The Barrymore Award-winning adventure is back by popular demand

JUNE 11-28, 2026

Plays & Players Theatre
1714 Delancey Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103

The internationally acclaimed Pig Iron, an award-winning physical theater company based in Philadelphia, returns in time for the Semiquincentennial with an adventure imagining Ben Franklin's legacy in an alternate universe where science and magic collide.

During the War of Independence, the British feared that Ben Franklin could control the weather. Franklin’s Key asks: what if that were true? In an alternate universe where Benjamin Franklin’s undiscovered technology has been hidden for centuries underneath Philadelphia’s landmarks, a mystery is unfolding. Two high school prodigies—Temple, a self-taught scientist, and her brother Arturo, a brilliant musician—find themselves caught in a struggle between secret societies dedicated to safeguarding Franklin’s discoveries.