Even before Gov. Ron DeSantis used Orlando Fringe to justify his elimination of state arts grants this year, the nonprofit was grappling with a series of challenges.
Just weeks after disappointing attendance numbers cast a cloud over May’s annual Fringe Festival, a water leak at Fringe ArtSpace on Church Street caused extensive damage and forced the postponement of the new OutFest, a celebration of queer theater, and the hasty relocation of the annual Latin American Performing Arts Festival.
The leak exacerbated concerns about the cost of ArtSpace to the 32-year-old organization — the nation’s oldest fringe festival — because the age and condition of the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) system foretell another looming expense. And the Fringe is facing these blows with reduced staff: In recent weeks, three top leaders — those overseeing production operations, marketing and communications, and fundraising development — have parted ways with the group.
“It’s a lot all at once for one organization,” said interim executive director Scott Galbraith, who is contracted to lead Orlando Fringe until after its May 2025 festival — the annual lineup of short plays, concerts, comedy, magic and dance shows that takes over Loch Haven Park. “This team is doing it with style and grace and finesse, but it’s hard.”
Galbraith was hired in February with a mandate from the board to create a strategic plan for the organization’s future. Reshaping the job structure of Orlando Fringe, the arduous and sometimes bumpy integration of ArtSpace into the group, and even the festival’s lowered attendance this year all played a part in the staff turnover, Galbraith said.
“They are all factors to some degree,” he said.
Operations director Melissa Fritzinger, who first became involved with Fringe as a stage manager in 2011, then joined the Fringe staff in 2020 and was promoted to the top production role in 2022, left at the end of June for another job. She will now be the sales and marketing manager for Minotaur Mazes, a traveling-exhibit company that brings education mazes to venues such as museums and zoos.
“This was an opportunity that presented itself that I found really intriguing so I took it,” said Fritzinger, who characterized her wide-ranging responsibilities as Fringe operations manager as “I just did what needed to be done to keep the festival going.”
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Emma Parker Webber, who joined Fringe in 2021 as development director, and Desiree Montes, who was hired in the hybrid role of artistic and marketing director in 2023, both confirmed they were no longer with the organization without elaborating.
Consultants will be employed in the areas of production and marketing while Galbraith looks at redefining the open positions, he said. A new development director likely will be hired more quickly.
Galbraith said Fringe ArtSpace, which opened in January 2023, had been particularly taxing on staff. Before acquiring ArtSpace, leased from the city of Orlando with a mission of mentoring up-and-coming artists while providing a full slate of theatrical programming, forced the organization to change its focus from one annual festival, with a few smaller events, to a year-round programmer and producer.
“It’s been a tough row to hoe at ArtSpace,” Galbraith said. “Not that people haven’t been doing a good job, but it is taking a lot of time and effort.”
Merging ArtSpace, which he calls “a mini performing-arts center,” with the festival operations is akin to looking at “two different but complementary businesses that need to be folded together, and that’s still in process. Change takes time.”
Fringe ArtSpace, at the 55 West development downtown, was inundated in June when a water line connected to the air conditioning sprung a leak after an OUC contractor had replaced a meter. Before the leak could be stopped, more than 1,300 gallons of water had “rained down in the lobby for a good, long amount of time,” Galbraith said. The venue’s main theater also was doused.
To check for water damage, two feet of drywall had to be cut from the lobby and the theater seating area, and the stage’s facing also had to be removed.
The good news: “We are dry,” Galbraith said. “But now we have to go through the process of making it pretty again.”
So far, more than $40,000 in bills have come in for water removal and drying, though Galbraith is hopeful OUC and its contractor will cover that cost. But he anticipates “tens of thousands” still will need to be spent as the space is refurbished, and he notes Fringe already paid for the cost of moving the Latin American Performing Arts Festival to Trinity Preparatory School so the show could go on.
“We wanted to make sure we were doing the right thing,” for partner Open Scene, which presents the annual festival, he said.
“People adapted to the relocation smoothly,” said Thamara Bejarano, executive director of Open Scene. “Despite the challenge of moving, including attendees and the logistics of lodging and transportation for the nearly 20 artists we brought from New York, Miami and Washington, D.C., we managed it all successfully and elegantly.”
Galbraith said a planned interactive screening of “The Rocky Horror Show” will go on in July, even if it takes place among “Pardon our dust” signs. But “if this is going to be a workable space, there will need to be extensive renovation or replacement of the HVAC. We’ve been fixing the AC with Band-Aids … very expensive Band-Aids.”
The city is currently helping pay for a new roof and HVAC system on the Lowndes Shakespeare Center, a building it leases for a nominal fee to Orlando Shakes in an arrangement similar to that with Orlando Fringe, and city officials have been vocal about keeping ArtSpace active as way to energize downtown. The Fringe’s presence in the space was made possible through financial support from the city’s Downtown Development Board.
A spokeswoman for the city noted that the ArtSpace lease states Orlando Fringe is responsible for all maintenance expenses, and pointed out that while the city owns the Shakespeare Center outright, it is a tenant at the 55 West development, where it subleases ArtSpace to Orlando Fringe.
“The HVAC system is the maintenance responsibility of Fringe as it is not included in the lease agreement,” said city spokeswoman Ashley Papagni. “There was a previous due diligence period prior to the city turning over the space.”
Galbraith said the state of the HVAC has been been the subject of “an ongoing conversation” with the city, “and that will continue.”
The money concerns come at a fraught time for not only Orlando Fringe but arts groups across the state, which received no funding from Florida’s four cultural-grants programs in this year’s budget.
At a June news conference, DeSantis cited keeping tax dollars from “being given in grants to things like the Fringe Festival, which is a sexual festival,” as a rationale for cutting the funding. Galbraith said the governor mischaracterized the festival, which does have some adult-themed shows but offers far more all-ages entertainment including a popular Kids Fringe.
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Since then, Orlando Fringe has been bolstered by supportive statements from other festivals and individuals, Galbraith said.
“To our friends and colleagues in Florida: we stand with you,” wrote the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals, of which Orlando Fringe is a member, on its website. “Your work is invaluable, and your voices matter.”
In addition, Galbraith said, traffic to the Fringe’s web and social-media sites has increased since the governor’s remarks, and supporters have made donations in response to a mass email detailing the ArtSpace situation.
Even with the bright spots, “it’s a lot to bear,” he said. But he finds comfort in the resilience of the Fringe, which faced multiple financial crises in its early days, and the dedication of the staff.
“The degree to which the staff has pitched in and volunteered to take on a little more has really been inspirational,” he said.
Follow me at facebook.com/matthew.j.palm or email me at mpalm@orlandosentinel.com. Find more arts news at OrlandoSentinel.com/entertainment.
