in other news… Telling our Stories: Gayby Baby

Last night I gave a speech at the launch of a pozible crowdfunding campaign to raise money for the production of Gayby Baby. For me this documentary is special because it celebrates the kind of family I was raised in – one with same sex parents – and it also celebrates the kind of family I hope to make one day.

For the past couple of years Maya Newell (herself a child of two wonderful mothers), Charlotte McLellan and their team have worked tirelessly to get this film produced and they now need $100,000 to get it finished. Please read my little speech below and then consider supporting this wonderful film.

xxx Maeve

Maya asked me to speak tonight as a grown up gayby. Indeed, I was raised by two lesbians, Louise and Teresa, a pharmacist and a librarian. They were, in many ways, spectacularly stereotypical – vegetarian, left-wing, overall-wearing, hairy-legged feminists who took us to Reclaim the Night and Mardi Gras, and taught us to be questioning, curious, thoughtful young people.

They even allowed their stereotype to develop with the times! When lesbian chic set in the late 90s, my mothers headed to the beautician in the throes of some vanity renaissance, waxing their legs and getting about town in Ben Sherman shirts and expensive haircuts. But I digress…

I stand before you as evidence that same sex parenting will not result in a plague of damaged, confused children roaming the earth sobbing for their fatherless – or motherless – youth. Young people like me, like my brother and sister, like Maya and many others are the grown up proof that queer parenting works.

We are not broken. Indeed, many would call us upstanding citizens. Personally, I think this is irrelevant. I think that even if I weren’t an upstanding citizen, two people of the same sex or gender should be allowed to procreate. But that is because I see no fundamental difference in the human rights of people of different sexualities, and because I believe that family is about love, care, support and education, not biology. Unfortunately, I am still in a minority with these beliefs.

Tonight, however, I am not going to rant at you about rights or laws or the politics of this issue, which, for anyone that knows me, will be a bit of a surprise. I want to talk about storytelling, and the importance of people like me, and Maya and the young people in her film, telling their stories.

A year or so ago, I watched a movie called The Kids are Alright. For anyone who hasn’t seen this film, it’s about a family with two teenage kids and lesbian mums, played by Julianne Moore and Annette Bening. The teenage son wants to find their sperm donor so they look him up and contact him. He starts hanging out with the family, commences an affair with one of the mums, is discovered and then – thank god – is summarily rejected by the whole family.

For a long time, I boycotted this film. Finally, there was a lesbian mums film, and it had to be about the sperm donor? Worse: about one of the lesbian mothers having an affair with the sperm donor! I was appalled!

WHY did the First Lesbian Mothers Film have to be about the sperm, when there is so much more to our families than this? Why did it have to imply that something was missing in these childrens’ lives? And, why was the heterosexual sex in the film visceral and passionate, juxtaposed with hilarious lesbian bed death between Julianne Moore and Annette Bening? I can guarantee you that if I were having sex with Julianne Moore and Annette Bening, it would not be dull!

Look. The Kids are Alright is a well written film, with full characters and a bright script. It would have been ok – good even – if I had already seen five or fifty films about a variety of lesbian families, with a variety of stories. But I hadn’t.

About an hour after watching it I found myself in sudden tears, halfway through brushing my teeth, hunched over the sink, sobbing loudly, realising that I had just seen my family on screen for the first time in 27 years. This film which irritated me, and offended my politics and ideas about what sort of stories we should be telling about queer families, had a huge emotional effect on me – because it was the first time I had seen anything resembling my family in a movie.

I watched a lesbian family with teenage children struggle with issues I recognised. I saw a lesbian family deal with infidelity and dishonesty. I cried for the parts of my family I’ve lost and those we hold onto fiercely and cherish. I saw the subtle differences that occur when two women parent together; differences I can’t state publicly without hideous generalisation, but marked differences that fellow children of lesbians mothers would have seen too. Moments and lines and feelings we have seen and said and felt.

I was 27 and I had never seen my family on screen, never had narratives that reflected my own, never had movies or novels or television shows that legitimised my experiences, allowed me to laugh at them, or gave me the catharsis I got watching that stupid movie. The Kids are Alright made me cry because of what it got wrong, but also because of what it got so right.

This is why projects like Gayby Baby are important. We tell our stories to fight for our rights – so that bigots and fools who say we don’t deserve to exist will hopefully hear us and eventually come around. But we also need to tell them because kids like us need narratives that reflect our lives, the diversity of our experience and the diversity of our families. We need stories that aren’t just about our rights, but are about our lives, our characters, our romances and tragedies, our laughter, our mistakes, our family holidays, our idiosyncracies and our conversations at the dinner table.

So please, spread the word about Gayby Baby, about the crowdfunding campaign and the need for donations. If you can afford to donate, please do. The community needs to hear these stories, the kids in these families need to hear these stories, my kids will one day need to hear these stories and I still need to hear these stories.

Thank you.

Please donate and/or share this link via social media, email, whatever other channels you have: www.pozible.com/gaybybabythemovie

Please also like Gayby Baby on facebook and follow them on twitter.

oh hello there

We’re back! We’re all back (well, except Chandra who is roaming about Europe til January and still hasn’t sent us postcards). The hot pink has faded from our cheeks, our cobblestone injuries have healed, we’ve all stopped getting an eye twitch when we hear the word ‘flyer’ and none of us have worn a tutu in weeks!

So what’s up next for blackcat productions and Lady Sings it Better?

We’re jumping back in the cabaret saddle with a short set at Twenty10‘s thirtieth birthday shindig this Saturday night. Twenty10 is a wonderful organisation, supporting LGBTQI youth and their families and we’re thrilled to be involved. The Sydney Gay & Lesbian Choir will also be performing and we can’t wait to catch up with them. Speaking of which, here we are singing Whitney Houston with them (I know, I know, she isn’t a man, but we decided to branch out because this is one of the Best Songs Ever):

After Twenty10, Lady will be in rehearsal lock down to ensure we have a fabulous new show for you in time for Sydney Mardi Gras and Adelaide Fringe 2013! Stay tuned for dates and details… You’ll also meet our shiny new MD in the new year (if you are interested in auditioning to be Lady Sings it Better’s Musical Director, please get in touch).

blackcat are also looking to expand our portfolio of acts and events. We’ll be hunting young and emerging cabaret stars in Adelaide (hunting them in a nice way, not a stalky way; I save my stalking for large-bottomed lesbian comedians). We’re also planning a bunch of fabulousness for Sydney Fringe 2013 and we’re hoping to start a monthly cabaret night in the second half of the year.

So, not too much on… Ha.

What’ve you been up to?

x Maeve

Celebrating the older LGBTQI woman

blackcat are thrilled to have been contracted to produce a launch event for 55Upitty, the wonderful creation of one of Maeve’s mums, Teresa, and blackcat’s favourite photographer, Viv McGregor.

Gail Hewison

55Upitty is an online collaborative interview and photography project that celebrates the older LGBTI woman. The site features text and beautiful photographs, and we challenge you not to tear up and be inspired by these community leaders!

Said Teresa, “55Upitty is about challenging people’s ideas about older LGBTI women; it’s about our feisty over-55 upitty women. We want to pull apart the clichés about women and aging; about the diminishing of sexuality and the relaxation of passions; about what older dykes and queers and lezzos wear and think and believe. Diversity, political awareness and activism, style and beauty, so valued and represented in youth-oriented queer cultures, is not the sole purview of the young, and this project aims to represent—through collaboration, photographic portraits, and interviews—the older LGBTI woman. This project aims to record the history of women who have been, and the women who still are, involved in lesbian, feminist, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer activism and culture, but also to represent that we are still here. That age does not make us irrelevant, asexual, harmless, style-less, conservative, invisible, or insignificant. This project also creates a living archive, not to be merely relegated to dusty history, but a present-archive, mapping and representing our past, our present and our visions of the future.”

Jude Irwin

The launch event will take the form of a panel discussion featuring the women who have been profiled on the site. The audience will be encouraged to ask questions and contribute to discussion. We’ll also feature a multimedia display of images from the site. We’ll finish the evening with music performed by older LGBTI women. Oh, and there’ll be booze and catering of course!

We are very excited to be working with Viv and Teresa, and to be including this event in our Mardi Gras season. One of our favourite things about our audiences is the broad age range represented, and a key aim of our company is producing entertainment that appeals to different age groups, bringing community together for music and celebration. This event fits perfectly with our ethos!

For more Mardi Gras news, stay tuned!

Edinburgh…one week on

It’s hard to believe it’s only been a week since our closing night. Enough time to return to normal sleeping patterns, farewell most of the team (only Linda, Libby and I remain in London, while Phoebe’s is on her way to Paris as we speak) and squeeze in a Scottish highlands road trip and a few west end musicals.

I’m not sure a week is enough time to truly reflect on the impact our tour has had (or will have) on our little company, but I am going to give it a go, while the memories are fresh and the exhaustion is still creeping round my limbs… These are only my (Maeve’s) reflections and lessons learned. If you want to hear about the others, you’ll have to ask them!

A lot of people asked me throughout the tour whether I was “having fun”. For the first couple of weeks, I felt really guilty about my inclination to say “no”. It’s not that I was unhappy, or that there weren’t joyful, hilarious or inspiring moments, but “fun” didn’t feel like the right word.

Performing and producing in Edinburgh was physically and emotionally exhausting. Phoebe and I managed a hectic schedule of shows, meetings, workshops and planning; we felt responsible for 9 other people’s well being (9 amazing other people, but we’ll get to that later); and we were constantly assessing ourselves along the way, noting mistakes or errors in judgment, acutely aware of the three years’ work that had lead to this moment, not to mention the investment of time, energy and money from the Lady team and our wonderful friends, family and supporters at home.

We weren’t “having fun” because we were at work, every day for five weeks, from when we woke up until bedtime. But what wonderful work it was. What a privilege for one’s work to be so creative, so challenging and inspiring, surrounded by thousands of other artists, all equally invested in this one huge event. The month was a glimpse of the career we’re trying to build together.

I lost count of the excited conversations Phoebe and I shared over dinner or a post-show drink, analysing the latest cabaret we’d seen (we saw a lot), debating touring schedules and plans for the next two years, pouring over sales reports and reviews, deciding upon the next day’s schedule before Phoebe posted it on the fridge, weighing up priorities and strategising best approaches to get more “bums on seats”. These conversations will form the basis for what we do next as a company, our partnership so much stronger having survived (and indeed thrived) through the past 5 weeks, without argument or even major disagreement.

We shared some great times with the gang, countless onstage winks and smiles, careening through the rain on opening night to perform at the Spiegeltent, the excitement when The Scotsman emailed us to arrange a photoshoot, delirious antics in the second or third hour of flyering, quiet (and sometimes not-so-quiet) chats at home, and that wonderful moment when we got our first 5 star review and our kitchen erupted in claps and cheers.

Feedback from those we met confirmed what we already knew (or at least hoped) to be true about the company we’ve built. Audiences gave warm accolades outside the venue; crew said working with Phoebe and Linda was a dream; Karen Koren (Artistic Director of Gilded Balloon) said we’d be welcome again, not just because we were good, but because she had seen how hard we worked; sometimes people in the street declined our flyers, then did a double take and walked back to get one, saying that they’d heard about us; and – perhaps my favourite acknowledgement that this company works – one reviewer said “the friendships wash over from the stage with mutual respect, love and gratitude.”

The month wasn’t without its challenges or issues. Some of us got sick, and the strain on a few voices, including my own, got pretty stressful sometimes. But the voices held out, belting out the notes night after night. Personally, I spent the first two weeks convinced I was about to lose my voice. I think half my problem was anxiety and jet lag, rather than vocal injury. I made some mistakes balancing the competing needs of my role as performer, producer and director, but I know I learnt a lot and will be better next time.

Living in close quarters with 11 other people had its interesting moments… We all had different sleeping schedules, and approaches to tidiness and cleanliness. Also, there was only one bathroom. Ponder that for a minute. We broke the door handle to the lounge room in week 1, and the fridge in week 2, the shower didn’t drain so well by week 3 and by week 4 most of us had given up cooking in the kitchen. But we coped, and I saw some really lovely friendships develop, support or a hug always available when someone needed it. Sometimes hugs were available even when one didn’t need them, but such are the occupational hazards of working with affectionate people!

We did some great ‘networking’ with other artists and promoters – amusingly much of it with other Australians. These connections will form the basis of much of what we do next year, and we’ve some exciting plans afoot… We were humbled by some of the amazing performers we saw, work which helped us cast a critical eye on our own show and practice, and which will make us better artists. We also saw some complete crap, but I won’t name names for fear of bad performer karma!

I think what stood out the most, in terms of an overall ‘feeling’ was that this career, this life is possible. That with hard work and focused energy, we can keep working as performers, musicians, directors, producers and crew, and that in future we could even earn a living from it. We had been so focused on Edinburgh as a goal, something to work towards, an ending to the journey. But it was just a point in time along the way, a stepping stone to a career in the arts and a milestone for this fledgling company (please excuse my mixed stone metaphors!)

On behalf of Phoebe and myself, I want to thank, firstly, Chandra, Libby, Belinda, Monique, Jenni, Lauren, Joe, Hannah and Linda – for their time, energy, commitment, passion and talent, for having faith in us and letting us learn to be producers on their watch, for getting on stage every night and delivering their best, and lastly for their humour. I thanked the company at our farewell do for being so fabulously weird. A month with them showed me all their wonderful idiosyncrasies, and it was a joy to get to know this fabulous collection of hilarious, lovely, warm and clever weirdos a little better!

Thanks also to our support in Edinburgh – Gilded Balloon staff and crew, Tim Hawkins, each night’s audience and the family and friends who visited us. Also, thank you so much to everyone at home who made this adventure possible, through donations, support, attendance at our gigs, raffle ticket purchases, conversations, extended leave from work and so on and so forth…

I don’t know how to end this blog and perhaps that’s as it should be. Here’s to the next adventure!

xxx Maeve

To miss or not to miss

I won’t miss sharing a house with 11 other people.

I will miss those people.

I won’t miss wiping off the remnants of last night’s make up so I can put on today’s.

I will miss wearing a tutu in public. Daily.

I won’t miss carrying a backpack full of clothes everywhere.

I will miss being able to walk everywhere.

I won’t miss exhaustion, no rest, constant scheduled mayhem.

I will miss Phoebe writing my daily schedule and sticking it to the fridge. And I will miss Phoebe, her humour, directness, love of gin and appreciation of wonderful cabaret. I will miss her humouring my nightly checks that it was a good show, and my nightly quests to stalk yet another lesbian comedian.

I won’t miss the songs Jenni makes up before 11am – the most memorable was ‘Oh no my shirt’s still wet’.

I will miss her joyful singing when it occurs at a respectable hour.

I won’t miss the pressure to do and see and much as humanly possible.

I will miss being constantly surrounded by art, music, humour, play, inspiration, and joy.

In a way, I already miss not knowing what this adventure would hold. All that hope and unknown has been replaced by memories and fact. But I am already plotting the next adventure, the next step in this absurd career, this bizarre lifestyle choice. And so the planning and dreaming and wishin’ and hopin’ becomes a constant. And it’s the reason I am doing this. Because despite exhaustion and mess and irritation and nerves and fear and stress and empty bank accounts, the promise of doing something like this again is completely exhilarating.

xxx Maeve