A Phillies fan put on a play called ‘The Philly Fan’ during Game 4 of the NLDS. And fans actually came.

Taking the old theater adage “the show must go on” to a whole new level, a lifelong Phillies fan put on a play called The Philly Fan for an audience of Phillies fans during the team’s clinching game against the Atlanta Braves in the NLDS Thursday.

After receiving a standing ovation, Bruce Graham, playwright and star of the one-man show at Media’s Hedgerow Theatre, said to the audience, “I’m going to check the Phillies score” and immediately exited stage left.

Luckily, the score was still 0-0 in the third inning with plenty of time to go. Despite some anxiety-inducing moments on the field, the game — like Graham’s show — had a happy ending, with the Phillies besting the Braves, 3-1.

Premiering in 2004, when Philadelphia hadn’t won a sports championship in decades, Graham’s popular play about the highs and lows of being a longtime Philly sports fan has gone through at least four iterations since the Phillies’ 2008 World Series victory and the Eagles’ 2018 Super Bowl win.

“The last line always used to be ‘Wait till next year,’ but we had to change that because we won,” Graham said in an interview Friday.

The 70-minute play centers around a South Philly man known only as “the fan” who, against all odds, gets into a friendly conversation with an invisible Dallas Cowboys fan at a neighborhood Philly bar. By tracing the ups and downs he’s gone through with the city’s four pro sports teams, “the fan” also tells his life story and illustrates how, here, in Philadelphia, the two are often intrinsically connected.

This is the first time Graham, 66, a Ridley native, South Philly resident, and longtime staple of the Philadelphia theater community, has taken on the role he wrote, which was originally played by Tom McCarthy, with whom he codeveloped the show.

When the performance dates for this run were scheduled, the actor said he didn’t consider some might fall on Phillies playoff game days.

“Just like last year, the first half of the season the Phillies were pretty bad, they weren’t impressing anybody,” he said. “And the second half, they’ve come like a train out of control.”

Thursday’s performance was the second to fall during a playoff game this month and Graham said he’s noticed those crowds have been a bit more subdued.

“The audience is probably thinking ‘How long is this going to run? How many innings am I going to miss?’ ” he said. “If it was someone else’s play, I’d be the same way.”

Graham, who’s been a Phillies fan since childhood, said there’s only one way he’s able to get through his performances during games. “I’ve got to put that out of my mind, which is tough, especially every time I bring up the Phillies,” he said.

Thursday’s show began with a mellow preperformance tailgate. Folks in Phillies jerseys and Eagles shirts stood around sipping Yuengling and 2SP beer, but there was no cornhole, no keg stands, and no chants. The most dramatic scene at the tailgate was a young staffer in a referee shirt who directed traffic in the parking lot like it was the role of his lifetime.

Once inside the theater, Hedgerow board member Kelly Reeves got the audience going with Eagles and Phillies chants. Then she spoke to our baser instincts by soliciting boos.

“How do we feel about the Cowboys?” she asked.

“BOOOOO!!!” the crowd yelled.

The Mets and Joe Buck were next.

“BOOOOO!!!” the audience shouted. “BOOOO!!!”

Given there’s a through line in the play about booing, and a booing through line in Philly, it perfectly set the mood.

The play touches on games as far back as the 1960s up to the Eagles’ Super Bowl win in 2018. As “the fan” recalled incredible Philly moments and epic sports rivalries, the audience joined him in cheers and boos. In those moments, the actor and the audience united to become something bigger than themselves and illustrated why being a Philly fan is so special that someone wrote a play about it.

The 108-seat Hedgerow Theatre was sold out Thursday, but several seats remained empty for the performance, perhaps left vacant by fans who couldn’t bear the thought of missing a single playoff moment.

Arian Quimbo, 43, of Media, and his 9-year-old son, Kaden, came dressed in their Phillies jerseys. They’d purchased tickets to the show before the Phillies made it into the NLDS and were willing to sacrifice a few innings to catch Graham’s performance.

“I love it. He really captured Philly sports fans’ anxiety,” the elder Quimbo said. “It’s really funny.”

His son smiled and agreed, before looking up at his dad.

“Can we listen to the game on the radio on the way home?” he asked.

The show, which opened Sept. 27, was originally supposed to run through Oct. 15, but it’s been so popular Hedgerow extended its run until Oct. 21.

That means Graham could end up performing during the clinching game of the NLCS, too. He’s OK with that, but said he’d draw the line at performing during a Phillies World Series run.

“I don’t think that’d be a real smart business move,” he said.

“The Philly Fan” runs through Oct. 21 at Hedgerow Theatre, 64 Rose Valley Rd., Media. Tickets are available for $35 at hedgerowtheatre.org/the-philly-fan.