At Orlando Fringe’s FestN4, six winners make a comeback

Orlando Fringe’s Winter Mini-Fest returns with a new name — FestN4 — Jan. 11-14 at Fringe ArtSpace in downtown Orlando. As with the organization’s signature Fringe Festival each May, FestN4 features a lineup of short comedies, dramas, musicals and other shows. Unlike May’s Fringe, this one is juried — meaning the shows have been hand-selected.

Festivalgoers can check out a preview show at 7:30 Jan. 10 at ArtSpace, 54 W. Church St., in which participating performers have three minutes to convince the audience their show is worth seeing.

On the festival schedule, however, are six shows I already know are worth seeing; they have received Critics’ Choice Awards from Orlando Weekly critic Seth Kubersky and myself at previous Fringe Festivals. Here’s a refresher on these six and what I’ve said about them in the past.

‘The City Beautiful: An Original Live Band Burlesque Musical’: The performers romp through the weirder and wilder aspects of Orlando history in this show, which won an award for best original score — and they also take their clothes off.

The facts presented are true but delivered in toe-tappingly catchy songs by Marisa Quijano-Sirois, better known in the burlesque community as Risa Risque, Paul C. Tugwell and Justin J. Scarlat. It’s no small achievement that the show also acknowledges Orlando’s darker days — the July Perry lynching, Ocoee massacre, Trayvon Martin’s death and the Pulse mass shooting — with respect and yet still manages to get back to its overall good-time vibe.

Gabriel Quijano is engaging as a geeky historian who has a dream of letting loose. The costumes are fun, especially in a number about Lake Eola’s swans. I suppose the Blacklist Babes Cabaret troupe, which presents the show, feels obligated to bare their breasts as that’s par for the course in burlesque, but the nudity feels like an afterthought in this show that succeeds on laughter, not lasciviousness.

‘The Family Crow: A Murder Mystery’: The narrator of this show, a winner for best script, warns us that the ensuing tale is “not for the faint of heart.” In fact, the performance is for anyone who appreciates a creative vision, superb execution, a dollop of weirdness — and, of course, eye-rolling puns.

Performer Adam Francis Proulx’s puppet — a remarkable monocle-wearing crow — is on the scene to investigate a murder. The human Proulx plays members of the dead man’s family as the case progresses.

It’s a daffy mixture of Agatha Christie meets “Airplane,” with the silliness delivered at a rapid clip and with a knowing twinkle by Proulx.

A murder mystery, even one played for laughs, depends on atmosphere — and “The Family Crow” delivers, with a parade of sound cues (original music is by Alexander Baerg), inspired lighting from a semicircle of desk lamps and a fine, feathery costume by Jessica Smith.

Byron Laviolette’s direction, with Proulx’s laugh-stocked script, deftly balances the mystery with the comedy. And in the finest British mystery tradition, the “Sherlock Crowlmes” detective explains it all at the end.

It’s self-deprecating, self-aware and some seriously funny high-flying fun.

‘Grabbing the Hammer Lane: A Trucker Narrative’: A father, a son and a great divide born of hurt is at the heart of this poignant story, winner of the best solo drama award. Playwright David M. Proctor plays both roles, telling essentially two views of the same story: Long-distance trucker Matt is speaking with a therapist after a falling out with his father. (The titular “Hammer Lane” is a trucking reference, but you don’t need to know anything about the industry to be pulled into the show.)

It’s a fascinating portrait of family dynamics, the hurt caused by words and the disappointment caused by unfulfilled expectations. As directed by Proctor and Marlon Burnley, though, each emotional beat plays with a naturalness in the acting that grounds this tale of two men in need of redemption in urgent reality.

As Matt advises us on living in just one of the play’s affecting moments: “Do it today. Don’t put it off.”

‘My Grandmother’s Eyepatch’: My colleague Dewayne Bevil wrote the original Orlando Sentinel review of this very funny, offbeat comedy, and I agree with his every word — even the made-up ones.

“Hmmm, what’s a word that means funny and yet awkward? In the spirit of Fringe, I’ll stick to one that’s made up: Fawkward,” Bevil wrote. “That describes Julia VanderVeen, the sole actor in ‘My Grandmother’s Eyepatch.’ She’s so very fawkward in the best way.”

The show, which is set at a memorial service for VanderVeen’s grandmother — apparently a very eclectic woman known as a humanitarian, poet, horse lover and bishop’s wife — won the Critics’ Choice Award for best solo comedy.

During the performance, audience members are mourners, and VanderVeen (an actress playing an actress) stammers her way into turning the spotlight onto her, whether doing a “Macbeth” scene or questionable card tricks.

“Her physical comedy is strong, downright Carol Burnett-esque at times,” Bevil noted. “Some bits could be tightened, but maybe that would throw off her fawkward timing.”

‘Shifted’: Nic Stelter and Annie Lovelock’s goofy sci-fi comedy, also a best-script winner, is spewing terms like “microfluctuations” and “subatomic stream” almost from its opening moments, so you know it’s going to get to the multiverse and rifts in the space-time continuum before long (Spoiler: It does.)

But director Kassidy Pierce keeps the action moving along fast enough that you’re laughing too often to worry about any of it making sense. The setup: A group of college friends keeps zapping each other into parallel universes as they try to keep the power of time and space out of the government’s hands.

But really, it’s all an excuse for some well-placed lines and a bunch of silly fun. All the actors are on board, and Emmitt Williams stands out in particular as the officious resident adviser.

Orlando Fringe’s Winter Mini-Fest reveals new name, ’24 shows

‘The Vast of Darkness’: “Lots of bad things can happen in space.” So says one of the two astronauts orbiting on the dark side of an unknown planet in “The Vast of Darkness,” a best-drama winner. Playwright Bethany Dickens Assaf has set up a lot of tension from the start: The astronauts are alone in individual pods, they are from separate hostile nations on Earth, and (wait for it) they might not be alone.

That initial tension ramps up throughout the drama, thanks in part to director Joe Llorens and his fine cast, Charis Watler and Manuel Solis-Bauza, who all have the sense not to let things get too over-the-top too fast. Instead, there’s a delicious slow burn of nerves and an ending that cleverly lets you interpret what you’ve just seen. When Watler’s character asks, “Is anyone there? Is anyone out there?” you’ll feel a shiver down your spine.

FestN4

• Preview: 7:30 p.m. Jan. 10, $15

• When: Jan. 11-14

• Where: Fringe ArtSpace, 54 W. Church St. in Orlando

• Cost: A $3 button is required to see any ticketed show; individual show tickets are $15 each.

• Info: See the whole schedule of the more than 20 shows and buy tickets at orlandofringe.org/festn4.

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