Our best bets for the Live Arts Festival

NOW IN ITS 15th year, the Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe officially kicks off tonight. It's always game to bring something different to local stages. This time around, highlights include dance that crosses cultural divides, feats of flying fancy - and dirty puppets.

Here are our Live Arts faves:

The genius of William Shakespeare is that while his plays are the ultimate literary sacred cow, they're also famously adaptable for different eras and interpretations. That makes the Bard popular with the most daring of theater troupes. Count Pig Iron Theatre Company and Swim Pony Performing Arts in that category.

* Pig Iron, which created last year's Live Arts smash "Cankerblossom," will mount a production of "Twelfth Night," directed by Dan Rothenberg. Shakespeare's gender-swapping tale of mismatched lovers, joined by a host of drunks and fools, will be set to a raucous gypsy-rock score, hearkening back to original Shakespearean productions that often heavily featured musical numbers.

Suzanne Roberts Theatre, 480 S. Broad St., through Sept. 17, $25-$30, pigiron.org.

* Swim Pony goes the tragic route, mining "Macbeth" in "Lady M." Barrymore-winning actress Catharine Slusar takes on Macbeth's scheming wife, who has called upon the witchy Weird Sisters (expanded from three to 10 for Lady M's purposes) to aid her machinations. The witches form the set with their bodies and take on the voices of the play's supporting cast.

Arts Bank at the University of the Arts, 601 S. Broad St., 7 p.m., through Sept. 9, $25, swimpony.org.

Up-and-coming choreographer Kyle Abraham takes on black radio and how strong community voices are disappearing from the airwaves in "The Radio Show." Through dance and a hip-hop and soul score, Abraham explores his youthful memories of Pittsburgh's now-defunct black radio stations and the void their loss has created.

Zellerbach Theatre, 3680 Walnut St., 8 p.m. Sept. 16-17, $25, abrahaminmotion.org.

* 7 Fingers is a circus arts troupe without all of the cringe-worthy pretensions of Cirque de Soleil. Members are ex-Cirque performers who decided to do away with the frilly costumes and let their bodies and unfathomable executions do the talking with their show "Traces," recently featured on "America's Got Talent." Hey, if Howie Mandel can hang with "Traces," Philadelphians can certainly get on the bandwagon.

Merriam Theater, 250 S. Broad St., Sept. 15-18, $20-$55, tracesusa.com.

* Officially premiering at the Live Arts Festival, John Jasperse's "Canyon" is meant to be viscerally experienced, not described. But we'll try. Six dancers, including Jasperse, stretch the tenets of modern dance, incorporating a score by Hahn Rowe and integrating the production design into the work.

Wilma Theater, 265 S. Broad St., Sept. 9-11, $25-$30, johnjasperse.org.

* While "Canyon" is all about watching dance in the here-and-now, Headlong Dance Theater and visual artist Chris Doyle's "Red Rovers" has a clearly defined plot and themes that can be verbalized. Inspired by NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers, it's about robots who live on the Red Planet and the two scientists - Jeffrey and Clementine - who gave them life. As with Headlong's previous shows, "Red Rovers" includes multimedia and a healthy helping of humor.

Live Arts Studio, 919 N. 5th St., through Sept. 10, $25-$30, headlong.org.

* "Zon-Mai" (translated as "at home elsewhere") can't be classified solely as dance or as visual art. Dancer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Gilles Delmas have fabricated a "house" made of 20-foot screens. On each screen flash images of 21 dancers who have experienced displacement, photographed in their homes dancing to Cherkaoui's moves.

140 N. Columbus Blvd., through Sept. 17, free, zon-mai.com.

Rude Mechs, a theater company based in Austin, Texas, takes the audience backstage for "The Method Gun," about a production of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" that has been in rehearsals for nine years. It's based around the teachings of acting guru Stella Burden, who mysteriously disappeared in 1972. "The Method Gun" seeks to capture the agony and ecstasy of performance itself.

Wilma Theater, 265 S. Broad St., through Sunday, $15-25, rudemechs.com.

* Inspired by the British puppet show "Punch and Judy," "The Devil and Mister Punch" delves deeper into P&J's violent tale, which has somehow become family entertainment. The story is the draw, but the puppets are just as fascinating, as is the stage. It's set up like a Victorian armoire, with "drawers" that open to reveal performers and puppets.

Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American St., Sept. 8-16, $25-$30, http://www.improbable.

co.uk/.

* Illusionists Dennis Diamond, Louie Magic and Daryl Hannah invite you to the "Elephant Room," where they promise to blow your mind. Three magicians - who look surprisingly like theater artists Steve Cuiffo, Trey Lyford and Geoff Sobelle - take the stage for a trippy night of sure-to-be bumbled sleight of hand.

Plays and Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey Place, through Sept. 17, $25-$30.