Philly’s massive, wacky, and beloved Fringe Festival kicks off Sept. 8

The Fringe Festival celebrates its 30th anniversary this fall with a month of experimental, genre-blending, and provocative theater hosted all over Philadelphia.

Running Sept. 8 to 27, the festival will feature more than 338 productions spotlighting groundbreaking local and international talent, including a play about infectious disease scientist Anthony Fauci and AIDS activist Larry Kramer, an absurdist clown show, and a multimedia music experience inside the Franklin Institute’s planetarium.

“Fringe performance — often characterized by free expression, communal experience, collective wonder, challenging perspectives, and a DIY ethos — plays an essential role in our community,” said FringeArts CEO and producing director Nell Bang-Jensen in a statement. “This year, you can find us at nearly 100 venues, from traditional theaters and large cultural institutions to neighborhood bars and city sidewalks.”

With a lineup featuring world and regional premieres, the Philadelphia Fringe Festival is one of the biggest Fringe events in the country.

Organizers say they are on track to surpass the number of productions they presented last year, which was the largest festival in Philly Fringe history: A record high of more than 35,000 tickets were sold, with unique ticket buyers up 17% from the previous year — and for the first time, millennials and Gen Z made up more than half of the audiences.

Festival “hubs” returning this year include Cannonball (at Asian Arts Initiative and Icebox Project Space), Circus Campus Presents in West Mount Airy, Dumb Hub at Pig Iron Theatre in Olde Kensington, and West Philly’s Studio 34. Newcomers this year are the Lemonade Stand, focusing specifically on new artists at Skinner Studio at Plays and Players, and a dance-focused hub at Performance Garage in Spring Garden. Each hub hosts more than a dozen experiences.

Among the hundreds of shows participating, there are 10 curated productions from FringeArts with artists both familiar and new to Philly Fringe audiences.

The lineup includes Friday Night Rat Catchers (Sept. 17-19 at FringeArts), a disco era-set dance production from choreographers Lisa Fagan and Lena Engelstein; Handle With Care (Sept. 17-19 at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia) from the boundary-testing Belgian theater collective Ontroerend Goed; and How Does It Feel to Look at Nothing (Sept. 25-27 at FringeArts), an avant-garde musical performance from clarinetist/vocalist Holland Andrews and violinist/composer yuniya edi kwon.

Another musical experience will take place inside the Fels Planetarium at the Franklin Institute with the Philadelphia premiere of Utopian Hotline: A Telephone Hotline, A Vinyl Record, A Performance (Sept. 24-27). The Brooklyn-based group Theater Mitu combines science and theater for fascinating explorations of humanity; in this case, they created a public hotline to encourage people to share messages to the future, taking inspiration from the Voyager space missions. The voicemails join the sounds of vinyl records and the visuals of the planetarium to immerse audiences into the otherworldly.

Kramer/Fauci (Sept. 8-11 at FringeArts), which premiered at New York University’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts earlier this year, examines the contentious and complicated relationship between a public health official and a playwright/organizer. It’s a dramatic retelling of a C-SPAN segment from 1993 when Fauci, who led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Kramer, the founder of the AIDS activist organization ACT UP, clashed over a new AIDS task force. The two adversaries (Kramer publicly called Fauci “a murderer”) later developed a close friendship. Broadway director Daniel Fish, who won a Tony Award for his Oklahoma! revival, crafted the show verbatim from the heated but riveting news segment.

The beloved and eccentric drag queens of the Bearded Ladies Cabaret — frequent Fringe headliners — are taking a look back through 16 years of performances with an installation and show called Priority Hoarding: A Retro-spectacle (Sept. 10-27 at the Hairport, 444 N. Third St.). It’s designed to feel like viewers are digging through a chaotic closet full of baggage both literal and metaphorical. The cabaret will stage three performances weekly on Saturdays during the run.

Fringe regular Nichole Canuso will return with her eponymous dance company for the world premiere of Lunar Retreat (Sept. 10-20 at the Pearlstein Gallery), an interactive choose-your-own-path performance inspired by the moon’s orbit. Canuso developed choreography in collaboration with ocean explorer and visual artist Rebecca Rutstein.

For audiences looking for something immersive and outdoors, Blank Placard Dance, Replay (Sept. 13) is a silent protest march in Center City. The first march of its kind debuted in San Francisco in 1967 from artist Anna Halprin as a response to the Vietnam War. The procession consists of protesters holding blank signs and posters, backed by a marching band; Philadelphia’s performance will be led by choreographer Sherwood Chen. It’s billed as an invitation for public engagement: “When intrigued passersby ask what they are protesting, the marchers turn the question back to them: What do you want to protest? A discussion ensues. Ideas circulate. Protest takes root.”

The local experimental dance theater group the Ninth Planet is back at Fringe with a world premiere of The Holy Fool (Sept. 10-19 at Impact Services, 124 E. Indiana Ave.), a dreamy ghost story about an American family struggling with aging, grief, and heartache accompanied by original music featuring trumpet, percussion, and synthesizers.

One of the most curious offerings this year comes from an Estonian clown. In Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha (Sept. 10-13 at the Proscenium at the Drake), Julia Masli wants to solve people’s problems. With a persona that the New York Times described as “halfway between curious child and ingenuous alien just landed on Earth,” Masli asks audience members to tell her their problems and she invents unexpected solutions ranging from funny to serious.

Tickets for Philadelphia Fringe Fest go on sale July 15 for FringeArts members and July 18 for the public.