Whether you’re currently working, temporarily unemployed or blissfully retired, the phrase “office Christmas party” probably gives you an instant case of nervous tics.
Unless, that is, you’re familiar with the traditional year-end performing schedule at the Renaissance Theatre Company, where the squirmy discomfort of making enforced merry with one’s coworkers has been played for laughs since 2021 with The Office Holiday Party Musical Extravaganza Show.
Through the raucous comedy, audiences are transported to the headquarters of a fictitious company called Gripp & Pfister—say that slowly and you’ll know why the show is for adults only—where the annual seasonal soirée is about to kick into high gear.
Songs are sung, liquid cheer is imbibed, workplace relationships cross forbidden lines and the assembled white-collar types dole out enough psychodrama to Dunder anyone’s Mifflin.
And since this is interactive theater, ticketholders are endowed with alternate personas as employees and get to (or is it have to?) mingle with their professional peers pretty much from the moment they arrive at the office—er, venue.
The 2026 edition of this out-of-the-ordinary holiday perennial adds new songs and characters to the original template laid down by creator and writer Donald Rupe (who’s also the theater’s co-founder and artistic director). Returnees to the cast are veterans Blake Aburn, Michelle Coben, Kendall Leamy and Galvin Baez.
This go-’round is also a return to home base for the musical, which last year had to be presented in the former Fringe ArtSpace on West Church Street while the Ren was temporarily closed over building-code issues with the City of Orlando.
Renaissance Theatre Company is located at 415 East Princeton Street, Orlando. Ticket sales are online only, so for more information visit the website.
