SCHEDULE ANNOUNCEMENT: 2024 Fresh Fruit Festival MAINSTAGE
Variety – Diversity – DIFFERENCE
April 22 — May 5 at the WILD PROJECT
195 E 3rd St, New York City
All seats $12 to $23
Single Events or Build Your Own Schedule of Shows
Ticket Available SOON
Contact info@jaymichaelsarts.com

New York’s preeminent LGBTQ Arts Festival returns for another season of exciting work on stage – on film – and on the air. THE FRESH FRUIT FESTIVAL 2024 Main-Stage will premiere a dozen new works exploring the LGBTQ experience.

Established in 1991, All Out Arts is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit devoted to bringing together the diverse artistic, organizational, political and financial resources of the LGBTQ community in order to fight intolerance. All Out Arts fulfills its mission by supporting arts organizations within the community through fiscal sponsorship, events, contests, collaborations, networking events for emerging artists, and by sponsoring productions, concerts and exhibitions of visual arts. We confront homophobia through the humanizing influence of the arts, and the Fresh Fruit Festival is the primary expression of the All Out Arts mission.

The Fresh Fruit Festival was the creation of two long established LGBT community arts groups: New Village Productions: and All Out Arts. Now the festival is presented by All Out Arts to celebrate the LGBTQ community’s unique perspective, creativity & diversity – local, national, and international – and as of two years ago – on stage, on film, and on the air.
Learn more at freshfruitfestival.com.

FESTIVAL WEEK I

Non-Disclosure [full length] – Iggy Mitzner, a non-binary Los Angeles Public School Teacher, has been dating movie star Fenway Cooper for a year now, and not a soul knows about it. Fenway’s big break only complicates the arrangement.
4/22 7p reception to follow; 4/24 8p; 4/27 1p

The Memory Of [full length]- We begin in a memory. The past slowly melts into the present where we see Renee grieving Brianna’s death (or so we think), struggling to make a decision as to whether or not she should take her own life or how to move on.
4/23 6:30p; 4/25 6:30p; 4/27 3:30p

Clara & Carmilla -[full length] Clara (she/they) discovers vampire novel written before Dracula that follows a sapphic relationship between the vampire Carmilla and the main characters. Clara becomes obsessed with the novel and one night actually starts to see Carmilla.
4/24 6p; 4/25 8:45p; 4/27 6p

Café Americano [full length] Texas is a young accomplished playwright, actor, tv writer who is reeling from the premature death of his husband has fled from New York to Paris to attempt to write his next play amidst his grief. Meeting a barista’s husband complicates his world.
4/26 6:30p; 4/27 8p; 4/28 7:45p

Ercolé and Megara [staged reading] – Ercole and Megara is the story of a lesbian couple. Where the one partner is in transition from female to male and their journey as the one transitions physically and the other transitions emotionally and how they find their voices as a couple and independently.
4/28 12:30p – reception to follow

Bigfoot, Angels and a Girl – Evening of 3 one acts.

The Guy Who Killed Bigfoot – tells the story of Kennedy, a trans man in his twenties who was the subject of a viral video where he appeared to shoot Bigfoot.

An Angel, a Demon and a totally Religious Holiday – the angel, Orifiel, and the demon, Astaroth, are roommates with a human named Nadia.
Rhys Collins [author] therhyscollins@gmail.com 475-399-6006

Not That Kind of Girl – Rachel, a 20-something trans girl, meets Crystal, a bubbly scene girl, on a night out. Crystal is not who she seems.

4/26 8:45p; 4/28 5:30p

Poetry Slam – LGBTQ poets compete for prize money.
1st Place $100; 2nd place $75
4/23 8:30p

FESTIVAL WEEK II

Board of Ed [full length]- A comedy following Connor and Dana, two aimless millennials as they go from serving at a gastropub to whipping up a chaotic run for the board of education in Allendale, New Jersey.
4/29 8p; 5/1 6p; 5/4 1p

La Pucelle – A folk retelling of the final days of the life of Joan of Arc through a uniquely trans allegory.
4/29 6:30p; 4/30 8:30p; 5/4 5p

1001 Nights: Love Stories on Death Row (A Rock Opera) [full length musical] Legendary storyteller Scheherazad reborn as Shezadi—a queer, immigrant mother and abuse survivor who shares stories about her life, and folklore from her culture, in order to remain sane during her imprisonment and impending execution.
5/1 8:15p; 5/2 8:15p; 5/3 8:15p

Goddess of The Hunt [full length comedy] Martinis. Murders. … And Mothers. A light comedy about dark people leading private lives in public places.
4/30 6:30p; 5/4 6:30p; 5/5 4:15p

How To Break Up a Wedding [full length] A comedy where we see Margaret, Julie and Tonya, three sisters who, despite their differences, collaborate and carry out every possible plot, plan, and scheme to break up their brother’s wedding.
5/2 6:30p; 5/4 3:15p; 5/5 2:30p

Short Shorts – an evening of 4 short plays -15-20 minutes each.

When a Faggot Finds a Flower: A fable about a boy who’s sick of his bent wrist, and what he stands to lose by straightening it out.
Out: High school baseball start Cal is forced to choose between his love for the game and his love for his boyfriend, Ryan.
Hand Me Downs: Matriarch Mildred is overjoyed at the upcoming wedding of her son Roger to his beau, Craig. But mother and son have very different ideas about one aspect of the ceremony.
5/3 6p; 5/4 8:30p

10-Minute Play Competition –the competition gave us 8 finalists who will compete for the big prize!
* Searching for the Gays by Monika Orzelowski
* YOU + ME: An Exploration of Deceased Identities and Falling In Love In Spite of It by Mattie Tindall
* Caged by Drew Keil
* A Very Public, Very Family Friendly Park Bench by Mary Darling
* Like The Sea by Raine Grayson
* For Sale By Owner by Sam Turlington
* Grave Offense by Lenny Hort
* Doctor Truth by Sam Affoumado

5/5 12p
Frank Calo Curator