While we wait just a few short hours until the winners are announced in the Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival’s first-ever official critics’ awards, Orlando Weekly has asked me to post a list of the top five shows I’ve seen. It makes for a harsh sample, since the work I was privileged to witness was of such a notably high standard across diverse genres and styles. How does one decide that the experimental, surrealist musings of an apple were “better” than the light-hearted comedy of an orange?

But if you were to put a gun to my head (NOTE: Not a literal suggestion), here’s the ranking I’d have to give at the present moment:

1. God is a Scottish Drag Queen
2. Teaching Shakespeare
3. Brutal Imagination
4. LOON
5. Hitler’s Li’l Abomination

This was a good Fringe-ing year for me: Of all the shows I saw, only a small handful would I have graded below a “B.” Plenty were simply “A” material by anybody’s yardstick. And only one was outright vile. (Take a wild guess.)

Oh, and I’d like to give a belated shout-out to Marcie Schwalm’s Boogie Shoes, which nobody from OW managed to review (schedules are a bitch), but which was utterly heartwarming and delightful just the same.

Now start planning those 2014 shows, people