Things Are Looking Up a BFF 2026 Free Event

It’s BFF 2026, the 11th Annual BFF Binge Fringe Festival of FREE Theatre, October 13 through November 20, the only FREE Fringe Festival in the nation, offering 37 in-person plays, workshops and family-oriented events, presenting:

A warm, witty, and deeply humane comedy about faith, doubt, and the unruly mess of human connection. Set largely in a modest Bronx apartment shared by Father Matt O’Malley and Rabbi Dean Silberstein, the play finds rich comic fuel in interfaith banter, culture-clash wordplay, and the inspired running gag of a pet turtle named Jesus. Yet beneath the laughter lies a serious emotional current: Matt’s growing crisis of belief, Marina’s heartbreak, Burnout’s buried past, and Bernard’s plainspoken skepticism. All press the play toward larger questions about what remains when religious certainty begins to slip away. Written & Directed by Daryl Mendelson.

Special thanks to generous grants from the We Are Santa Monica Fund, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, the City of Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Arts Commission, and Playhouse PALS. The BFF celebrates the range and depth of the human condition and the idea that theatre arts experiences are vital, transformative, and must be available for all.

FREE as part of the BFF Binge Fringe Festival of Free Theatre. Live-streaming info can be found at SantaMonicaPlayhouse.com. No need to make a reservation If you are live-streaming.