{"id":280832,"date":"2026-09-07T12:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T12:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/280832\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T12:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T12:36:10","slug":"two-philly-fringe-shows-put-military-service-on-stage-this-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/280832\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Philly Fringe Shows Put Military Service on Stage This September"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stock photo via Pexels<\/p>\n

Three plays at this year’s Philadelphia Fringe Festival take on themes of military service, queer identity, and sacrifice, according to Billy Penn at WHYY<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The festival runs September 8 through 27 across more than 350 productions citywide.<\/p>\n

Two of those shows center specifically on veterans’ experiences.<\/p>\n

Jody Austin, a retired Army medic and reservist who served during Operations Desert Storm, Desert Shield, and Southern Watch, co-wrote and is presenting a new play called “Not Without Her Stories: Her Service Comes With A Sacrifice Too” through the festival’s Cannonball Hub program.<\/p>\n

Billy Penn reported that Austin was moved to act after learning a servicewoman was among the first American military personnel killed in the Iran conflict, with Sgt. Nicole Amor dying in a drone attack in Kuwait on March 1.<\/p>\n

Austin co-wrote the piece with her business partner Tiffani Dean. The play follows four women who meet at a base camp, form lasting bonds, and navigate their lives through and after service.<\/p>\n

It incorporates poetry and music.<\/p>\n

What the Play Covers<\/p>\n

The production draws directly from Austin’s own experience as a medic, which included assessing patients, escorting wounded troops from the front lines to hospitals in Germany, and returning some to active duty.<\/p>\n

Austin told Billy Penn the psychological toll of that work stays with her through flashbacks, and she works with a therapist.<\/p>\n

One character in the play is sexually assaulted and pursues justice.<\/p>\n

Austin connected that storyline to the case of Elsie Dominguez, a civilian engineer who said she was raped aboard a military ship in 2021.<\/p>\n

Dominguez filed a lawsuit in 2023, but a federal judge dismissed it in August, ruling the incident should be treated as a workers’ compensation matter.<\/p>\n

The play also addresses the difficulty of returning home.<\/p>\n

Austin described the gap between military structure and civilian life as a transition many veterans struggle to navigate, compounded for women who return to find their families have moved on without them.<\/p>\n

A Vietnam-Era Production Also in the Festival<\/p>\n

The second veteran-focused show in this year’s Fringe is “Waiting for Westy,” which centers on Vietnam War veterans gathered at a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

A Third Show Rounds Out the Programme<\/p>\n

BroadwayWorld reported<\/a> that a third show, “Your Best Odd Girl Out,” will also appear in this year’s festival.<\/p>\n

Written and performed by Adrian Collins and directed by Em Hausmann, it is staged by The Lemonade Stand and runs September 17 through 19 at Plays and Players Theatre (1714 Delancey Street).<\/p>\n

Collins described the solo show as a collage of queer desire and lesbian longing, built around audience interaction and what she told BroadwayWorld was an impulse to overshare from a place of power.<\/p>\n

The show previously sold out a run at Dixon Place’s HOT! Fest in New York.<\/p>\n

Austin’s production speaks to a wider backdrop of and its human cost, particularly for women in uniform whose stories she says are at risk of being overlooked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stock photo via Pexels Three plays at this year’s Philadelphia Fringe Festival take on themes of military service,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-280832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}