IS THIS THING ON? to Premiere at Philadelphia Fringe Festival
The Yellow Bicycle Theater will host the three-performance run of Bradley's autobiographical work.
What happens to the version of yourself you put down — and is it ever too late to pick it back up? Writer, musician, performer and executive Adam Bradley answers that question with vulnerability, sharp wit, and original live music in the world premiere of his autobiographical solo show, Is This Thing On?, running for a strictly limited three-performance engagement at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival from September 8–10, 2026, at the Yellow Bicycle Theater.
Directed by acclaimed developer of new theatrical works Padraic Lillis (The Farm Theater, Rise and Fall of a Teenage Cyberqueen), Is This Thing On? tracks Bradley's unconventional trajectory across two vastly different worlds.
From a boy discovering something real at the piano to international tours with the legendary Yale Whiffenpoofs, Bradley's early life was defined by melody and performance. Yet as the weight of adulthood, career, marriage, and fatherhood took hold, his artistic dreams were quietly shelved for a high-stakes corporate career—including a decade inside one of the world's most intense hedge funds, where colleagues rated each other's performance in real time.
Following a profound personal loss, Bradley began confronting the distance between the life he had built and the artistic identity he'd left behind. The result is an intimate, laugh-out-loud, and deeply moving stage work about identity, responsibility, and the quiet cost of compromise.
“At its core, the show is about stepping back into my voice and reclaiming who I've always been,” says Bradley. “It's about the version of yourself you put down somewhere along the way—and whether the parts of ourselves we leave behind ever really leave us.”
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