Hold On To Your Butts

Hold On To Your Butts comes to the Perelman Theater on Thursday, January 14, 2027, at 7 PM. It's a live, shot-for-shot parody of Jurassic Park, and the whole thing is carried by just three people on stage: two actors and a foley artist. The actors play all the roles, and the foley artist handles the sound effects live, so you're watching the movie get rebuilt in front of you in real time. It's billed as a tour-de-force of comedy, physical theatre, and live foley, and critics have called it a Jurassic Park parody.

If you're not familiar with foley, it's the art of creating sound effects for film—the rustle of clothing, the thud of a footstep, the crash of a breaking window—all made by hand on a sound stage. In this show, that process is pulled out from behind the scenes and put right on stage, so the sound effects are as much a part of the performance as the acting. The two actors handle the dialogue and the action, and the foley artist provides the sound to match, shot by shot.

This isn't its first run. The show arrives in Philadelphia following critically acclaimed debuts in the West End and Off-Broadway, so it's had a chance to find its feet before landing here. It's a physical comedy, and the shot-for-shot format means it's leaning into the specific beats of the movie rather than just riffing on the general idea.

The show is at the Perelman Theater at The Kimmel Center, 300 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102. It runs on Thursday, January 14, 2027, at 7 PM.