The Fourth Annual Fort Myers Fringe Festival takes place May 28-31. In the past, the shows included in the festival were chosen by lottery. This year, local Fringe founder Bill Taylor picked the shows himself.
“All these shows I have seen,” said Taylor. “I can personally guarantee these are fabulous shows.”
One such show is “Beers About Songs.”
“Think of that as an Alice's Restaurant-style show where he's gonna sing, talk, tell stories, and there's original music in the show,” Taylor noted. “It's funny. It's touching.”
Another is “Josephine, a Dream Cabaret,” an international touring show.
“She has torn the show up everywhere she goes,” Taylor reported. “Rave reviews. It's being performed as a closing show of the festival at the Arcade Theatre downtown. One performance only.”
There are also two youth fringe shows.
“The first one is ‘Why Won't Zee Quack?’ written by Wayne Keller, local playwright, the story of an autistic duck who doesn't communicate very well but ends up saving the day with his family and everything. And then after that, ‘Elektra,’ a modern retelling of that story. Both of those shows are being presented by Cypress Lake Center for the Arts students. Carmen Crussard, their director there, is in charge of those shows.”
Continue reading for days, times and a synopsis of each show.
MORE INFORMATION:
This year’s Fringe Festival opens Thursday, May 28 in the Off Broadway Palm with a 5:30 p.m. reception and teaser, in which each act has three minutes to preview and convince you to buy a ticket to their show. The teaser is followed by a 7:15 p.m. performance of “Fire in the Meth Lab,” by Jon Bennett.
There are two performances on Friday, May 29. “Anatomica: A Comedy About Meat, Bones & The Skin You’re In” is at 7 p.m., followed at 8:30 p.m. by “Beers About Songs” by Ryan Adam Wells.
Saturday, May 30, begins with the two youth shows. Cypress Lake High School students perform “Why Won’t Zee Quack?” in the Off Broadway Palm at 10 a.m. and again at 11:30 a.m., then returns at 1 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. for “Elektra, A Modern Retelling.”
Then at 6 p.m., it’s “Fire in the Meth Lab” by Jon Bennett, followed by “Beers About Songs” at 7:30 p.m., “Anatomica: A Comedy About Meat, Bones and The Skin You’re In” at 9 p.m. and “A Young Man Dressed as a Gorilla Dressed as an Old Man Sits Rocking in a Rocking Chair for 56 Minutes and Then Leaves” at 10:15 p.m.
The festival closes on Sunday, May 31 with:
- “Beers About Songs” at 2 p.m.;
- “Fire in the Meth Lab” at 3:30 p.m.;
- “Anatomica” at 5 p.m.; and
- A special 6:30 p.m. closing performance of “Josephine: A Burlesque Cabaret Dream” in the Arcade Theatre at Florida Rep.
“I've seen these shows,” Taylor reemphasized. “I've picked them because I think they're incredible shows for Southwest Florida audiences. If you've been before, you kind of know what to expect. If you haven’t been to Fringe before, you’re in for a real treat.”
On top of that, they’re super affordable and you can see multiple shows in one sitting.
“Audiences have raved about these shows and you can see them for less than 20 bucks each. I can't make these shows more affordable for Southwest Florida audiences. These shows are incredible. They played at the Edinburgh Festival, the Adelaide Festival, all over Canada. Each is $20 or less. The children’s and teen Fringe shows are just $5 each. Can't do any better than that.”
More about ‘Beers About Songs’
“Beers About Songs” is a heartfelt and hilarious musical storytelling show about life, love, and loss. Funny, poignant, and surprising, the true stories told here follow a journey that resonates with all kinds of people from all walks of life. Mixing original songs with laugh-out-loud anecdotes, Wells invites audiences to raise a glass and sing along. Performances are Friday, May 29 at 8:30 p.m.; Saturday, May 30 at 7:30 p.m.; and Sunday, May 31 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $15.
‘Anatomica, A Comedy About Meat, Bones & The Skin You’re In'
International comedian and “Weird-Lil’-Gremlin,” Amica Hunter, gets under your skin and crushes your funny bone in this hilarious, captivating and sometimes-unsettling comedy about skeletons and the horrors of living in a body. “Anatomica” is an intimate, unpredictable exploration of pain, zoology, and collective imagination.
“This is one of the more Fringe-y shows in our festival,” said Taylor. “The story basically comes from her having to deal with body pain her entire life. And she posed the question to herself, what actually is the best type of skeleton that we could have? Is it the one that we currently have, with our bones and everything like that? Or would we be better suited if we had a shell like a crab or if we were just a blob?”
With candor and a comfortably casual tone, Amica reviews the three skeletal systems found in earthly organisms and discusses the limitations of each one in a gloriously deranged Ted Talk by a wannabe scientist clown-school graduate.
“So she explores all these different scenarios in just outrageous and fun ways,” Taylor added. “It's just a show you're gonna walk away going, ‘what the heck did I just see?’ But I laugh the entire way.”
Part stand-up, part storytelling, and part clown, “Anatomica” is an investigation of the inadequacies of different animal body models, and a celebration of the absurdity of being trapped in a body that is limited by pain, fatigue, and ultimately decay. But, you know, make it fun! Or, as The Edmonton Journal put it, “Amica Hunter’s stand-up set disguised as a serious science lesson is like the mutant love child of Laurie Anderson and David Attenborough.”
About ‘Fire in the Meth Lab’
“Fire in the Meth Lab” is an outrageous true story from acclaimed Australian storyteller Jon Bennett. Through letters to his brother in prison, Bennett recounts a wild ride of bad decisions, jail time, and one spectacularly disastrous meth lab explosion. It's funny, shocking, and surprisingly heartfelt.
“I saw this show up in Orlando,” Taylor noted. “This guy is just an incredible, engaging storyteller, and he tells this incredible story of his brother, who was a drug addict and ended up forming a meth lab and burning it to the ground. Another funny, touching, well-rounded show."
Performances are Thursday, May 28 at 7:15 p.m.; Saturday, May 30 at 6 p.m.; and Sunday, May 31 at 3:30 p.m.
‘A Young Man Dressed As a Gorilla Dressed as an Old Man Sits Rocking in a Rocking Chair for 56 Minutes and Then Leaves’
“This one is even more of a Fringe show than Anatomica,” Taylor said. “Come early as it is expected to sell out. It's one performance only, 10 o'clock on Saturday night. He's gonna come out in a gorilla outfit, and then the next 56 minutes we're gonna see how the audience reacts and what happens. It’s going to be an incredible show to watch just as an experiment in theater.”
“Gorilla” debuted 17 years ago at Edinburgh Fringe. It has gone on to become a cult comedy.
The gorilla is obviously crucial to the event but it is the audience which drives the show, with no one knowing what the moment will morph into next. At some shows, each of the gorilla’s minimal moves – rocking, scratching, tapping his pipe on the arm of his rocking chair – is met with thunderous applause, even standing ovations. At other shows, audience members dress him in articles of their own clothing or heckle him from their seats.
In other words, it’s a study in group dynamics where anything can happen and frequently does.
Josephine, A Dream Cabaret
Josephine Baker broke every barrier — race, gender, sexuality, nationality. She danced in a banana skirt that made Paris lose its mind. She spied for the French Resistance with music scores full of secrets. She adopted 12 children from around the world. She marched with Dr. King. And she did all of this a century before the world was ready.
This internationally award-winning one-woman production blends cabaret, biography, dance, and burlesque into a story that doesn't fit neatly into any box. Creator and performer Tymisha Harris doesn't just play Josephine Baker, she inhabits her, dragging the audience through the joy, heartbreak, and fire of one of the most extraordinary lives of the 20th century.
Critics agree...
- "Tymisha Harris is a tour de force. When she belted out ‘The Times They Are A-Changin', I cried." CBC — Staff Pick
- "From ballgown to banana belt, a triumph." Broadway Baby
- "It's the perfect piece of theatre for the time we are currently in." Plays To See NYC
- "A triumphant homage to a life worth remembering." CBC
She found freedom in Paris, waged a secret war, and came home to fight for civil rights. Her story isn't just history. It's a mirror.
Recommended for adults 18+. Contains mature themes, partial nudity, and strong language. This is the kind of bold, unapologetic theatre you come to Theatre Conspiracy to see.
One night only: Sunday, May 31 at 6:30 p.m. in Florida Rep's Historic Arcade Theatre. Tickets are just $20.
A word about Fringe Festivals
Since its origins in 1947 in Edinburgh, Fringe Festivals have become a prominent showcase for diverse and innovative performances, reflecting a spirit of artistic rebellion and inclusivity. They’re also incubators for groundbreaking theater. For example, “Six: The Musical,” “The Drowsy Chaperone” and “5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche” all got their start in Fringe – as did Emma Thompson (the only person to ever win an Oscar for both writing and acting), Hugh Laurie, Robin Williams, Mike Myers, Rachel Weisz and Trevor Noah.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.
