Philly Fringe Announces 2012 Line-Up, 9/7 - 9/22

Tickets are now on sale for the 16th annual Philly Fringe, which runs in conjunction with the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival from September 7 – 22. The 2012 Fringe submissions reflect new trends in partnerships, longer runs and several groups presenting multiple shows. More than 650 performances from 140 artists will take place over the course of 16 days, showcasing multidisciplinary work that brings together myriad performers and audiences for intimate interactions.

Highlights of this year's Fringe lineup include a dramatic increase in comedy and improv performances, along with cutting-edge offerings in dance, theater, music visual art and interdisciplinary works. In addition to a strong local presence, a large contingent of artists from across the East Coast - from New York and New Jersey to Virginia and Florida - are traveling to Philadelphia to take part in the festival.

Since 1997, the Philly Fringe has offered an opportunity for artists of all disciplines to present their work under the auspices of a structured festival, providing administrative support throughout the production development process while eliminating curatorial barriers to creativity. Participating artists are encouraged to partner with local businesses, promoting the cultural economy of the city and enriching the audience experience during the two weeks of performances.

Originally founded as the Philly Fringe, the organization has evolved to include a selection of international, national and locally based contemporary artists, invited to perform as part of the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, presented in conjunction with the Fringe. Together, the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe is an award-winning, critically acclaimed presenter of new work, and an internationally recognized destination for the arts.

TICKETS
All Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe tickets are now available for purchase online at www.livearts-fringe.org through TicketLeap. The Festival Box Office can be reached at (215) 413-1318. Philly Fringe show prices vary and are listed with each show description on the Festival website and in the Festival guide. The 2012 Festival Box Office, with free on-site parking, will open Aug. 30 at the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe headquarters, 919 N. Fifth St. (at Poplar). Pre-Festival hours: Aug. 30-Sept. 6, noon-7 p.m. Festival hours: Sept. 7-22, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

THEATERTheater offerings in 2012 take audiences from the intimacy of playwright Bruce Walsh's living room for Chomsky vs. Buckley, 1969, to the public domain of Iron Age Theatre's web-based, site-specific FRINGE WRAITHS: Digital Dramatic Reverb. Also among this year's nontraditional performance spaces are Northern Liberties' architectural salvage firm Greensaw Design (PuppeTyranny), East Fairmount Park's Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse (Dragon's Eye Theatre) and Fishtown's quirky Bookspace (The Philadelphia Opera Collective, zacherle).

Other Philly favorites this year include B. Someday Productions' sexually charged 3 Wishes at Walking Fish Theatre; Applied Mechanics' fear-vanquishing Some Other Mettle at Jolie Laide Gallery; The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium's modern fairy tale Ivona, Princess of Burgundia at Walnut Street Theatre's Studio 5; and Brat Productions' glam-rock fantasia double-feature spectacle Brat RockPile: Popsicle's Departure, 1989 & Eternal Glamnation at Underground Arts.

Many more established theater artists and companies presenting festival shows include Jacqueline Goldfinger, Theatre Underground, Tongue & Groove, Philadelphia Artists' Collective, Found Theater Company, The Groundswell Players, eXposed Theatre Company, Drexel Players, Theatre Exile, Tiny Dynamite, Ira Brind School of Theater Arts, and IdRatherBeHere, among others.

DANCE
Philly Fringe continues to attract choreographers from around the world: This year, Bidisha Dasgupta (India) blends the classical style of Bharatanatyam with modern dance, while Polish Exchange Artists visit Mascher Space Co-op to exchange cross-cultural ideas in movement.

Locally, critically acclaimed Festival favorite Nichole Canuso Dance Company presents a genre-bending series of duets and video at the American Philosophical Society; Leah Stein Dance Company incorporates iron beams and brick walls into a site-specific dance at the Maas Building; and Dancefusion explores new and reconstructed works with a mini-festival at Drexel University's Mandell Theater.

Additional dance artists include Project Moshen, MM2 Modern Dance Company, keila cordova dances, Lauren Mandilian, Infatuation Dance Company, Rachel Oliver & Kate Speer and more.

IMPROV / COMEDY Local laugh riots Philly Improv Theatre (PHIT) and ComedySportz take over The Adrienne with performances of improvisational theater, stand-up and sketch comedy every night, alongside Angry People Building Things, Cecily and Gwendolyn, BetaMale Productions and more collaborators. Also returning in 2012 is audience favorite The Waitstaff, performing Real Housewives of South Philly Play Match Game! at L'Etage Cabaret. Comedy artists The Pub Theater Company, Cambridge Footlights, Comic Energy Productions and Charles Rosen will make appearances.

INTERDISCIPLINARY Interdisciplinary works in the Philly Fringe include the rock-opera return of DysFUNctional Theater's successful 2011 production of Le Mirage/Dead City Philly, as well as You Don't Say, Tangle's acrobatic aerial performance that resists gravity while exploring relationships among a group of friends. Two works that strike a more serious note are Tourettes: A Dancing Disorder by Band of Artists, which combines dance, live music, video and science to explore the compelling and misinterpreted language of Tourette syndrome as a foundation for choreography, and The Legend of Nahia, which shares the healing journey of a woman survivor of rape through live music, storytelling, dance and performance art.

Other interdisciplinary artists this year include Mr and Mrs Magoo's Traveling Trash Puppet Circus, SnakeEatTail, The Sensual Life, BodyFields Performance Collective and Son Step, COSACOSA art at large, Inc, Daniel Barrow, Fur Collective, zacherle and Vashti Dubois.

MUSIC
Music performances range from The Divine Hand Ensemble's funerary music and the São Paolo Underground's international jazz to two-time Barrymore Award nominee Danielle Herbert's tribute to Eartha Kitt. Improvisation and audience participation factor heavily in the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Composers Forum's Iron Composer: An Evening of Speed-Composing; ROCK OPERA: An Improvised Musical Event by Ladies And Gentlemen; and the Southern rock 'n' roll stage show Jawbone Junction: Live at the Twisted Tale. Audiences can also allow the music to reach their bodies through Crossing Imaginary Lines: a musical yoga journey with Michal Waldfogel.

VISUAL ART and FILMVisual art is explored through the eyes of spectators when local photographer RA Friedman/Tsirkus Fotografika encourages the brave to bare it all and take part in The Big Nude Pinhole Shoot at The Rotunda. Artists Linda Dubin Garfield and Susan Dipronio also encourage hands-on participation for What Nurtures Us, a collaborative project from ARTISTS Against Hunger to benefit The Food Trust.

Two films will be shown as part of the 2012 Philly Fringe: Dostoyevsky Man, shot entirely on iPhone, from Larry Loebell and Seth Reichgott; and Film Fringe Tour, a compilation showcasing up-and-coming filmmakers from around the world, being presented at Fringe festivals in Hollywood, Edinburgh and Philadelphia.

A full list of 2012 Philly Fringe shows by discipline follows below. Visit www.livearts-fringe.org for up-to-date Festival announcements.

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival features performances by renowned contemporary performing artists from the U.S. and around the world who are selected and invited to the Festival by Producing Director Nick Stuccio. The Philly Fringe is an unfiltered Festival, where new and established artists of all kinds present their own work, free of a selection process. Together, the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe establish Philadelphia as a city bursting with wild creativity, bringing audiences 16 days of the most stimulating, provocative new art being created in Philadelphia, across the U.S. and around the world.