Mike Maples plays the bar owner in Big Swingin' Dick's Topless Bar presents the Naked Drag Queen Farting.

A comedy that isn’t quite a musical.

Discounts for anyone in drag.

"I'm not sure we can print that." Matt Palm, Orlando Sentinel

5/20 FRI 9:25PM
5/22 SUN 12:00PM
5/24 TUE 6:45PM
5/28 SAT 8:25PM

Elizabeth Maupin has been reviewing arts and culture in Orlando since 1983, and now she is doing it just for fun!

"Betsy" always has great reviews during Fringe, and her new independent site, Elizabeth Maupin on Theater, is better than ever.

Here is her 2011 Fringe home page, About the Fringe. She has also posted reviews of 5 shows as of the first day!

• Fringe review: ‘archy and mehitabel’

Here is a brief conversation with Tim Evanecki of Starving Artist Studios.

Tim tells me they will be setting up shop in a 2-story building across the street that was once an Animal Hospital. Be on the lookout for this new Orlando Arts Scene citizen soon!

We caught Fringe Veteran John DiDonna on the Green Lawn of Fabulousness taping flyers to the tables... while they were still being set up!

A bit about his show...
GRAND GUIGNOL PUPPET THEATRE - Punch and Judy Presents at the FRINGE

What do Medussa, Charlie Sheen, and Lady Gaga have in common?
They’ll all have someone’s hand up their ass in this OUTRAGEOUSLY ADULT puppet show!

“Ladies and gentlemen we heartily welcome you,
To the 20th annual Fringe Orlando!
Where Punch and Judy again grace the stage
To pleasure, disgust, and to grossly outrage.”

THE GRAND GUIGNOL PUPPET THEATRE
PUNCH AND JUDY PRESENTS!
In a Punch and Judy Tragic-Comedy-Histoire!

Many people are familiar with Improv - last year's Fringe Festival featured a long-form improvised show called "Is This Seat Taken?" by the iconic David Charles and Jay Hopkins. SAK has been doing a late-night show called "The Early Show" long after their regular programming on certain weekends for a number of years now. The Orlando Improv Festival is now trying to help long form become more visible with this event.

Matt Palm form the Orlando Sentinel has posted a blog recap of the Fringe preview, which was staged as a Pep Rally this year to fit with the 20-year high school reunion theme.

Orlando Fringe Festival: Pep Rally Preview gives us a peek

There was even extra applause for an act that finished right on time as the cheerleaders joined them.

There’s always much merriment at the annual preview, which raises funds for the Fringe Festival as well as anticipation. Co-host Beth Marshall, the Fringe producing artistic director, started out proudly saying, “I am vertical this year,”

The festival tickets are now on sale, and they were very proud to announce that the preview was successful for them, raising a surplus of $3000 over their goal.

I have been looking for video shot during the event, but Google is returning some weird results - the official Orlando Fringe website doesn't even show up in most search results. I ended up locating several videos on YouTube. If you are reading this and you have a YouTube video that is not on this list, I will be happy to add it. My YT username is "liberatr". I will be adding new video to this playlist throughout the season.

This year's festival is going to be exciting. More experimentation, lots of returning artists, lots of past Patron's Pick artists, and lots of visiting and International artists, who are the real icing on the cake. I love that local artists have such a great outlet for their work, but the fact that this festival brings in so much original material from outside of our state and country is one of the real selling points for me.

ArtsFest is a celebration of Central Florida arts and culture that takes place for 10 days over four counties. Presented by Bank of America, ArtsFest includes hundreds of FREE arts and culture events held in various locations throughout Lake, Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties. ArtsFest provides you with a taste of everything the arts community has to offer in your own backyard!

http://www.artsfestfl.com/

This will be the 20th year of Orlando Fringe, so apparently the theme this year is a 20 year reunion. Fringe is hoping to have people come in past Fringe t-shirts to the Shakes to get a massive group photo. They did something similar a few years ago for the "protest" theme, and the shots came out great.

From Beth Marshall:

We will be taking a long shot group photo in front of Orlando Shakespeare Theatre (812 East Rollins St.) on Mon. Feb. 7th at 4:30pm.
The look of this shot will be that of a group class photo in a highschool yearbook.
We want YOU to be a part of this event!

Here's how you can help...
Bring yourself, your friends, kids, spouse, partner, pets etc... and pose for this shot.
Come dressed in either past Fringe T-shirts, past show t-shirts OR a highschool archtype such as (Goth, punk, geek, jock, teacher, prep, etc...)