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In life Dito van Reigersberg lit up Philadelphia’s cabaret scene with his alter ego Martha Graham Cracker. Now, just months after his death in June, two memorial funds have been created to benefit other edgy performing artists.

One of them has already started cutting checks.

Victor Fiorello, a writer for Philadelphia Magazine who moonlighted as a piano player with van Reigersberg’s cabaret act, has given $500 each to three drag and cabaret artists appearing in the upcoming 2026 Philly Fringe Festival. William Acker, Colby Calhoun and Taylor Alexander are the first recipients of the Martha Graham Cracker Scholarship Fund.

“There was some discussion after Dido’s death about the idea of remembering and honoring Dido, the person, and Martha, the character,” Fiorello said. “I really wanted the scholarship to focus on the drag and cabaret community. So it felt appropriate to call it the Martha Graham Cracker Scholarship Fund.”

The Pig Iron Theater Company, which van Reigersberg cofounded, has begun orchestrating a more ambitious Dito van Reigersberg Legacy Fund. With a planned $1.5 million to $2 million endowment, the fund will offer $50,000 annually in scholarships to the students of the Pig Iron School for Advanced Performance Training. Another $50,000 a year would support the school’s “Island” program, a theater intensive wherein students remove themselves from distraction for two weeks to focus on inventing new work.

“When we’re running Pig Iron, we’re often thinking about this year, next year, two years from now,” said Pig Iron’s cofounder Quinn Baureidel. “This really asked us to think about something eternal, something forever, something that would be an investment for decades.”

Funding the wild and gritty side of Philadelphia theater

Fiorello fast-tracked the Martha Graham Cracker memorial and put cash in the pockets of performers preparing for the Fringe Festival, beginning Sept. 8. He launched it two months after van Reigersberg’s death and says he raised $5,000 in just four hours.

Fiorello played behind Dito/Martha for 25 years. He said he selected recipients who carry the spirit of the performer he knew so well.

“He reprogrammed my brain to some degree about performance,” Fiorello said. “Those memories are so vivid that there’s definitely this certain something of, like: What element of Martha does this person embody?”

Acker will use his $500 to fund his Fringe show “William Acker is William Acker and William Acker is Running for Mayor of Philadelphia,” or “WAWA.” The absurdist show is a political campaign which Acker, the actor, refuses to say is fictional or not.

“I, William Acker, play the role of William Acker and I run for the mayor of Philadelphia. It is exactly as it says,” he said. “I am in pursuit of a beautiful way of life and I will do whatever is necessary to obtain my happiness, no matter the cost. So, you should get on board so I can have my happiness.”