Supporting The Stage

I love my job because I created it. And from it I get to support other artists, entertain crowds, and have a laugh. Three years ago in conjunction with my friend Malika, we created Cocoa And Butter Productions, a profit-sharing production company that promotes diversity of talent and helps to support performers as they develop their skills.

The first show we created was called She’ll be Right and the idea was to focus on promoting female talent in the area by creating a safe and supportive place for women of all different skills and skill levels to perform. We’ve had everything from stand-up comedians, poets, and musicians to jugglers and acrobats. Performers as young as seven, all the way up to women in their eighties.

But the question is why? We spend hours of our time promoting the performers and our shows. We get there early to set up, are the last ones to leave, and spend the evenings making sure everything goes smoothly, which often involves quite a bit of stress. So why would we as performers divert so much time and effort to doing something that doesn’t really make us any money or help us advance our own careers? And the answer is love.

We met so many talented women who told us that a large part of the reason they didn’t perform much was that they didn’t have a space that they felt welcome. There’s still a lot of gender bias in the performing arts, particularly in the world of stand-up comedy, which still has a ruling ‘boys club’. None of the men I’ve ever met intentionally tried to exclude women or meant any harm but as shows are often in pubs and male-dominated it is easy for women to not feel comfortable. Both my partner Malika and myself had each been introduced at some point as ‘The Token Female’ and told that our kind of comedy didn’t really work. We had both spent time and money dragging ourselves to different open mics with small audiences, trying to practice our craft and not really having the chance. And so we decided to make the opportunity, not just for ourselves but also for other women like us, and eventually everyone.

We found our first venue, a soon to open events space in an old service station that aligned with our concern for the environment, inclusive safe spaces, and people over profit. And from our very first show, we had something different and special. We had people perform for the very first time with us, saying that our space made them feel safe enough to finally try. We had a performer overcome my emotion start to cry in earnest and their set ended in a group hug with half the audience. We've had people travel over two hours every month since we opened just to see our show. And night after night we’ve had a great time supporting some amazing talents.

In this industry, often it is only the headline act and MC that gets paid and everyone else is out of pocket. Which we didn’t think was fair, while you may not have brought the crowd you did entertain them. We decided that we would take whatever we made on the door or were paid by the venue and share that money equally between all of the performers because even if it’s just enough to cover your costs, it’s still enough to cover your costs.

While all-male lineups were common enough not to cause a blinked eye, an all-female lineup was downright scandalous. And it brought many an idle hand to the keyboard to call me names and inform me that what we were doing wasn’t going to work. Bigger talents weren’t going to take a pay cut and come perform with us in the interest of supporting their fellow artist just because it was a warm and inclusive space. They also said we weren’t going to be able to fill audiences for a female show. And there weren’t actually enough female talents to run a show every month. They were wrong.

We expanded after a year, adding two more shows, no longer female-focused but still insisting on diversity amongst our performers, not just of gender but also age and background. We got a reputation not only for being highly entertaining but also for our warmth and kindness. And we were having great success filling all of our shows.

Until Covid hit and we here, in Australia, went into lockdown. The first lockdown was hard, having to cancel shows and tell performers that we didn’t know when we would be able to have them back. Not knowing if our fledgling enterprise would survive. But we did come back, socially distanced and thus smaller, but we came back. Then came lockdown number two, which is where we are now. Sitting at home daydreaming about when we will get to perform again and create spaces for our fellow artists to express themselves.

I was asked the other day if I thought I would try and bring the shows back after lockdown. After all, Australia is facing an arts industry crisis, particularly in the performing arts, which for the past year have no longer been a viable source of income. Would it not make more sense to rely on my other talents and give up performing and running shows?

And of course, that would make more sense, if I was motivated by money or prestige. But I am and have always been motivated by love. Love of performing. Love of supporting. Love of the stage.

I don’t know when but I do know I will do everything in my power to bring back the shows that we created and the supportive spaces they provided. It’s been hard times all around and I don’t think anything could be better than once again providing a safe place for people to perform and some love, light, and entertainment for our audiences.