A word-for-word recreation of a tense 1993 television call-in show between AIDS activist Larry Kramer and Dr. Anthony Fauci has opened the 30th annual Philadelphia Fringe Festival, putting a decades-old public health argument back on a Philly stage this week. The play, titled “Kramer/Fauci,” opened Tuesday at FringeArts and runs through Thursday, September 11.
A Verbatim Transcript Brought to Life
The production is built entirely from the transcript of an hourlong C-SPAN broadcast that aired November 30, 1993, hosted by Steve Scully, in which Fauci appeared in studio while Kramer participated remotely through an audio earpiece to debate President Clinton's proposed AIDS research initiatives, according to C-SPAN. As reported by WHYY, the broadcast itself was plagued by technical problems involving Fauci's studio setting and Kramer's faulty remote earpiece, a glitch that heightened the tension of their hourlong exchange. Conceived and directed by Daniel Fish, who called the original broadcast compelling, the play was created using the transcript of that 33-year-old broadcast as its script, per WHYY.
Fish previously directed a production of “The Normal Heart,” the 1985 play Kramer wrote about the early AIDS crisis, and told WHYY that experience remained one of the great theater experiences of his lifetime. In the C-SPAN transcript recreated onstage, Fauci rejects the claim that subpar talent worked on HIV and AIDS research, while Kramer at one point calls Fauci “tone.” The two disagreed sharply on how to address the epidemic, with Fauci at one point telling Kramer, “Larry, I have to disagree with you on that,” per the same account.
Decades of Public Sparring
Kramer and Fauci sparred many times during the AIDS epidemic even as they worked toward finding a solution together, according to WHYY. Their feud predated the 1993 broadcast by years: in 1988, Kramer published a furious open letter on the front page of the San Francisco Examiner labeling Fauci an “incompetent idiot” and a “murderer” over federal bureaucratic delays in approving life-saving AIDS treatments, according to Smithsonian Magazine. Rather than ignoring the attack, Fauci reached out to Kramer directly and began inviting AIDS activists into federal policy meetings, a move that started a 33-year relationship between the two men.
Kramer's activism was organized and confrontational well before that letter. He co-founded Gay Men's Health Crisis in 1982 as the country's first AIDS service organization, per GMHC, before he was forced out over his militant approach and went on to co-found the direct-action network ACT UP in March 1987. That group staged a landmark demonstration on May 21, 1990, when roughly 1,000 ACT UP activists stormed the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Maryland, demanding faster access to experimental therapies, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Protesters reportedly blew whistles every 12 minutes during that protest to symbolize the national AIDS death rate at the time.
Friendship Beneath the Feud
Despite the public clashes, Fauci and Kramer became good friends, and WHYY reports that Fauci visited Kramer close to the time of Kramer's death. Kramer died in 2020 at age 84; he was also a writer and AIDS activist who earned a Pulitzer Prize finalist nod and an Academy Award nomination during his career, per WHYY. In the play, Fauci is depicted telling Kramer, “I love you, Larry,” a line WHYY notes captures the personal bond that formed underneath decades of institutional conflict.
Nell Bang-Jensen, cited by WHYY, said the dialogue in the piece showed how long Fauci had been a public servant. Fauci served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years, from November 1984 until his retirement from federal service in December 2022, according to NIAID, advising seven presidential administrations on crises ranging from HIV/AIDS to Ebola and COVID-19.
Cast and Staging Details
Tony Award winner Will Brill plays Fauci and Thomas Jay Ryan plays Kramer, with Greig Sargeant as the broadcast moderator and Jennifer Seastone voicing all call-in audience members, according to the NYU Skirball Center. All four actors wear earpieces throughout the 60-minute performance to precisely replicate the cadence and pacing of the original broadcast. The show premiered at NYU Skirball Center in New York City in February 2026 before opening the Philadelphia Fringe Festival on Tuesday at FringeArts, where it runs through Thursday, September 11.
Philadelphia has its own long history with the epidemic at the center of the play. Physicians in the city diagnosed its first official AIDS case in September 1981, just months after the CDC identified mysterious immune deficiency outbreaks in New York and Los Angeles, according to the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. Local cases rose sharply within a couple years, prompting the creation of the Philadelphia AIDS Task Force and a wave of regional advocacy that echoed the national fights depicted onstage. According to the City of Philadelphia's 2002 Vital Statistics Report, AIDS cases totaled 1,138 that year, with counts based on the year cases were reported rather than the year of diagnosis. According to a study available through the National Institutes of Health's PubMed Central, antiretroviral therapy greatly improves survival for people with HIV, with cohort studies showing sustained reductions in mortality among treated patients.
Fauci's Fight Continues in Washington
The debate over Fauci's public record hasn't stayed in the past. In the play, Kramer says Fauci's private and public statements differed, and WHYY notes that Fauci at one point cites his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination and was held in contempt after declining to answer questions. That thread has an unmistakable echo in current events: in July, Fauci returned to Capitol Hill for congressional testimony after senators released more than 1,100 pages of his private pandemic-era diaries, facing accusations from senators over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, as Hoodline previously reported.
“Kramer/Fauci” is one of more than 330 productions staged across nearly 100 venues for this year's Fringe Festival, which marks its 30th anniversary and runs through September 27, according to Broadway World. After closing at FringeArts, the play will return to New York, running at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn from September 27 through October 24.
