We can’t help but be entranced by musical superstars and haute couture, even as Ticketmaster concert fees and Bezos-sponsored Met Galas enflame us with populist rage. Writer-director Giselle Bellas — who won acclaim last festival portraying Florence Foster Jenkins — returns this year in the guise of another misguided singer to expertly exploit that cultural dichotomy. Her new original musical, Miss Bellas, is a wildly ambitious bilingual blend of high-decibel spectacle and high-concept political satire with a sci-fi spin.
Approximately 20 minutes into the future, society’s elites are gathering at musical goddess Miss Bellas’ annual “benefaction” ball, isolated from the deprivation endured by her impoverished fans outside their gilded wall. She appears to be at the pinnacle of power, with gyrating go-go dancers standing behind (or kneeling beneath) her every self-absorbed move. But when her oily, emasculated emcee Francisco (Francisco Valentin Ocasio) finally listens to the voices of his oppressed brethren, Bellas may prove to be merely a pawn in this pointed post-apocalyptic parable with shades of Hunger Games, Rock & Rule, and other dystopian fantasies.
Playing the eponymous star, Bellas is a larger-than-life icon, both elevated and entrapped by a massive sculptural dress (costumed by Nicole Lapeyrouse) made of white styrofoam panels that become surfaces for Laia Cabrera & Isabelle Duverger’s projections. That’s only one technically impressive element in the glossy production (designed by Pat Christodulidis, Ryan Brook and Bellas), which takes full advantage of the recently renovated Renaissance Theatre’s ridonkulous audiovisual equipment with live video feeds and bowel-loosening bass, transforming the one-time warehouse into a 21st-century Studio 54. Bellas equals the eye-popping optics with operatic singing and searing sarcasm that could send Elizabeth Banks’ Effie Trinket to cry in the corner.
I loved the first half of Miss Bellas, which begins with three banging musical numbers (written by Bellas with Adam Tilzer and Francisco Valentín Ocasio) that fuse dancehall beats and musical theater structure with an infectious Cuban flavor. The Spanish-seasoned dialogue is sharp yet lyrical, and I was fully hooked at the halfway point when an ill-conceived detour into “charitable auditions” allowed a couple other Fringe artists to hijack the proceedings for far too long, which totally derailed the plot’s momentum. By the time things got rolling again, there was barely enough time for a clumsily staged climax and an appropriately nihilistic bop of a finale number before curtain call.
Miss Bellas is a powerful concept with huge potential that still needs major development, and Orlando theater-goers get the chance to observe its possible future in embryonic form. If they can cut the digressions, add a few more songs, and flesh out the secondary characters (especially the mysterious antagonist, who only appears in an incomprehensible video) I can see it going on to have a life far beyond the Fringe.
Musetta’s Waltz Productions (Orlando, FL)
Renaissance Theatre Co.
60 minutes; 13 and up
Tickets: $15
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The post Orlando Fringe 2026 review: ‘Miss Bellas’ appeared first on Orlando Weekly.