Fringe review: ‘Miss Sammy Bakes a Cake’

Miss Sammy Bakes a Cake, Kangagirl Productions, Winter Park. Silver venue, 65 minutes, $10. (Discounts: Fringe artists and volunteers.)

Paula Deen and Miss Sammy

By Elizabeth Maupin
Elizabeth Maupin on Theater

There’s no need to introduce Fringe audiences to Miss Sammy: She’s been spreading her perky cheer around the festival for years.

So Miss Sammy Bakes a Cake should be familiar territory for those who follow Sam Singhaus’s popular character, who’s also a mainstay at various clubs and gay hangouts around Orlando. This time around she welcomes guests to her TV cooking show, but very little cooking goes on.

Miss Sammy Bakes a Cake rises and falls, so to speak, on the strength of those guests, and how much you take to the show will depend on how much you adore female impersonators. Wednesday’s late show featured Carol Lee as a Carol Channing and an Ann-Margret who were never quite as funny as Carol Lee herself; an addled Judy Garland who looked a lot like Mark Baratelli; Rob Ward’s sweetly subversive Pepe; and a young shirtless man from the audience who enjoyed the spotlight way too much.

Miss Sammy played the ukulele; Carol Channing sang Beyoncé and Lady Gaga; and the talk was not especially scintillating. I suspect it will take a more surprising entourage, and maybe some more pointed writing, to give Miss Sammy the platform she deserves.

Final show:
Saturday May 28, 2:10 p.m.