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Orlando Fringe Festival reviews: Trans journeys, women and Disney World

By Matthew J. Palm, Orlando Sentinel The Tribune Content Agency

Updated May 18, 2026 12:13 PM

Here are Orlando Fringe Festival reviews of “Crosswalks: A Tribute to Truth, Trans Rights and Social Justice,” “John Jack Josie - Juice,” “The Review by Martin Dockery,” The Single Rider Songbook” and “The Vagina Monologues.”

‘The Review’

Is there anything as annoying as the annual performance review? You sit there with a frozen smile on your face as someone considered your “superior” passes judgment on your work. But there’s nothing frozen about “The Review by Martin Dockery” (Peach, 60 minutes), in which director Vanessa Quesnelle generates prickly heat in a cat-and-mouse game between its two finely drawn characters.

Playwright Dockery stars opposite Andrew Broaddus in the painful ordeal, which comes with a twist: Broaddus’ character, the young upstart giving the review, has texted an inappropriate photo of himself to the wife of Dockery’s character, the older man who feels he’s being pushed out.

The resulting power struggle is like watching two caged coyotes circle each other - wily, aggressive, desperate to defend what’s theirs. This plays out to the cadence of the back-and-forth patter, use of repetition and winding side paths that characterize Dockery’s award-winning work. But under the comedy is delightfully sly commentary on the fears of aging, toxic masculinity and the increasing - and frightening - power of AI to “review” us all.

Whose side you’re on in this standoff might depend on your generation. But we’re all against the robots, right? To sum up in the parlance of today’s reviewing standards: Five stars.

‘The Single Rider Songbook’

The funniest Disney-centric show since the heyday of the legendary “Animatronicans,” “The Single Rider Songbook” (Yellow, 60 minutes) serves up music and magic with pixie-dusted winks. This song cycle from Emilie Jean Scheetz features a variety of characters found at Walt Disney World - Red from “Pirates of the Caribbean,” the Haunted Mansion’s Ghost Host and others - singing about their world.

Scheetz’s songs are tuneful, with clever lyrics that reference the Most Magical Place on Earth with clear purpose. The intelligence shines through in multiple ways: The Tower of Terror Starlet’s tune sounds like it’s from the era of her theme park backstory.

Scheetz and Aaron Otten direct a uniformly appealing cast that is in on the joke; Cassie Klinga revels in the dad jokes of the Jungle Cruise, while Aidan Wamsley is funny and poignant as Dr. Seeker from the (Shh! Don’t tell him!) now-defunct Dinosaur attraction. He also carries the cutest stuffed dino this size of Fringezilla.

The ending feels too abrupt, and some of the transitions from song to song could be beefed up, but Mouseketeers are going to love this.

‘The Vagina Monologues’

Eve Ensler’s groundbreaking 1990s work, based on interviews with women about their relationships with their sex organs, comes to the Fringe with a staged reading that crackles with empowerment. The who’s who lineup of prominent Orlando actors in this “Vagina Monologues” (Ten10 Brewing, 60 minutes) means the essays aren’t just read, they are acted, with emotion, humor and power.

Jaimz Dillman, Nikki Darden Creston and Annette Lemon serve as madams of ceremony, with a rotating lineup of performers. Among those I was privileged to see: Jac LeDoux, cheekily comical; Blue Estrella and Terri Fae Erskine, heart-wrenching in a piece on sexual assault; Brenna Arden, who fiercely reclaims the c-word; Billie Jane, poignant on the trans experience; Sarah-lee Dobbs, touching in a story of childbirth; Lila Marie Hicks, funny and powerful as she proclaims “My vagina is angry”; and Katie Thayer, whose sequence of descriptive moans is a comic pleasure.

That’s not even everyone. But all are united in the power of this show that is a window into womanhood and about so much more than a single body part.

‘John Jack Josie - Juice’

In an emotionally raw performance, Josie Nixon shares her journey of self-acceptance in “John Jack Josie - Juice” (Scarlet, 55 minutes). The names in the title follow the performer’s evolution, from a boy in “cliche small-town America” to a disaffected young man in the city to finally transforming into Josie.

Juice is the clown persona that narrates and mediates among the various personas - “Josie hates John,” we are told. It’s a fascinating structure, and director Beth Marshall lets Nixon display vulnerability that almost reaches the breaking point. To me, the balance is slightly off; I wanted a little less John and Jack and a little more of Josie.

Nixon lets us see each of the personas sharing the same skin and has a warmth and empathy that demand a response; when Juice asks for a hug, you’ll want to stretch out your arms.

Orlando Fringe Festival reviews: Getting happy and moving on

‘Crosswalks’

On paper, “Crosswalks: A Tribute to Truth, Trans Rights and Social Justice," (Orange, 60 minutes) shouldn’t work: Interspersing a very serious story about mistreatment of trans Americans with glittery production numbers set to Chappell Roan songs sounds incongruous at best, whiplash-inducing at worst.

But onstage, it actually works very well. Jacob Eaddy’s story, about a trans nightclub owner arrested and “disappeared” as part of a government morality crackdown, is clearly told and actors Jason Laramee, Jaxon Powers, Nickie Menaldo and especially Zoe Smalls as the nightclub owner make strong impressions.

Madeline Daunt leads the dance-heavy musical numbers with a versatile singing voice that shines from a whisper to a belt. It’s all well-staged by co-directors Eaddy and Elisabeth Christie.

The scariest part: Once unthinkable, the plot’s eroding liberties and government overreach don’t seem far-fetched anymore.

mpalm@orlandosentinel.com