Central Florida will have to wait a bit longer for the Waitlist Theater Festival. The new offering on Orlando’s cultural scene, originally planned for this weekend, has been postponed.

Organizer Barbara Myers said it had been difficult for the festival to gain traction over the summer.

“It is with a heavy heart; we have to postpone this year’s Orlando Waitlist Theater Festival due to low interest,” she wrote in an email. “We’re truly sorry to disappoint those who were excited to take part.”

Ironically, the festival had been planned with the idea of giving up-and-coming artists a low-cost and risk-free way to present new shows. It was born from a frustration with the Orlando Fringe lottery — and a mutual love of dogs.

Myers, who cofounded the festival with Patrick Prainito, had worked together on Fringe shows such as “Valley of the Barbie Dolls,” and while they would walk their pets in the Baldwin Park Dog Park they would talk about “the trials and tribulations of Fringe,” she said.

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For Prainito, the biggest tribulation was getting into the annual unjuried Fringe Festival. Entry is by a lottery; names are picked at random. For years, the Fringe lottery gods — known by local producers and artists to be notoriously fickle — had not smiled upon him.

“Patrick went through a seven-year dry spell, and it made him nuts because on my first try I got in,” Myers said.

So the two hatched a plan to offer anyone on the Fringe’s legendary waitlist a chance to perform. They  later expanded the idea to include anyone who wanted to test new work. There is no fee for artists to participate.

“I thought this would be an avenue for young people to try things out,” said Myers, a retiree who enjoys being a patron of the arts.

As with the Fringe, the plan is for performers will keep all the money from ticket sales and they can set their own prices.

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But with just weeks until the festival, planned to take place at the Imagine Performing Arts Center at Oviedo Mall, there were only four productions who had applied to particpate. Among them were a show from Billy Mick, a performer who presented a popular show at last year’s Orlando Out Fest and has hosted an onoing variety show, and a show from Billy Floyd of the online Kitchen Killaz, in which he stages impromptu concerts in people’s kitchens.

Myers said she hoped a perception of competition with Fringe didn’t discourage artists from applying. Neither Myers nor Praitano bears any ill will toward the Fringe Festival, she said, just because luck hasn’t always gone their way.

“This isn’t a ‘give up on Fringe,’ it’s an ‘add-on to Fringe,’” she said. “I’ve met so many wonderful people at Fringe.”

She and Praitano, who has written and directed such Fringe shows as ‘Who! The Dickens?” and “Covetous Sin,” plan on applying to the Fringe Festival in the future. And hoping for good luck.

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Meanwhile, they haven’t abandoned the idea of the Waitlist festival, which accepts applications through its website at orlandowaitlisttheaterfestival.org. The organizers are now eyeing a date at the start of April.

“This isn’t the end — just a pause,” Myers said. “We’ll keep dreaming and hope to bring OWTF back stronger in the future.”

Follow me at facebook.com/matthew.j.palm or email me at mpalm@orlandosentinel.com. Find more entertainment news and reviews at orlandosentinel.com/entertainment or sign up to receive our weekly emailed Entertainment newsletter.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/10/02/orlando-waitlist-theater-festival-postponed/