- May 26, 2026
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Everyone knows the squeaky wheel gets the grease. But what happens after that? When founder Megan Radish unveiled her Squeaky Wheel Fringe Festival in 2023, she wasn’t sure whether she was producing a one-time event or creating a Sarasota mainstay inspired by the venerable Edinburgh Fringe, known as the “world’s great platform for creative freedom.”
Luckily for performers and audiences, Squeaky Wheel Fringe is making more noise than ever for its fourth edition, which runs from June 2-7 at the Cook Theatre in the FSU Center for the Performing Arts.
“We started out with a hope and dream,” Radish said in an interview. “People seem to have embraced it. There aren’t a lot of opportunities that aren’t professional for artists to get paid to do their art. I’m glad that we’ve gotten the following we have.”
Radish says she’s billing this year’s Squeaky Wheel as a “homecoming” because several performers are returning to the festival, which features a smorgasbord of nine no-holds-barred performances, including spoken word, dance, song and cross-genre.
Tania Vergara Dance Theatre, previously known as Endedans Dance company, is coming back to Squeaky Wheel with “Casa Havana,” which explores family dynamics as it celebrates Cuban rhythms. Last year, the dance troupe won the audience choice award for its multidisciplinary piece, “Paradox of the Mirror.”
Former Sarasota theater kid Victoria Montalbano is back in town with a one-person show called “Timey Wimey Stuff: The Mid Life Crisis of a Time Traveling Space Archaeologist.” With its off-the-wall format, fringe festivals give artists the chance to present their work as they wish it to be seen, and also to come up with really long titles.
A native of Chicago, Montalbano was in the debut edition of Squeaky Wheel Fringe in 2023, with her “Star Wars”-infused piece, “The Princess Strikes Back: One Woman’s Search for the Space Cowboy of her Dreams.”
An ensemble consisting of some familiar faces from The Sarasota Players community theater will be presenting "The Pep Rally: A 'Religious' Variety Show." In this multi-genre show, the protagonist Ezra Mathers returns to his Christian college to lead a homecoming pep rally. Ezra has an ax to grind because he was never cast in any shows when he was in school. So watch out!
That “I coulda been a contender” theme runs through another Squeaky Wheel Fringe show, “Grease is the Word.” Co-written by Kallista Schneiderman and her mother, Kelly Haramis, the piece was inspired by a snub Haramis received in high school. Back in 1989, when she was an aspiring actor at Deltona High in Florida, Haramis wasn’t cast as Rizzo in “Grease.”
Fast-forward to 2026: Her daughter, a student at USC in Los Angeles, has decided to right this wrong by staging a fake production of “Grease” at a senior center so her mom’s theater dreams can finally come true. That’s the story line for their fringe piece.
In real life, Haramis is a Chicago actor, writer and improviser. She’s married to incoming Ringling College of Art and Design President Davis Schneiderman, who starts June 1.
When Haramis and her daughter heard the family was moving to Sarasota, they looked around for venues that would be right for “Grease Is the Word.” As fate would have it, they discovered that the Squeaky Wheel Fringe was happening just as Schneiderman was starting his new job.
"There’s a reason I didn’t get cast as Rizzo,” Haramis says. “I can’t sing.” To solve that problem, Kallista Schneiderman and her friend, NYU student Nora Sharman, will perform in “Grease is the Word,” which was written by Haramis and Kallista.
Those who want to get a peek at Ringling College’s new president can see him in the play, which is billed as “part heartfelt comedy, part loving prank.”
This is not the Schneiderman family’s first theatrical collaboration. Last summer, Haramis performed in a staged reading in Chicago of the play, “You can Call Me Al,” which she wrote with her husband. Haramis is a graduate of Penn State and the Second City Conservatory.
Other productions on tap at the Squeaky Wheel Fringe Festival include a dance theater piece called “The One,” an improv show from Orlando titled “It’s Alive! Live,” “Confessions of a Theme Park Worker,” “My Life as an ‘Inspirational Porn’ Star” and “The Common Ground,” an import from New Jersey set in a suburban coffee shop that follows a young woman trying to rebuild her life.
This year’s Squeaky Wheel Fringe, which is supported by the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, includes more visual projections and other bells and whistles than previous editions of the festival, Radish notes.
If you’re not sure which, if any, of these grassroots productions appeal to you, the best way to find out is by attending the Squeaky Wheel Fringe teaser on June 2, which gives audiences a sample of each show.
“To encourage people to attend, we’ve made it pay what you will,” Radish says. Tickets for each fringe performance are no more than $20.70, including a $4 festival fee. Except for the fest fee, all proceeds benefit the artists.
