Q Fest at The Center spotlights queer artists in Central Florida

Dempsey Jara Credit: courtesy Dempsey Jara/Facebook

If you’re searching for a fabulous excuse to be out in Orlando this week, look no further than Q Fest, the four-day celebration of LGBTQIA+ theater and film filling The Center from Nov. 13-16. I recently spoke with The Center’s CEO, George Wallace, about how this year’s inaugural Q Fest emerged from the ashes of Orlando Fringe’s Orlando Out Fest and why such an event is so important right now for the queer community and its allies.

The Center traces its origins back nearly half a century to Orlando’s Gay Men’s Crisis hotline — whose number was 407-THE-GAYS — and Gay Community Services, which later merged and established their first brick-and-mortar location in the late 1980s where Will’s Pub now stands. It bounced around various buildings along Colonial Drive until the current property on Mills Avenue was purchased in 1999. Wallace, who was previously the executive director of Orlando Fringe, joined the The Center’s board of directors in 2014 and has been CEO since 2017.

“The mission has always connected with me, because I love the fact that allies are in the mission,” says Wallace, noting that the people utilizing The Center’s HIV and STI testing, mental health services and food bank predominantly don’t identify as LGBTQ. “Orlando is such a unique community with the support from the ally community, and when you look at the services we offer, depending on what department it is, over 60 percent of the people that utilize The Center are not gay.”

Wallace was originally set to produce the second iteration of OOF, before the event was canceled due to lack of an affordable venue. But after several Fringe veterans successfully used The Center’s multipurpose room as an intimate performance venue, Wallace was inspired (with Fringe’s blessing and technical support) to revive the spirit of OOF there as Q Fest, albeit in a somewhat slimmed-down form. “I know it’s not a 250-seat theater; it’s not even 100 seats,” Wallace says he recalls thinking. “But why can’t I do something?”

While the majority of the artists at Q Fest are carry-overs from OOF’s planned lineup, Wallace says he had to concentrate on selecting solo shows — such as Natalie Doliner’s new What Is Remembered Lives cabaret — and small-scale casts. “I knew that I couldn’t get like a huge burlesque group in, but I reached out to Risa Risqué of Blacklist Babes because they have a smaller troupe,” Wallace says. “In my opinion, I picked the cream of the crop of the smaller shows.”

As a result, Q Fest’s four days of programming spans the gamut of the gay experience, with content for every genre and age group. “We have lesbian representation, we have trans representation, we have a nonbinary performer,” says Wallace. “We have comedy magic, and in our variety show we’ve got a stand-up comic.”

Films like Welcome to Queertown and Wanzie With a Z pay tribute to Orlando’s queer history; and Truth or Dare With P. Sparkle, Tymisha Harris: Q the Legends and Drag Queen Story Hour After Dark With Addison Taylor feature long-running local icons; while Bruce Costella’s Spooky & Gay Volume II and Jeremiah Gibbons’ Miah in Love represent the region’s rising stars. Whether you want adult-only comedy like Professor Love’s Midnight Spectacular (a Saturday-only benefit performance for The Center) or family-friendly fare such as illusionist Nick Comis’ Parlor Tricks, there’s something at Q Fest for everyone.

Based on advance ticket sales, Q Fest’s most anticipated show features its youngest performer. Just Dempsey! is the first-ever live variety show starring Dempsey Jara, a trans teenager “with a big voice and an even bigger personality,” who is best known for serving as the Grand Marshal of Orlando’s 2023 Come Out With Pride parade at age 11.

“This is a kid that I fully believe that in 10 years when she’s starring on Broadway, you’d be like, ‘Oh my god, I saw her at The Center,’” Wallace says about Dempsey, who will be kibitzing candidly about her life between belting out her favorite Broadway hits. “She’s been a spokesperson, she’s been to Tallahassee and spoke in front of the Senate; she’s amazing!”

To keep Q Fest accessible, ticket prices are capped at a maximum of $18 plus fees and a $3 festival button. Proceeds are split between The Center and the artists, excepts for some fundraisers like screenings of A Day in the Life of Miss Sammy, benefiting the Singhaus Scholarship for the Performing Arts, and the opening-night preview supporting Fringe’s Doug Ba’aser Memorial Fund.

If you have any question why a festival like this needed, “when the Orlando Weekly publishes a story about the LGBTQ community, just go online and read the comments,” says Wallace. “So much of what is happening with the queer community is erasure or trying to erase us. It’s everything from banning books to not allowing flags to erasing sidewalks; it’s almost like ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ So I’m of the mindset that we can’t let that happen. … More than ever, we need to be loud, proud and visible, and this festival sheds the light on the queer artists in Central Florida.”

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Q Fest at The Center spotlights queer artists in Central Florida

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