{"id":284450,"date":"2026-09-12T11:54:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T11:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/284450\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T11:54:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T11:54:16","slug":"martha-graham-cracker-memorial-funds-philly-fringe-artists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/284450\/","title":{"rendered":"Martha Graham Cracker memorial funds Philly Fringe artists"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

In life Dito van Reigersberg lit up Philadelphia\u2019s cabaret scene with his alter ego Martha Graham Cracker. Now, just months after his death<\/a> in June, two memorial funds have been created to benefit other edgy performing artists.\n<\/p>\n

One of them has already started cutting checks.\n<\/p>\n

Victor Fiorello, a writer for Philadelphia Magazine who moonlighted as a piano player with van Reigersberg\u2019s 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<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cThere was some discussion after Dido\u2019s death about the idea of remembering and honoring Dido, the person, and Martha, the character,\u201d Fiorello said. \u201cI 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.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

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\u2019s \u201cIsland\u201d program, a theater intensive wherein students remove themselves from distraction for two weeks to focus on inventing new work.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we\u2019re running Pig Iron, we\u2019re often thinking about this year, next year, two years from now,\u201d said Pig Iron\u2019s cofounder Quinn Baureidel. \u201cThis really asked us to think about something eternal, something forever, something that would be an investment for decades.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Funding the wild and gritty side of Philadelphia theater<\/p>\n

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\u2019s death and says he raised $5,000 in just four hours.\n<\/p>\n

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

\u201cHe reprogrammed my brain to some degree about performance,\u201d Fiorello said. \u201cThose memories are so vivid that there\u2019s definitely this certain something of, like: What element of Martha does this person embody?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Acker will use his $500 to fund his Fringe show \u201cWilliam Acker is William Acker and William Acker is Running for Mayor of Philadelphia,\u201d<\/a> or \u201cWAWA.\u201d The absurdist show is a political campaign which Acker, the actor, refuses to say is fictional or not.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI, William Acker, play the role of William Acker and I run for the mayor of Philadelphia. It is exactly as it says,\u201d he said. \u201cI 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.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82386,91699,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-284450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-drag","tag-martha-graham-cracker","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284450","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=284450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}