It’s Fringe season, and Cannonball producers Nick Jonczak (co-founder), Vanessa Kamp (core producer), and Patrick Burke (associate producer) are busting their a**es so independent artists don’t have to. Cannonball, a production hub within Philadelphia Fringe, will produce over 300 performances this month. Caitlin Green digs into why and how they do what they do.
tD: Since your inaugural season in 2021, you’ve grown exponentially. Cannonball produced 150 performances in that first year, climbing to 300 performances the following year, and over 500 performances in 2023. First of all, congratulations on the success you’ve achieved. With all the hours you put in, the different emotions you move through, the teamwork, what makes it worth it?
Vanessa: Service to art is what keeps me going.
Patrick: For me it’s all about the people. Expanding and supporting the community and all these artists to make a piece that’s so near and dear to them; having a helping hand in that process is intensely gratifying.
Nick: It’s that moment when you’re sitting in the audience, the lights come down and the show starts. That exact moment, ugh, that’s why I keep coming back.
Vanessa: is Nick crying already? (to Nick) Are you crying?
Nick: I thought it’d take me longer.
tD: How many shows are you producing for this Fringe season?
Nick: We’re at 94 different shows and just over 300 performances. We’re about a third of the overall Festival, and we’ve been a third to half of the festival for the past three years.
tD: How big is your team this year?
Vanessa: We’re six producers. Then we hire stage managers, box office people, and other staff for the season.
Nick: We have a three-year rotating producer cohort. Patrick’s in his first year, Vanessa’s in her second, and then after your third year, you’re required to take off to ensure people get rest and we get new blood in the organization. That [gap year] was 2024 for me. I came back in ’25 and again this year.
tD: You read my mind. I was going to ask next about the rotation plan and how it’s holding up since it was implemented back in 2023. It sounds like it’s going well!
Nick: There are things about it that are working. It ensures people in the cohort are excited to be a part of it. It puts the platform and curation of shows in the hands of our community as compared to putting it in the hands of one artistic director, which we see in a lot of companies. With the producer cohort being responsible for everything for the festival, it’s a nonhierarchical, decentralized team that brings the festival to life. That’s the part that’s been very successful.
The way it’s challenging is when you change people every year, you’re constantly reteaching systems and processes, and you’re having the same conversations again and again…we’re still figuring out how to make it a pleasurable experience for the producers who are coming on.
tD: I’m thinking about hierarchies and decentralizing leadership, and that’s the trade-off. The more we’re in the practice of it, the better we get, and you all continue to power through despite the precariousness of the work.
Nick: I wonder if Vanessa and Patrick feel similar… (laughing)
Patrick: It’s a model with pros and cons. At the end of the day, we’re all joyfully committed to those pros and cons. This cohort has reminded me of the power that supporting one another can offer. We’re all aware of the intense and unique scenario we’ve chosen to be a part of. We’re constantly offering one another grace as a result.
Vanessa: It’s a huge learning experience to grow personally and professionally. I appreciate your comments too, Caitlin. It’s about being in this practice and being willing to put in the effort, time, and energy it requires.
tD: Through this 3-year cycle where you’re constantly introducing and reintroducing members, new and old…you’re teaching a lot of people these skills–how to produce shows, how artists support each other. You’re sharing experience [and] knowledge with people who then go out and do it [elsewhere] and learn more. I just want to uplift that it’s an important part of what you all do.
I guess this will be a Nick-question: What’s the Cannonball origin story?
Nick: The Almanac Dance Circus Theatre founded Cannonball in 2021. In 2019, Almanac took a show to Edinburgh Fringe. The main performers, Nicole Burgio and Ben Grinberg, went and they were like, “this place is like the Disneyland of performance.” The Fringe there has this hub model where large organizations function as a hub of activity and shows.
When you [perform in the] Edinburgh Fringe, like in Philly, you pay your fee and you get in. But then it’s up to the independent producing artist to find [their] own stage, lighting and sound equipment, insurance, do box office, do all of [their] own marketing. But when you’re in one of these hubs…they provide a lot of the services. So Ben and Nicole were like, “That’s great. Philly should have that,” because there was very little support here for the independent-artist-part of the Philadelphia Fringe. We wanted to make a hub for artists…it was a big hit. There are a lot of artists hungry for that kind of support, which is why I think we grew six times from 2021-2023.
Almanac has this phrase, “what can we do together that we can’t do apart?” (he pauses) I cry about it every time! In a country that’s so aggressively anti-artist it makes you feel like you have to do everything on your own, and if you didn’t do it on your own then you didn’t deserve it or earn it or something like that, to live in a city and be a part of a community where artists support other artists, that’s really f*cking cool.
tD: Thank you. It’s so clear how much of your heart’s invested in this. I want to ask Patrick and Vanessa to speak on what it’s meant to be an artist supporting other artists, and what are your artistic practices?
Patrick: It’s incredibly exciting to feel ingratiated in community in so many ways…I often say that I feel like everything’s interdisciplinary. The ways I’m an artist support me being a producer, and the ways I’m a producer support me being an artist. The double handedness of it all…allows me to be the best version of myself in so many different facets. That’s not to say it’s without challenges. Juggling my artistic practice with the high intensity of producing a festival comes with sacrifice. Ultimately it gives me a deeper level of respect for the performances I’m supporting.
tD: What’s your artistic practice?
Patrick: Right now, I perform a lot of clown works. I do variety shows and character work. Most recently I’m working on a new show, Betsy Ross Groundhog Day for Cannonball.
Vanessa: All the experience I have being an artist in different venues and situations and how I’ve been treated by host[s] transfers to being a producer and supporting artists in better ways… it makes me feel happy I can provide the things they need, and I’m not being a barrier for artists.
I come from fine arts so I approach my practice from visual and performance art. My work this year is called Houndstooth. It’s kind of an amusingly expanded drag king and experimental sound piece.
Nick: I’m primarily trained as a performer. I went to the Pig Iron school. I’m a third-year in The Foundry, a three-year playwriting fellowship here in Philly based in Playpenn. I’m showing three new works-in-progress pieces in Cannonball because I’m kind of a glutton. One’s called New World Vultures where a group of men’s rights activists are gathering together to defeat feminism once and for all, of course they don’t–they can’t–and they all die horrible, violent deaths. The second piece is called Snatch. I’ve been working on this practice of holding a kettlebell over my head for an hour as this test of physical endurance to try to get at why we don’t have any contemporary rites of passage for young boys to become men today. The final piece I’m showing is called Nightcrawlers and it’s a tragic horror action play perfect for spooky season.
tD: It’s so nice to hear the investment that y’all have in your own practice as you’re doing this [work]. You’re offering really passionate, dedicated labor to the field of art in Philly while also creating frameworks for your team to prioritize their own creative practice, so kudos to y’all. I know it’s not easy.
I read that your values are, “Wild, Loose, Experimental, Delicious, and Abundant.” Which one do you identify with most in this season and why?
Vanessa: Loose, delicious, experimental. Loose: being able to pivot when needed, and being excited about doing that is delicious. And experimental: we’re feeling around…getting to the edge of [our boundaries] and seeing what more we can do.
Patrick: I’ll highlight loose–this idea of being mobile, flexible, and constantly able to adapt to the times and pivot based on the needs of that exact moment is crucial.
Nick: If I had to pick one right now, yo, I’m feeling so wild. I’m feeling a little crazed. I’m like “what’s gonna happen?” There’s got to be a little of that mischievous energy at all times because that’s where the surprises happen.
tD: Where do we see Cannonball going in the next five years?
Nick: I’m so curious to hear what Vanessa and Patrick say.
Vanessa: (coyly) does Nick really want to hear what I wanna say about it?
Nick: I always do. One of my favorite things is everyone has their own vision. Cannonball is no one person’s vision, but is in fact the collective fever dream of us all, you know?
Vanessa: I’m excited about the future, but I have nothing concrete in mind about what that looks like. That’s part of what I like about it.
Patrick: Cannonball is a testament to resiliency, and I have 100% faith it will continue to bring community together and uplift artists, both internally and externally, in the next five years. Something that I’m incredibly excited for is not just the way Cannonball continues to grow, but the fingerprint of Cannonball that continues to leave its mark on Philadelphia and the greater artistic community.
Nick: This is a big question for us now. For the past three years we’ve had a big grant from the William Penn Foundation for $100,000. This year, they changed their funding, so we were ineligible. Something I’m interested in over the next five years is more sustainability for us as an organization. What’re ways we can diversify where the money comes in?…But the other thing is money isn’t always the answer. There’s a lot of zero cost programs that we can implement to support artists that don’t involve money at all. It’s about dreaming up some of that.
www.cannonballfestival.org, Virtual interview, Aug. 28, 2026
