Inaugural Fire Island Theater Festival (FIT Fest) Set for September
The festival will run September 23–27, 2026.
When the Arts Project of Cherry Grove was founded in 1948, its vision was ambitious: to establish Fire Island as a home for new plays, new voices, and new artistic expression. CHANGE Arts is building on that legacy with the inaugural Fire Island Theater Festival (FIT Fest), taking place September 23–27, 2026.
Produced by CHANGE Arts Executive Director and Executive Producer Matt Freeman, FIT Fest brings professional queer theater back to the communities that helped inspire it. Through new plays, concerts, staged readings, historical tours, and educational programming, the festival invites audiences to explore Fire Island's past, engage with its present, and imagine its future.
The festival also serves as a fundraising initiative for CHANGE Arts, extending the organization's mission of connecting classrooms and communities through thoughtfully curated arts experiences.
FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS
Beach Reads
Wednesday, September 23
Fire Island’s own playwrights take center stage as scenes by local writers are rehearsed and performed by Fire Island actors in a single day, celebrating the Island's remarkable creative community.
Cherry Picked Plays: National Queer Theater Play Reading Residency
Thursday, September 24
In partnership with National Queer Theater, FIT Fest presents staged readings of two exciting new queer plays:
Thursdays Come at Morning by Lee Cataluna, with original story and additional material by Les J.N. Mau
The 365 Party Girl and Saint Mary Frances by Chidube Egbo
Songs on the Sand
Friday, September 25
Hosted by Seth Rudetsky and Ben Rimalower, Songs on the Sand celebrates Fire Island’s remarkable legacy of songwriters—from Jerry Herman to today's generation of resident composers. Fire Island singers perform original music by contemporary Fire Island composers in a benefit concert supporting CHANGE Arts and the future of queer storytelling.
Marathon Theater Weekend, A theatrical stroll through our queer history on Fire Island
September 26–27
The festival culminates in an immersive theatrical journey through Fire Island's queer history, present, and imagined future. Audiences will travel between Cherry Grove and Fire Island Pines, experiencing site-specific performances connected by guided walking tours through some of the Island's most significant historic landscapes.
Pride House by Chris Weikel
Cherry Grove Community House and Theater
Set on the eve of the Great Hurricane of 1938, *Pride House* follows a weekend gathering that unexpectedly becomes part of Fire Island history, exploring the people and events that helped shape Cherry Grove into a queer cultural sanctuary.
Guided Historical and Nature Walking Tours
Following Pride House, audiences journey through Cherry Grove's historic West End with members of the Cherry Grove Archives Collection before continuing through the legendary Meat Rack and Carrington Estate with Friends of Carrington, connecting the Island's theatrical, social, and environmental history.
Ocean Walk by Gianfranco Lentini
Reflections, Fire Island Pines
After climate catastrophe has submerged Fire Island, a seventy-year-old Pines resident refuses to abandon his home. When a teenage Sayville Ferry deckhand arrives to rescue him, the two confront memory, loss, and what remains worth saving.
Last Summer on Neptune: A Song Story
The weekend concludes with the Long Island premiere of Last Summer on Neptune, a 25-minute song story by Guggenheim Fellow Matthew Ricketts and Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy Award-winning librettist Mark Campbell, exploring friendship, memory, and the closing of a summer season in the Pines. Performed by baritone Oliver Worthington and pianist Johan Botes.
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