Fringe: Once Upon a Traitor: Faithfully Ever After

Posted on by Thor

Sista Steph Productions from Orlando Florida presented Once Upon a Traitor: Faithfully Ever After at the Orlando International Fringe Festival. Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who’s a traitor after all? Co-written by Derick Taylor-White and Danielle Ziss, this show featured classic Disney animated heroes and villains who competed against one another for a grand prize of pressed pennies.

Alexander Mrazek as the Magic Mirror, hosted the chaotic proceedings. Teams of “faithfuls” and “traitors” were assembled at a green cartoon castle. The Disney characters had to call out each other in a cut throat bid to win the prize. This is similar to a TV show called Traitors hosted by Alan Cumming. I have never seen that show so any inside jokes were lost on me.

The sage was constantly full of 12 or more characters, so individual performances had to be caricatured to stand out in the crowd. At one pint dark hooded monks held a somber séance. Danelle Ziss performed as Alice in Wonderland and Teresa Levin Smith made for a very evil queen. I was a little confused about how and why the two camps of characters were pitted against one another, but that might be because I never say the TV show. I thought Disney World was supposed to be the happiest place on earth, but it seems more like the land of discontent where a turkey leg would cost an arm and a leg.

All in all it was campy fun and the show held a long run of sold-out shows. I can vouch for the fact that the show was hard to get into. In one show I tried to see, there was only 1 seat left in the theater and I didn’t sprint fast enough to get to it.

Alexander Mrazek as the Magic Mirror Host won a Fringe Award for Individual Performance in Comedy for his role in Once Upon a Traitor: Faithfully Ever After. The Orlando weekly noted that he was, “by far the best reason to see” this “pixie-dusted spoof of both theme parks and reality television.”

I sometimes forget that I live in a theme park town, but so many of the actors I love to sketch have worked at the theme parks which helped inspire this fun parody.

Fringe: WTF Fringe Cabaret

Posted on by Thor

Orlando Fringe presented WTF Fringe Cabaret which was a late-night show that was free to all Fringe artists and Fringe Volunteers. Fringe guest performers would spin the wheel of fate to determine what they would be performing.  It was a variety, improv, cabaret with unexpected hilarious results.

Marisa Ashley Risque, a talented actress and burlesque dancer was the hostess although in the ensuing chaos it grew hard to tell who was running the show. When Disney Princesses from Once Upon A Traitor: Faithfully Ever After came on stage, I started sketching furiously. The evil queen, Theresa Smith-Levin, had to wear a big inflatable orange jumpsuit that made her look like a blimp. Despite the inflated weight gain she sang with gusto. I also caught Danielle Ziss who plays Alice In Once Upon a Traitor.

Sarah Hester Ross is a powerhouse singer from Las Vegas and she was asked to wear a strap on penis. Why on earth did they give Sarah such a flaccid looking strap on. Maybe she just put it on upside down. This is what I love about Fringe. Even the most accomplished performers join in with the crazy hi-jinks in this late night cabaret.

This was a chaotic sketch opportunity since each performer was only on stage for a few minutes. I did my best to try and capture just a fraction of the insanity. There were songs, sonnets and plenty of silliness.

I had never sketched these late-night shows before, but the unexpected chaos of this show was such a joy to witness. I was laughing the whole night. It felt good to drive back late at night to my Air BnB and collapse after a long day of sketching at the Fringe.