About Me
Welcome to my website!
I'm Fernanda Mandagará — a Brazilian-Latinx actress, playwright, producer, voice-over artist, and cabaret performer based in London (and São Paulo for work). I’m passionate about theatre as a political and transformative tool, and over the past 20+ years I’ve worked as an actress, writer, producer, and co-creator of original work for stage and screen.
My creations blend humour, physical theatre, and a touch of tropical surrealism with a burlesque-drag aesthetic. I'm also the creator of Lola del Fuego, my cabaret persona who brings glitter, sass, and satire to the stage.
I trained at East15 Acting School (UK), where I completed the MA Acting (International) programme — including a residency at Shakespeare’s Globe — and earned my BA in Acting from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), with a strong foundation in physical theatre, drawing from methods such as Grotowski, Barba, Lecoq, and Laban.
In 2009, I co-founded Teatro Enlatado in São Paulo, where our original show Drive-Thru toured nationally. I also collaborated with acclaimed Brazilian companies such as Cia dos Outros, Cemitério de Automóveis and Os Satyros.
Since moving to the UK, I've performed at major venues including the Barbican (A 24-Decade History of Popular Music), Royal Vauxhall Tavern, Camden People’s Theatre, VAULT Festival, and more. I’ve also directed productions like The End of All Miracles (Albany Theatre) and authored the solo show Tropicalia Island, a dark comedy about immigration, which premiered at VAULT Festival and toured to CASA Festival and Edinburgh Fringe.
As a playwright, I also created Invisible Museum, a surreal and poetic piece about invisibility, memory and resilience, now being adapted into a short film. In 2025, I wrote Out of Frame, a devised production exploring identity, language and belonging, in collaboration with young artists from LatinX Youth Theatre, where I worked as a creative leader.
In 2019, I received an Arts Council England grant to deepen my cabaret practice, training with Michael Twaits (The Art of Drag), Rubyyy Jones (Queerlesque), and Marisa Carnesky (Radical Cabaret). As Lola del Fuego, I’ve performed at venues like Duckie, Bar Wotever, Soho Theatre and the Barbican, and was selected for Burlesque Idol 2025.
I love working across disciplines, styles and languages (Portuguese, English and Spanish), and I’m always open to new collaborations — on stage, screen or glitter.
Explore the site to learn more about my work.
For bookings, collaborations or Lola’s next act, feel free to get in touch.
With love,
Fernanda
