The venerable Orlando International Fringe Festival has a lot going on behind the curtain – a major change in leadership, a four-day festival this weekend, a 35th anniversary later this year, and the upcoming closure of its downtown Fringe ArtSpace location.
But the ArtSpace facility is going out with a bang – the FESTN4 [as in “Fest in Four Days”], previously called the Winter Mini-Fest. The downtown space will host one more four-day theater, fine art, and music festival with twenty shows available from curated local, national, and international acts.
Artistic Director Tempestt Halstead is one of the new triumvirate of Fringe leaders, along with Genevieve Bernard as the Director of Experience and Melissa Fritzinger as Managing Director.
“The three of us are very passionate about this organization,” said Halstead. “We've all worked here collectively, I think, like 40 years or something like that. So that helps too, having that long-term knowledge of the organization.”
The crown jewel of the operation is the annual Orlando International Fringe Festival, a free-spirited celebration of the performing arts that takes over Loch Haven Park two weeks each May. At 35, it’s the oldest continuously running Fringe Festival. Others are held around the world and still adding new locations.
One of the trio’s first joint decisions was a major one – the closure of Fringe ArtSpace, the organization’s downtown adjunct location that originally opened two years ago as a year-round arts incubator for young and upcoming artists.
There were a series of costly struggles in that two years, including a major flood from a faulty air conditioner that caused a cascade of unexpected expenses. Audiences were smaller than projected and cited parking issues and safety concerns, which are not new to the Church Street area. And like many other arts organizations in Florida, the Fringe had to contend with a loss of funding in the state budget.
Also, Halstead said, adding year-round programming to the Fringe’s festival production schedule felt like the organization had strayed from its original focus.
“We started as this [May] festival. We need to really lean into that festival. It does such a service for our community,” she said, adding that the festival is a local cultural touchstone that regularly brings in more than $1 million to the Orlando. “We can't juggle all of these things and be good at all of them. So we really had tough conversations, and we unfortunately had to make the decision to move out of this space.”
The Fringe also produces two smaller festivals throughout the year, September’s Orlando OutFest, featuring LGBTQ artists, and the FESTN4.
The landmark 35th annual Orlando Fringe International Festival is next on the organization’s agenda.
