Precocious playwright Ciara Hannon returns to Orlando as the Fringe’s new special events producer

Perhaps the only thing sweeter than celebrating creatives who escape Central Florida and find success elsewhere (like recent LAC subject Clymene Aldinger) is writing about artists who exit and return.

A prime example is precocious playwright Ciara Hannon, who came back to Orlando after receiving a bachelor's degree in theater from Florida International University and has joined the Orlando Fringe Festival — where they originally found acclaim — as the organization's special events producer, leading several LGBTQ+-focused projects. Last week, I spoke with Hannon to hear how they're helping Fringe celebrate "queer joy escapism," starting by terrorizing college kids this weekend with a demonic incarnation of superstar singer Adele.

Hannon first burst onto the Orlando Fringe scene back in 2019, when they wrote and directed the award-winning drama Leviticus at the tender age of 19. "I think I really have to owe it to my high school theater department," says Hannon, crediting Winter Park High School and her friend Clark Levi (producer of Lightup Shoebox) for helping bring her autobiographical debut to the stage. "The whole story about this girl getting exiled from her church [because of] who she was — that was my story. ... It was received really well, and it's been a very, very nice roller coaster ever since."

In my review of Leviticus, I said that "Hannon possesses more maturity than playwrights twice her age," but her hit 2021 follow-up, An Adele Horror Story — which is being revived at Fringe ArtSpace on Friday and Saturday, April 26-27 — showed off her sophomoric side. Back then, I wrote that this raunchy Evil Dead ripoff "power-sprays a metric ton of slapstick bullshit at the walls, and a surprising amount of it sticks." The show has changed in a lot of ways since then, but Hannon personally guarantees that the BS is "still there, and it's still stuck."

For starters, although Adele Horror Story was originally intended to be set inside a stereotypical "cabin in the woods" and staged indoors, after failing to get picked in the Fringe lottery, Hannon changed the setting to a campsite and pitched her tents on the Loch Haven lawn as a site-specific show. "It really was a bunch of Bluetooth speakers, a bunch of hurricane lights and a dream," recalls Hannon. "By the fourth show, we were performing through rain and helicopters and traffic, trying to do this very high-energy show. I think that made me realize, 'This is like a lot of fun,' [and] by the fifth show, we were doing the show out of spite."

The show's latest incarnation — which is a fundraiser for both Fringe and The Center Orlando — is still set in a campground, despite being performed inside. But it has expanded into a full two-act show, running approximately 105 minutes with intermission. "We want to make sure that we have the space and time for laughs," explains Hannon, who also notes that the show now incorporates some additional Adele songs. This production also boasts a brand-new cast, which doesn't include Hannon herself this time, much to her relief. "I had the most humbling experience ever [on] the first day of rehearsals," Hannon says, "because I realized I wasn't the funniest person in the room." Several performers pull double duty behind the scenes, such as Beth Ann Stripling, who both plays the titular villain and serves as music director.

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The cast of 'An Adele Horror Story'

Although Adele Horror Story looks like a lightweight lark on the surface, each of Hannon's shows so far has been connected to the cause of "supporting queer art that is saying something." In this case, Hannon says they are "fighting against that 'queer people in horror' trope of they're the first to go," pointing out that the entire cast is female (except for one male-presenting character) and most of the characters are queer.

"It truly is just pure queer joy escapism, and I think that we really, really need that right now. I am not interested in telling another coming-out story or something that is about queer hardship. This is about a bunch of queers trying to defeat Adele." 

Hannon's efforts to cultivate queer voices will bear fruit again during Pride month, when they curate Orlando Fringe's first Orlando Out Fest — or "OOF" for short — over June 27-30. Hannon, who collaborated with festival producer Tempestt Halstead to create the event, says it will be "a people-first festival," and that the soon-to-be announced "amazing lineup" will feature Fringe favorites and newbies in genres ranging from musical theater and flamenco to drag and burlesque.

Hannon will curate Orlando Fringe's first Orlando Out Fest, but says, "Mama, it's always been an LGBT+ fest … It would be remiss of me to say 'let's do something new' without celebrating that history."

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OOF will also offer ways for patrons to interact with the long history of LGBTQ+ art within the Orlando Fringe. "Mama, it's always been an LGBT+ fest," admits Hannon, adding, "It would be remiss of me to say 'let's do something new' without celebrating that history."

Hannon says Orlando Out Fest's main objectives are to support interest in queer artists year-round, "so that celebration of this type of art doesn't just end at the end of June," while also attracting new voices to the Fringe itself: "Hopefully this is going to be like a gateway for getting them into the festival, and diversifying within the festival itself."