November 01, 2023
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Wrestlers and rollerblading circus performers will perform in Weirdo: The East Kensington Arts and Oddities Festival.
The first weekend of November can be a weird, liminal space. Halloween is over, but Thanksgiving is still weeks away and Christmas is even further. It's getting a little cold for pumpkin patches and hayrides, but the pop-up ski lodge bars aren't open yet, either. Also, daylight saving time ends Sunday?!
Lean into the weird at a festival designed just for that in East Kensington. At Weirdo, visitors can take in music, wrestling and contortionists on skates — all while ducking in and out of local haunts on Frankford Avenue for a snack or drink. Misunderstood witches will appreciate the return of "Wicked," now playing at Kimmel, while space geeks can marvel at rovers and rockets at the Franklin Institute's new exhibit, which opens Saturday.
There also is an early holiday party on Sunday. The city's annual veterans parade will kick off at noon in Center City, with a street fest to follow on Market and 5th streets.
Unless you work for NASA or have $1 billion, you're probably not going to space anytime soon. But you can get a glimpse of the experience at the Franklin Institute's massive new exhibit "Wondrous Space," opening Saturday. The two-story collection will include space travel simulations, rovers, a rocket engine and a 23-foot Mars sculpture suspended in the atrium. Show up at 11 a.m. on Saturday or Sunday for the ball-pit ball launch, or head over to the newly reopened Holt & Miller Observatory between 12-3 p.m. for a guided tour.
Get to know the Wicked Witch of the West before she melted into a pile of goo at Dorothy's feet. "Wicked," Broadway's popular prequel to "The Wizard of Oz," returns to Philadelphia just in time for the show's 20-year anniversary. It'll play for nearly a month at the Academy of Music, running until Nov. 26. The cast features Wilkes Barre-native Celia Hottenstein as Glinda the Good Witch and Jersey royalty Olivia Valli, granddaughter of Frankie Valli, in the lead role of Elphaba.
Revel in the bold and bizarre on Saturday at Weirdo: The East Kensington Arts and Oddities Festival. The annual celebration of "all things art and weird" will start at 2 p.m. along Frankford Avenue and East York Street. Bands, artists and tarot readers will be stationed at various locations, while Now + Then Marketplace vendors will set up shop outside Thunderbird Salvage. Don't forget to check out the rollerskating circus performers outside Martha at 2:20 and 4:15 p.m., or the wrestlers who will take the ring by Philadelphia Brewing Company from 7-9 p.m.
Veterans Day may be Nov. 11, but the annual Philly parade honoring those who've served in the U.S. military will be held this Sunday. Floats, motorcycles and buses will assemble at Juniper and Market streets at 12 p.m. The route culminates at Fifth and Market, where there will be a street festival with food trucks other activities. It will be open from 12:30-3:30 p.m.
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