Out Fest will be a joint undertaking this year between the LGBTQ+ Center Orlando and Orlando Fringe. Among the performers will be playwright, performer and radio personality Michael Wanzie, who’ll debut a new show, Deloris Scrud Movin’ On Up. Also appearing in their own shows will be Mitzi Morris, a drag diva otherwise known as writer and performer Kevin Kriegel; and monologist Erika MacDonald, who’ll reprise Tea Time, a past hit from the Fringe. | Courtesy Orlando Fringe
It has become a tradition locally that there’ll be a theater festival that deals expressly with gay identities and concerns. The only questions are: What is it going to be? And who is going to present it?
In 2024, the “what” was Orlando Out Fest and the “who” was Orlando Fringe. Last year, the LGBT+ Center Orlando (commonly known as The Center) stepped up to produce
Q Fest Orlando.
In 2026, Out Fest is back—but this time it will be a joint undertaking: The Center will curate the artistic side, while The Fringe will act as producer, handling ticket sales and other logistical issues. Dates will be Thursday, September 10, through Sunday, September 13.
That pooling of resources has translated into a wider geographic footprint. Performances will be held not only at The Center in Mills 50 (which was the sole location last year), but also at Renaissance Theatre Company and the Savoy, both in Ivanhoe Village. There may also be after-hours events at The Fringe’s new offices at 634 Virginia Drive.
In keeping with the expanded roster of venues, the show schedule amounts to a veritable who’s who of established and emerging names in the LGBTQ+ performance community.
For example, Michael Wanzie—the playwright, performer and erstwhile radio personality who’s been a fixture of the city’s cultural landscape for decades—will debut a new show: Deloris Scrud Movin’ On Up (My Meteoric Rise to Fame and Fortune Following the Publication of the Scott Maxwell Interview in the Orlando Sentinel).
There’ll also be appearances by such local stalwarts as Bruce Ryan Costella, a postmodernist writer and actor, and Mitzi Morris, a drag diva otherwise known as writer and performer Kevin Kriegel.
Also look for a reprise of Janine Klein: Gay Bar Star, a collaboration with playwright John Ryan that was a hit at the 2010 Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival. And in case you missed them at this year’s Fringe, you can take in encores of local puppeteer Alexander Hehr’s Wild & Gay Animal Kinkdom and out-of-town monologist Erika MacDonald’s Tea TIME.
Stand-up comic Jeff Klein’s Beer with a Queer: Live! will come to Out Fest directly from a prestigious booking at Edinburgh Fringe, while comedic actor and singer Kai Carter’s Hey Myster, Letters to the Music That Healed Me is still generating buzz after a sold-out debut last year at Tin Roof on International Drive.
In addition to numerous live performances, film will be a key element of this Out Fest. Audiences will get to see Two Eyes, the 2020 indie drama that stars Lily Gladstone in a triptych of stories described by USA Today as “This Is Us meets Brokeback Mountain.”
Plus, Central Florida LGBTQ+ publication Watermark will present a new installment of its Movies Out Loud—a kind of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in which hosts cast real-time shade at cinematic stinkers.
Out Fest will take 40 percent of the proceeds from each performance (all tickets are $18) and give the remaining 60 percent to the artist. “Visibility is important,” says George Wallace, executive director of The Center. “That’s what I love about this festival. It’s the community’s voices, right?”
Tempestt Halstead, artistic director of The Fringe, concurs: “There are so many stories that we should lean into and elevate. We’re seeing that art changes people. And it’s beautiful.”
For more information and a detailed schedule of events, call or visit the website.
