Tempestt Halstead photo courtesy Orlando Fringe
Organizational change is afoot at Fringe
There are some organizational changes at the Orlando Fringe organization, with a mix of new and familiar faces taking top positions.
To wit, Genevieve Bernard moves from her post as Creative Learning Producer over to Director of Experience; Tempestt Halstead, Festival Producer, assumes the role of Artistic Director; and Melissa E. Fritzinger rejoins the Fringe team as Managing Director.
This leadership reconfiguration comes a couple of weeks after Interim Director Scott Galbraith announced his resignation after a mere six months on the job. The new leadership structure is dubbed a “tri-directorate model” with three equal directors at the top each with distinct areas of specialization, as opposed to a single Executive Director.
Board President Marcus Williams says, “The board has decided to move forward with hiring within the organization by emboldening staff members to take the helm of leadership with regards to the executive director role. We will no longer have one singular director reporting to the board. Instead, we will have a triad leadership.”
It’s already been a wild year for the local arts organization: flooding at Fringe’s downtown ArtSpace; attendance down quite a bit and a “vibe shift” at this year’s Fringe Festival; arts funding cuts statewide and the Fringe specifically called out by Gov. DeSantis as sexually deviant.
On the horizon, more positively, is the first-ever Orlando Out Fest, promising a weekend of LGBTQ+-forward original productions at the end of September — a chance for the good ship Fringe to right itself, mayhaps.
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