Orlando experienced a taste of wet winter weather last weekend, but the cold truth is that ill winds have been blasting Central Florida’s performing arts community all year long. Fortunately, local companies continue to combat the current climate, and are keeping the home fires burning with live entertainment this holiday season. Here are four artistic offerings that will keep you warm during the coming weeks.
Dazzling Nights at Leu Gardens
With the late-November launch of this year’s Dazzling Nights event, Cole NeSmith’s Creative City Project has once again transformed Harry P. Leu Gardens into an enchanting wonderland of immersive illuminations. What began in 2020 as a pandemic-era experiment in socially distanced seasonal celebrations has blossomed into a genuine home-grown holiday tradition, as the eclectic electrified environment has evolved and improved with each edition. And with a mile-long walking path, this year’s installation is the largest yet.
Nearly every element across the 50-acre exhibit has updated or reinvented, from the psychedelic lollipop lane that leads off the experience to the centerpiece Rose Garden’s five-story star, which happily once again hosts concerts of throwback holiday tunes from Hawkmoon’s American Sirens singing trio on select evenings. Some aesthetically memorable new installations include scores of elegant chandeliers hanging from tree boughs and a colorful 80-foot-long cathedral archway echoing Notre Dame’s iconic rose window. For the kids, there’s a hopscotch-style pathway of interactive stepping stones, inflatable elves styled after 8-bit video games, and a scavenger hunt for the event’s adorable new Yeti mascot.
While this year’s version of Dazzling Nights definitely lives up to its name, I felt it could use a few more interactive performers along the path, a bigger “wow” moment for the finale display, and better traffic management in the perpetually packed parking lot. (Use the Sparkling Express shuttle from AdventHealth’s garage instead.) But I’ll forgive any flaws because of the fabulous field of faux bonfires, where I could cozy up and sip spiked cocoa for hours. (dazzlingorlando.com)
Frontyard Holiday Festival at Dr. Phillips Center
Another one of my few warm and fuzzy holiday memories from the early pandemic was watching Michael James Scott perform in front of the Dr. Phillips Center, with the audience seated in pods spread across Seneff Arts Plaza. Those pods are long gone, replaced by a sea of folding chairs, but the Frontyard is flourishing once again with daily holiday entertainment now through Jan. 4.
The 2025 Frontyard Holiday Festival’s extensive entertainment lineup includes family-friendly movies on the big screen, live musical performances and appearances by Santa Claus himself, along with nightly “snow” falls and a tree-lighting ceremony at 6 p.m. To fuel your festivities, you’ll find booths and tents around the plaza’s perimeter (including an enormous glass-roofed Alpine Chalet filled with long communal tables) serving spirits, savory dishes and sweets — including s’mores kits that you can roast yourself over a roaring fire pit.
By far the best news about the Frontyard Holiday Festival is that all performances and events are free for all to attend, thanks to AdventHealth and other sponsors (including Orlando Weekly). Better yet, all of the artists scheduled to appear on stage — including local favorites like Central Florida Community Arts, the Orlando Gay Chorus, Chase Shellee and Tymisha Harris — are getting paid, which should help make their holidays a bit more merry. (drphillipscenter.org)
Just down the block from Frontyard, one of Orlando’s theater companies has recently received a much-needed Christmas miracle.
I was unable to attend this year’s edition of Nosferatu before the Renaissance Theatre Co.’s Loch Haven venue was shuttered by the city’s fire department over safety violations, just as their popular immersive Halloween experience was starting its annual run. Although the show continued at alternate locations, financial losses have reportedly exceeded $500,000 so far, putting the troupe’s future in jeopardy.
Fortunately, while work to reopen their home is ongoing, the Ren has secured a short-term lease on the former Fringe ArtSpace stages on Church Street, which is hosting their always-hilarious holiday bacchanal for Gripp & Phister employees, now through Dec. 22. Following that, the musical adaptation of Tina Fey’s Mean Girls will run there from Jan. 16 through March 15. I hope this marks a turnaround in fortunes for the Ren and that they aren’t plagued by the same infrastructure issues that forced Fringe to exit the space earlier this year. (rentheatre.com)
A Deloris Scrud Christmas at Savoy
Veteran local playwright-performer Michael Wanzie is back on stage for the first time in more than three years in A Deloris Scrud Christmas, which revives his campy Carolina Moon waitress character for a gossipy monologue brimming with spilt tea and anti-authoritarian Sanka.
Savoy’s intimate Starlite Room has been transformed into an Airstream artifact of pre-Disney Orlando, where Wanzie — thinly disguised with a retro diner uniform, blonde up-do and self-admittedly indeterminate Southern accent — holds court from a collapsible porch chair surrounded by tables of crappy crafts. Under the prompting of Orlando Sentinel interviewer Scott Maxwell (who “appears” via prerecorded phone calls), Deloris name-drops her way through an expletive-laden excoriation of today’s transphobic society, as she attempts to flog her new self-help book about overcoming bigotry with biscuits and gravy.
A ribald rant without any real narrative or dramatic arc, Wanzie’s script is a catty collection of inside jokes and semi-autobiographical anecdotes — including references to his own noticeable weight loss and acerbic asides skewering local notables — along with impassioned emotional pleas for racial equality and rainbow solidarity. Although the dress rehearsal I attended still needed polishing, director Kenny Howard smartly segments the largely static show with well-timed blackouts punctuating some of the more outrageous provocative punchlines. Performances continue on Dec. 13-14 (though this weekend’s run is sold out) and Dec. 20, so if an X-rated Xmas righteously ripping on the right wing sounds like an ideal Yuletide treat, this Scrud’s for you. (eventbrite.com)
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This article appears in Dec. 10-16, 2025.
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Seth Kubersky
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