Get a Peek at the Fringe Festival Tonight at Scratch Night

Kelly Filios, Joshua Tewell and Aneesa Neibauer are in Bodas de Sangre/I Only Came to Use the Phone. Photo by Rosie Simmons

Earlier this month the guide to the 20th Fringe Festival came out, and we told you to start marking off which of the 1,000 performances you want to check out. Now you can watch trailers — live. Tonight is Scratch Night at FringeArts, a works-in-progress series where Philly artists test out material, giving the audience a look at what goes into developing a new show. It’s free, though donations are suggested.

With the Fringe Festival coming up on September 9th, this installment of Scratch Night features seven snippets of shows you can see at the fest.

First up is Death Is A Cabaret Ol’ Chum: A Graveyard Cabaret from REV Theatre Company. It will be at Laurel Hill Cemetery during the festival, with three “departed (singing) souls” performing songs from Bessie Smith, the Scissor Sisters, Sonny & Cher and everyone in between.

Fringe staple Gunnar Montana will give us a sample of Wroughtland, a twisted take on classic fairy tales he choreographed, directed, produced and will perform in.

The Duende Cycle is doing two shows in two languages: Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding), from the Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, and I Only Came to Use the Phone, inspired by Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s short story from the lingering Strange Pilgrims.

For Mexican fairy tale Matador, Ethos Physical Theatre Company promises “an impressive display of physical bad-assery including static trapeze, nunchuck dance and acrobatics.”

Lee Thompson and Lauren Rile Smith of Tangle Movement Arts. Photo by Michael Ermilio

Expect more acrobatics in Tangle Movement Arts’ Surface Tension, which mixes circus arts, like aerials silks, with theater and dance.

Audio takes over in The Soundproof Room, from a troupe of the same name, with sound healing (loosely in the meditation category, I think) and improvisation.

There’s more music, plus video, in TOLVA/Sam Congdon’s Big Crunch, a “queer sci-fi odyssey of self-discovery and rebellion.”

Tickets to Scratch Night are here.

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