At least when it comes to theatre, one of the most interesting things I’ve discovered upon moving to Orlando is the concentrated wonder of the Orlando Fringe Festival. In my now just-slightly-under-two-years as an Orlando resident, I’ve now had the pleasure of attending two full-sized fringe festivals and now three of the fun-sized mini-fests—usually as a volunteer and audience member, but with one (nerve-wracking!) stint as a writer/performer in the most recent May fest.
For an ever-hungry theatre addict, the concentration of shiny new plays to behold in one place is a sometimes overwhelming but ultimately irresistible theatrical smorgasbord—which makes Fringe’s action-packed Winter Mini-fest something like the best of both worlds. It’s still offering a jam-packed few days of wall-to-wall theatre- but will feature 24ish shows staged across three color-coded venues as opposed to the main fest’s 100+.
So far, I’ve been able to catch exclusive press previews of 10 of them—and to see three minute sneak peaks of most of the rest via last night’s opening “teaser” show. And though some struck more of a chord with me than others, there’s not a single one in the mix I didn’t find genuinely delightful!
This may be in part because of another major difference between Winter Mini-fest and the May festival. While slots in the Fringe’s main fest are distributed via a lottery (if you were wondering how I got in), WMF offers a curated roster of shows selected for their prior success or their creator’s track record of artistic excellence. The resulting “set-list” this time around is no less eclectic and “Fringe-y” than I expected—but the overall quality level does seem to be a little less hit-or-miss.
Since there are no shows I wouldn’t recommend seeing, (and I started writing this post before I figured out how many of them I’d actually have time to write about), I’m going to start with a “top tier” of my three absolute favorite shows. Perhaps not coincidentally, these three are scripted solo shows brought to life by three absolutely badass female creators, and each touched on themes of oppression, empowerment, and identity that spoke to me on a profound emotional level.
The first of these, No Worries If Not, spends quite a lot of its 60 minute run-time successfully masquerading as a care-free laugh riot. This is unsurprising given creator Katie-Ellen Humphries’ background as a stand-up comic. It’s also fitting given that the central theme of the show is Humphries’ lifelong habit of people-pleasing, often by “masquerading” as a funny and care-free “cool girl” at the expense of her own emotional health.
Humphries’ punchlines, timing, and presence are all spot-on, so the jokes come a mile a minute— laying a framework that makes her story’s darker turns even more of a gut punch. She reels us in with relatable anecdotes about dirty laundry and little white lies— only to shock us with her vulnerability as she revisits an abusive relationship. By connecting her personal journey of self-reclamation to the dangers of a society that encourages self-erasure, she creates a can’t-miss show that’s as poignant as it is punchy.
The next of my top-tier picks is Fringe veteran Ingrid Garner’s Vampira: A Hollywood Horror Story. This expertly crafted and confidently performed show tells the fascinating story of Maila Nurmi, the flesh-and-blood woman behind the iconic undead character the show’s title refers to.
And though at times that story is a painful one, it’s about much more than “how to dig your own grave”— which is the way Garner’s Nurmi at one point describes it herself. For one thing, it’s an intricately researched look into another era, with the main character’s lurid social life doubling as an old-Hollywood who’s who.
To borrow another of Garner’s brilliant turns of phrase, it’s also an exploration of how the burdens of womanhood and celebrity can work much like corsets, menacingly tightening around those who bear and wear them. For Vampira’s sake, Nurmi starved herself into the corsets—but remains admirably unwilling to relinquish her freedoms or compromise her ideals.
For these sins, Nurmi ends up maligned by the media, blacklisted by the industry, and denied the recognition and rewards her revolutionary achievements should have warranted. To her, it happened over five decades ago—but it’s a depressingly familiar story of how eager society can be to turn against a woman who screams too loud, wants too much, or dares to live at all imperfectly. Tbh, Taylor Swift could probably relate.
Without minimizing any of Nurmi’s loss, Garner turns her story into an empowering one by emphasizing the inclusive beauty of her legacy —and an ode to the power of refusing to shrink yourself to fit in.
A similar theme emerges even more viscerally from Cracks, writer-performer Claire Lochmueller’s arresting personal story of how she came to accept herself as a trans-woman. She vividly describes the agonizing sense of gender dysphoria that plagued her from childhood on, easing only when she finally began transitioning at 31. Powerfully, Lochmueller paints this pain as caused not by her transness itself but by the bigotry that prompted her to keep her true identity closeted and pose as the man the world expected her to be.
This makes for a few harrowing moments, but, surprisingly, there are just as many hilarious ones. Lochmueller’s sharp wit finds plenty of laugh-out-loud humor in her struggles to make sense of her identity in the punishing environment of a Catholic military school and her desperate attempts to suppress evidence of her secret self.
Not only does Cracks succeed theatrically on its own terms—but Lochmueller’s intimate account offered a valuable window into aspects of the trans experience that I (a cisgender woman) had never previously considered.
This impactful story of resilience and self-discovery is a testament to the beauty as well as the hardship of that experience—and one that feels all the more vital in light of our current administration’s nonsensical war on trans identity. It is only a twisted logic that casts the desire to become one’s self as evidence of their inhumanity. And I can’t imagine that anyone could reasonably come away from this play seeing Claire as anything but the woman she’s alway sbeen.
This third of my top tier picks is definitely the one that I found most emotionally impactful. On that note, if planning a frenized sprint to your next show after seeing Cracks, perhaps you should consider packing tissues.
No Worries If Not Tickets and Info
60 MINUTES
YELLOW VENUE
REMAINING SHOWTIMES:
January 9, 2026, 5:50 PM
January 10, 2026, 7:20 PM
January 11, 2026, 12:50 PM
Vampira: A Hollywood Horror Story Tickets and Info
60 MINUTES
BLUE VENUE
January 8th, 2026, 9:20 PM
January 10th, 2026, 2:40 PM
January 11th, 2026, 8:10 PM
60 MINUTES
BLUE VENUE
January 8th, 2026, 6:20 PM
January 10th, 2026, 4:10 PM
January 11th, 2026, 9:40 PM
Now, all that being said, let’s speed through the other seven shows I saw over the past few days, starting with those I had most to say about.
The Event by Corvito Enterprises
What even is theatre anyway? As a matter of fact…. What is life?
If you’ve ever found yourself asking yourself either question, this metatheatrical “event” may be just the Fringe show for you!
It’s one of quite a few solo shows in the mix this time around, but, unlike most of the others, the show’s writer (John Clancy) and its performer (David Calvitto) are not one and the same—something that is, in fact, key to the show’s conceit.
Early on and continuously throughout, Calvitto identifies himself as a mere performer tasked with reciting a set of memorized words, and the audience as a group of “strangers” who have chosen to sit in the dark and watch him do it in the hopes of being entertained.
He infers a few things about us, tells us a little about himself, and grants us permissions to nap and check our watches as we should please, all of which Clancy’s clever script and Calvitto’s charismatic persona make a lot funnier than it sounds.
Actually, for a show in which, essentially, nothing happens, I found myself looking back towards the clock a lot less often than you might expect. From wryly making fun of the conventions of theatre and acting, Calvitto’s deliberately nameless character slowly moves on to questioning the conventions of society— wondering at the purpose of Events like the one in which he is participating, lamenting the isolated nature of today’s world and engaging in mock “conversation” with his silent technician and unseen stagehand.
This, too, is a lot funnier than it sounds, and a lot more thought provoking. Yes, perhaps some of the bits and meandering did invite a bit of watch-checking, but the piece works its way to a satisfying conclusion that felt surprisingly profound. The Event is a truly unique and gloriously bizarre piece even by Fringe standards—which I think might actually make my next favorite of the lot!
TICKETS AND INFO FOR “THE EVENT”
January 8th, 9:50 PM
January 9th, 8:50 PM
January 10th, 12:25 PM
In this improvised solo show, performer Mark Vigeant makes the most of a pretty simple conceit: he is the best man at his brother’s wedding giving an increasingly unhinged toast. It sounds like a schtick that could get old fast, but Vigeant is a dynamic enough performer to keep the 60 minute piece consistently engaging, enough so that I was eager to re-experience it after catching it in last May’s fest.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that Vigeant’s command of his material seems to have evolved in the meantime, allowing his already funny show to become an even sharper crowd-pleaser. Some key details of this “wedding” seem to stay the same across shows, but this loose structural formula allows for plenty of spontaneity, most obviously in Vigeant’s on the spot “casting” of audience members as various wedding guests. You’ll probably get a lot of laughs if you decide to join him at this particular party, and you may just learn a thing or two about love.
TICKETS AND INFO FOR THE BEST MAN SHOW
60 MINUTES
BLUE VENUE
January 9th, 9:40 PM
January 10th, 8:05 PM
January 11th, 2:45 PM
Funny Fortunes with Mercado de la Fortuna
Last seen in Orlando’s May fest with her award-winning Solovela, improviser extraordinaire Diane Jorge is back with an even wackier show that’s even more interactive and similarly hilarious. Before jumping into the main action, Jorge humorously introduces us to herself as, in her words, the “woman behind the man”— that man being Walter Mercado, whose kooky “fortune telling” om Spanish television was a formative force during her childhood.
After dressing as Mercado one Halloween, Jorge was enlisted to “become” him for a few gigs, then a few more—and has now done so for long enough that her version of “him” has become more “her.”
I don’t know enough about the real Mercado, to compare, but I was certainly entertained by Jorge’s version. His Mercado’s main fortune-telling tool is a set of oversized “star sign” cards which she uses to tell the “futures” of one audience member at a time—the two most memorable pulled at this performance were Gloria Estefan and the I-4 eyesore.
Jorge makes the most of this silly setup by taking it 110% seriously, channeling her over-the-top energy into willingness to do anything for a bit. I somehow doubt any genuine futures were foreseen, but the audience rarely stopped laughing— which means I don’t need the guidance of a ghostly psychic to know that I might well see this show again.
TICKETS AND INFO FOR FUNNY FORTUNES
PURPLE VENUE
55 MINUTES
REMAINING SHOWTIMES:
January 9th, 6:30 PM
January 10th, 6:55 PM
January 11th, 1:40 PM
In Full of Grace, Italian Andrea Barello turns the Catholic church into his personal clowning grounds by taking on the character of an eccentric priest, his strong accent and bold movements creating a distinct comic persona.
Barello is a great physical comedian and his antics consistently amusing— he played welll off of the audience, but some of his schtick was a bit too slapstick for my taste.
Some of the stronger moments were those that were grounded in real critique of the evils of Catholicism, though the demographics of a typical Fringe audience would probably find Barello preaching for the choir even then. A few props and a projected backdrop help make the play’s setting unmistakable—and I’d wager we all had a hell of a lot more fun in Barello’s mock church than most have in the real thing.
FULL OF GRACE TICKETS AND INFO
PURPLE VENUE
60 MINUTES
REMAINING SHOWTIMES:
January 8th, 9:00 PM
January 10th, 5:25 PM
January 11th, 8:30 PM
As with the previous show, I (and most of the rest of the audience) laughed a ton at this piece— its star Tim Felton is a confident and gifted performer who has here created something truly original in the character of the titular Softie. To borrow the artist’s own words from the show’s description: Picture the lovechild of Mr. Rogers, Pee-wee Herman, and Buster Bluth but raised in southern Indiana by East Coast psychologists.
As this Softie, Felton shamelessly flirts with the audience, seeming as he does to parody a kind of hipster archetype and asking for consent at every turn. Still, sometimes the weird, sexually charged humor feels just a little too weird, and some awkward moments drag on too long—though of course, that’s probably the point. Extended dick jokes aside, the show makes up for some of its odder and cruder content, with what seems like an earnestly sweet conclusion.
YELLOW VENUE
70 MINUTES
REMAINING SHOWTIMES:
January 10, 8:50 PM
January 11th, 2:20 PM
Jon Bennet: This Will Only Happen Once
Fringe veteran Jon Bennet delivers another solid show, this time focused on his love of animals and of performing. It takes a bit of meandering before the centrality of these themes become readily apparent, and it’s only at the show’s close do we learn why they have anything to do with the title, but most of his jokes and stories land along the way all the same. It’s not much of a departure from his usually presentational, Powerpointy style—which, while effective, isn’t particularly theatrically interesting—but fans of any of his prior shows are likely to be charmed by this one as well. This is especially true are a lot more really cute pictures of dogs and cats in this one. Oh, and that racoon. And the orangutans!
If you are now wondering why on earth there are orangutans, you can find out if you see the show, which despite the misleading title, definitely is happening at least 2 more times, as listed below, barring any unforeseen intervention by orangutans. (Or ICE… you’ll get it once you see the show.)
TICKETS AND INFO FOR THIS WILL ONLY HAPPEN ONCE
YELLOW VENUE
January 10th, 2026, 2:00 PM
January 11th, 2026, 8:10 PM
The Rooms We Carry by Quantum Leap Productions
Since this is a dance-focused piece, it’s probably the one I’m least qualified to say anything, with about zero formal or informal experience in that domain. Overall, though, I found this piece to be a fascinating 50 minutes of theatre nonetheless.
For one thing, since I didn’t get a chance to look at the show’s description prior to finding myself in the audience—I never would have guessed that the majority of the movement was improvised, a fact which speaks to the remarkable ability and versatility of the piece’s three performers.
Two of them, Michelina Moen and Cristina Ramos, make stunning use of their limber frames in lengthy dance based sequences that encompass a variety of movement styles. A third, Kylee Taylor, is given less to do movement-wise but seems to be at the emotional core of the piece, at one point visibly breaking down as the other dancers impressionistically move to comfort her in one of the most evocative moments.
The show seemed to be trying to imply a storyline through moments like these and through the strategic use of props, music, and occasional projections—but what I actually got from it was more of a vague narrative vibe. Visually, though, there are constantly cool things happening—so if this sort of show sounds like your vibe, you should totally check it out!
TICKETS AND INFO FOR THE ROOMS WE CARRY:
BLUE VENUE
50 MINUTES
January 9th, 8:10 PM
January 11th, 4:15 PM