VILE

Overview

Are you sad? Me too, bestie. Welcome to VILE, a wild award-winning solo show from Francesca Montanile Lyons. VILE blends clown and bouffon in an exploration of muddling through depression, surviving rape culture, and drowning in modernity. Expect a riot of absurdity, tenderness, and the kind of laughter that feels more like a cathartic gag reflex. Ingredients include: greasy toes, green cellophane, a balloon penis, and a side of BDSM. VILE has toured nationally to US Fringe Festivals in Providence, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and Minneapolis.

WINNER:
Encore Series Cannonball Fringe 2024
Golden Lanyard MN Fringe 2024

“It’s raunchy, authentic, and hilarious… a fantastic piece of performance art and a real gem of the fringe.” —Twin Cities Geek

“The sort of fringe theater experiment that has people talking long after”. —Twin Cities Arts Reader

About the Artist

Francesca Montanile Lyons is a Philadelphia-based director, performer, and multi-disciplinary artist whose work deftly balances the forces of horror and humor. (-Stage Buddy.) Her work across mediums seeks to disempower shame through playful honesty and voyeuristic delight. Selected credits include creating/directing Dear Diary LOL (PHL FringeArts & New Ohio), directing Good Grief (with Rough & Tumble at PHL Fringe, Le Mondo, PVD Fringe), Van Gogh Shogh (with Donna Oblongata) Die, Dumping, Die! (MuralArts), Sometimes the Rain, Sometimes the Sea (UArts Arts Bank), Legal Tender (PHL Fringe & AntFest), All 100 Fires (by Donna Oblongata), Fourth Quarter (FPA Fest), and performing/co-creating Girl Poop (2018-2020).

Credits