The MITF is a theater festival, presenting plays, musicals, cabaret, and solo shows (including standup), with pieces as long as 120 minutes or as short as one minute, running over three weeks in July (with an initial, additional week of technical rehearsals and special performances).

John Chatterton started the MITF in 2000, as an offshoot of oobr (“the off-off-broadway review”). Chatterton suspended it in 2018, after 18 seasons. He has since seen an opportunity to revive it, making some changes to reflect what he learned during its previous incarnation. MITF was also a response to the existence of FringeNYC (the New York International Fringe Festival). One of the oobr writers suggested that New York needed a “Midtown Fringe” to compete with the downtown Fringe; no one stepped up to create such a festival, so Chatterton took the necessary steps and brought the MITF into being.