There are plenty of improv options to pick from at this year’s Orlando Fringe, but none pack more pure joy per minute than Solovela, a one-woman telenovela concocted from the life stories of audience members. Miami native Diane Jorge, a deft performer with a vibrantly volcanic personality, exhibits enough exuberance to fuel a month worth of Sabado Gigantes, and even when you can’t quite cut through her Spanglish accent, she fluently speaks the language of laughter.
After teasingly working the crowd with a Latina-level disregard for personal space, Jorge interrogates an audience member with intrusive questions about their lives and turns their responses into an improvised telenovela, which (at the performance I attended) involved narcissistic lesbians, killer gun-toting swans and similar absurdities. She sprints in circles like a victorious soccer player when she gets a good suggestion, employs a pile of silly accessories — glasses, eyepatches, bald caps and more — to switch between her larger-than-life characters, and tosses fistful of flower petals in the air to transition between her punchy, punchline-packed scenes.
This is Jorge’s first Fringe, but hopefully (for improv comedy fans) not her last. I could complain that her show ran short, because I could have spent much more time with her, but better that than dragging out her story unnecessarily. Don’t wait until mañana; grab your tickets ahora for the funniest female solo improviser of this Fest.
Solovela, An Improvised Solo Telenovela
Brown Venue, Lowndes Shakespeare Center
45 minutes; 13 & up
$10
Get tickets
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This article appears in May 14-20, 2025.