An incomplete guide to what's gay at Fringe

An incomplete guide to what's gay at Fringe

Early on in the Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival, the gay factor started to become a topic of discussion. Was Fringe too gay? Why do people always want to see the gay stuff?

It's a fair question since a majority of the runaway hits at Fringe have had some homo element to them. It stands to reason: while Orlando does peek out of its homogenized shell here and there (and more and more, thankfully), for two decades this festival has provided our citizens with a once-a-year opportunity to let their Freak Flag fly. Who better to show them how that flag dance is done than the LGBT community?

This look into â┚¬Å”what's gay at Fringeâ┚¬Â will inevitably be left wanting; it's a near impossible task to report everything that's gay in this year's Fringe. You'll see the work of people from our community all over Fringeâ┚¬â€ like Brendan O'Connor's prop work in Miss Sammy Bakes a Cake or Michael Horn musical directing PANDEMONIUM for Greater Orlando Actors Theatreâ┚¬â€and the omnipresent Lady Gaga will be making an appearance at Fringe (with Gov. Scott, no less), with someone's hand up her ass in an adult puppet show, Punch & Judy.

Maybe it would be best to think of what follows as the gayest of this year's Fringe; then again, we just can't be certain.

the local offerings
[title of show]
This fun nugget tells the phenomenal (by theatre geek standards, at least) story of a foursome of actors taking a play from inception to Broadway. The hook of the original production was that the actors on stage were telling their own story up to the moment, so you'll have to look past the fact that you'll be seeing actors playing those actors, but with a cast this solidâ┚¬â€not to mention a score of some of the most fun tunes to come out of Broadway in a while, penned by two 'mosâ┚¬â€ this should be easy to do. On top of that, you'll be in the proven hands of Kenny Howard and Micheal Wanzie, the co-directing team.

Die! Mommie! Die! / Thom Pain (based on nothing)
A couple of other offerings fall into the same previously existing script category. Die! Mommie! Die!, by queer theatre royalty Charles Busch, will be staged by Hampton Arts Management in collaboration with The University of Tampa. Self-proclaimed â┚¬Å”oldest living Fringe vetâ┚¬Â David Lee will star in Thom Pain (based on nothing), a one-man show by Will Eno which originated in London. â┚¬Å”Astonishing in its impactâ┚¬Â¦Ã¢â”šÂ¬Ã‚ is what The New York Times said about this play that finds an ordinary man sifting through the wreckage of his life, with extraordinary results.

Suckers / Big Queer Hoottenanny
Tod Kimbro may not technically qualify these days for the child part of the wunderkind label he earned in 1998 with his play Suckers, but the â┚¬Å”wunderâ┚¬Â part is true now more than ever. Kimbro brings Suckers back to Fringe this year, as a musical. Plus, he has teamed with the vivacious Blue in Big Queer Hoottenanny; the show of comedy and music presents Blue in a different light than Fringe audiences are used toâ┚¬â€as a singer.

Winifredâ┚¬Â¦That Bitch!
Fringe organizers ruffled a few feathers this year when they allowed Dewey Chaffee to apply for Fringe without announcing the title to his show, contrary to Fringe policy. (Naturally any complaining was done over pitchers of beer at Paradise as opposed to any formal complaint.) The reason for secrecy became clear in March when Dewey announced this year he would be playing Winifred, the heretofore thought deceased wife of his infamous character Wayburn Sassy. You'll have to catch Winifredâ┚¬Â¦That Bitch! to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Sassy and find out how she came to be not so dead after all.

Miss Sammy Bakes a Cake
Unsurprising for Fringe, Chaffee won't be the only man in a dress. Miss Sammy (Sam Singhaus) returns to Fringe with Miss Sammy Bakes a Cake. Having tried most every form of entertainment, including Broadway, Miss Sammy stumbles upon something she hasn't done: the cooking-variety-talk show format. Conceived by Margaret Nolan (Lilly and Lila's Lovely Lesbian Hour) the show is written by John Ryan (My Pal Bette), who also appears, with additional material by Singhaus. A bevy of special guests will include Mark Baratelli, Carol Lee, and Rob Ward's Pepe.

Squatters
When Jeremy Seghers does Fringe, you can bet it will be a little different. One year he teamed with the talented and demure Heather Henson to tell a fable about mountain top removal using puppets, another year he presented a performance art piece in which nothing happenedâ┚¬â€literallyâ┚¬â€which, in some cases, pissed off audience members. To this year's fest, Seghers brings Squatters, a 30 minute improvised sitcom which, among many other things, features out actor Landon Price playing a gay actor who plays a straight character.

Heaven Help Us!
In the past, Jeff Jones has publicly made fun of writers who pen sequels, so it is ironic that he is returning to Fringe with the thirdâ┚¬â€and we're promised the finalâ┚¬â€installment in his popular Hell series, Heaven Help Us! The comedy reteams Doug Ba'aser, Elizabeth Murff, Kevin Bee, and Jones himself as Satan; added to the cast are Josh Paul and Fringe favorite Janine Klein, as Adam and Eve respectively. God (Murff), as the premise goes, is throwing a party upstairs, with Moses as her stressed out event planner (excellent choice, considering tongues are still wagging about his parting of the Red Sea), and Satan is on the guest list, returning for the first time since being cast out of heaven.

out of town selections
The Big Smoke / I love You (We’re F*#ked)
If you're short on time, a good rule of thumb is to take in out-of-town shows. Jeremy Banks will be making his way from Vancouver Island, Canada to perform in The Big Smoke, a solo piece written by Ron Fromstein and winner of the Canadian National Playwriting Competition in 2006. The monologue tells the tale of Tommy, who moves to Toronto from the small town of Wawa for what becomes a life-changing experience. You see, Tommy's small town outlook on life includes his own sexuality, which he discovers my waking up next to menâ┚¬Â¦repeatedly. Banks had a surprise hit on his hands at the 2010 Victoria Fringe Festival where his production attracted sold-out houses.

â┚¬Å”Thornton is not only charming and sexy, he is an unaffected, vibrant performer,â┚¬Â said Theatre Is Easy of Off Off Broadway production of I Love You (We're F*#ked). Hailing from Nashville, Kevin J. Thornton's solo show has been called a combination of concert and cabaret, combining original songs and stories from his own life to critical acclaim.

Robby Pigott Tries Something New at Fringe
Local favorite T. Robby Pigott offers a similar production called Robby Pigott Tries Something New at Fringe, a show he previously performed at Winter Park Playhouse (simply titled Something New there) where he was surprised to receive a vehement complaint from a couple of elderly patrons who considered the show offensive.

â┚¬Å”It's me telling stories from my life, meeting Jim, coming out to my parents,â┚¬Â Pigott explains, exasperated by the reaction. â┚¬Å”It's not like I'm talking about sex or anything! The songs fit in nicely with my stories and I'm really proud of my first cabaret.â┚¬Â

It's Just Not That Gay
Christopher Leavy puts one in mind of the man who mysteriously appears during Glee to play the piano, providing accompaniment while someone else shines as in last year's Janine Klein: Gay Bar Star. So it's great to hear that he is taking center stage with It's Just Not That Gay, a humorous, look through songs and stories, at the performer trying to find his way in the gay world. (Leavy will also be pulling double duty, tickling the ivory for Pigott.)

Disenchanted: Bitches of the Kingdom
â┚¬Å”I can't wait to see this show, though I have no idea how they'll work full frontal male nudity in to a show about Disney princesses,â┚¬Â kids Jeff Jones about Disenchanted: Bitches of the Kingdom, easily the most anticipated show of this year's Fringe. The show features the storybook princesses we all know and love complaining about being exploited by the Mouse. Jones' jibe might require a bit of back story: in 2000, The Oops Guys famously fought against censorship when the Orlando Police Department tried to stop their production of The Naked Guy due to â┚¬Å”public nudity.â┚¬Â After a media frenzy, the final verdict came down to Mayor Glenda Hood who determined that no laws were broken, nudity in theatre is a protected art form. The show went on, the clothes went off, and lucky patrons got to see a really hot guy nude in the final scene of a hilarious show.

Bitches marks the return of Fringe favorites Dennis Giacino and Fiely Matias, The Oops Guys, who last appeared in 2005. After that appearance they toured their show Lougnezilla around the United States, Canada, Sydney, Prague, and Singapore, before settling down in New York City in 2007.

â┚¬Å”We've always felt that Orlando was the perfect place to open Bitches. The princess culture here (which the show lampoons) is so ingrained in the Orlando region,â┚¬Â said the duo, who are coincidentally celebrating their 20th year at The Oops Guys. â┚¬Å”We're so excited to be back homeâ┚¬â€the Orlando Fringe has always been a fave of ours!â┚¬Â

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