Philly. “Audiences are invited to choose their view and explore unique landscapes of light and shade, trapeze and aerial silks, live music, and twisting tales for experiences that change at every turn,” Tangle says. It’s running September 12 through 15.

We won’t shut up

For suburbanites who want a piece of the Fringe action or city dwellers up for a ride, Bady Works presents No, We Won’t Shut Up! ($15) at Rose Valley Storytelling House Concerts (3 Rose Valley Road). An ensemble of women speaks up about white privilege, wage theft, gentrification, sexual harassment, police violence, and more. It runs September 7 through 16.

Whichever shows you catch, here’s hoping we come away with the underlying truth that, from sexual assault to parenthood to marginalization, women’s stories are human stories.

Look out for lots more Fringe coverage from BSR in the coming weeks.