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mike durkin
Immersive & Interactive Experience, Solo Show, Spoken Word & Storytelling, Theater
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That Dough Tho, The Show
A performative dough making experience
Created by mike durkin
1½ cups warm water
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. yeast
3½ cups flour
1 tsp Salt
Mix. Gather. Knead. Develop. Fold. Shape. Rise. Bake. Rest. Enjoy.
Food is community, food is power, food is legacy, food is memory, food is love, food is home, food is life. Food has the capacity of bringing folks from different backgrounds together. Food is personal history, oral history, and oral tradition.
The ritual act of making and breaking bread together. Finding moments of collective, collaboration, sharing, and primal qualities of food making. 5 modest ingredients and slight variations can make hundreds of different kinds of doughs that transcend different cultures, spaces, places, times, and identities. From your chapati, to your bagel, to your bao, to your pretzel. A dough for them all. All-purpose. Dough and dough making becomes a symbol for the collective, the slowing down, the tension between planning, being precise and adapting and improvising. mike will share history of dough-making rituals while participating in the act of making, baking, and sharing.
FringeArts veteran and multi-disciplinary artist, mike durkin, will lead audiences through a series of performative rituals around dough making. We will share a collective community while making and sharing food together.
That Dough Tho, The Show is a performance project that finds deeper connections between doughs across different cultures. mike will lead audiences through 1 1/2 cups of discussion, 2 Tbsp. of dough-making, 1 Tbsp. of story-sharing, and 3 1/2 cups of dance and movement.
Audiences will be led by mike in making their own dough. The result will be a tasting and sharing over a fire of the cooked doughs we made.
September 3, 2025 7.00pm
1320 N 5th St
General Admission: $25
PWYC Options
September 4, 2025 7.00pm
1320 N 5th St
General Admission: $25
PWYC Options
September 5, 2025 7.00pm
1320 N 5th St
General Admission: $25
PWYC Options
About the Artist
mike durkin (he/him/y’all) is a large-bodied multidisciplinary social practice performance artist based in South Philadelphia. The intersection between art and the everyday guides mike (lowercase to de-center himself for the process). He has created site-responsive social practice productions exploring urban foodways, community mending, sports, houselessness, food access, place, and the americana. mike works in communities and college campuses across the country. His work combines a variety of styles and mediums to embrace time, place, and the Americana. He aims to bring dissimilar bodies together to challenge and dismantle hate and stigmas, putting effort into the ideas that bring us together rather than push us away.
mike has worked at UPENN, the University of Rochester, LSU in Baton Rouge, LA, with Reed College in Portland, OR, the Open Source Gallery in Brooklyn, The Creative Center at University Settlement, the University of Arkansas Design Department, the Broad Art Museum and Department of Theatre at Michigan State University, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center at the University of Houston, the Performance Studies program at Texas A&M University, with the College of Arts, Humanities, and Sciences at the University of Central Arkansas, Mural Arts Philadelphia and the Color Me Back Studio, Brandywine River Museum, Barnes Foundation, Mt. Moriah Cemetery, the Life Do Grow Farm, and in parks, churches, and fields, diners, virtually.
Upcoming projects: The Mending Project at UNC-Asheville and Texas Tech University.
For more information, www.mikedurkin.info
Accessibility & Content Considerations
Contact the Fringe Festival Box Office for up to date accessibility information.
This event is appropriate for ages 13+
Audience Interaction
Gluten. We will be making doughs with gluten, there will be gluten-free options.
Covid-19 Safety policy
This event does not require masks to be worn
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(at Race St.)
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Directions
Tickets: 215.413.1318
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