New Fates Festival champions femme and nonbinary theatre artists
Inaugural event is a project of Promethean Theatre in collaboration with the Arts Club Theatre Company’s youth committee and features three new comedies
Mikenzie Page.
Promethean Theatre presents Fates Festival in collaboration with the Arts Club Theatre Company’s youth committee from September 13 to 15 at the Newmont Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre
FEMMES—WOMEN and nonbinary individuals face barriers in the theatre world, and the new Fates Festival is out to change that.
Mikenzie Page is a co-producer at presenting body Promethean Theatre and a performer in the festival who also works at the Arts Club Theatre Company and acts as a liaison with its youth committee. She explains that the idea for the inaugural fest—a joint project of Promethean and the Arts Club’s youth committee—first sprouted after Promethean artistic director Isaac Li (who’s currently on leave) saw a string of strong female solo shows coming out of their alma mater of Studio 58.
“It started with the realization that there really aren’t enough scripts or development programs for femme or gender-fluid artists in Vancouver at the moment, so we were curious about looking at ‘how can we cultivate more of that?’,” Page says in a Zoom interview with Stir. “I think that theatre is a very hierarchical, structured system and the barriers are big for femme and nonbinary artists—it’s almost not even talked about, it’s just known. It’s known if you’re a woman you’ll probably be treated differently and will have to work harder. It’s also known that honestly men typically will make it through with less quality of work whereas women will get kicked out sooner.
“And it’s also this question,” she continues, “of ‘Are femme students being empowered in the actual institutions when they’re learning and are they being given material that’s diverse and reflective of them and all the things women and femmes and nonbinary people can be?’ I never got to do a queer show until I graduated. I never got to do a scene with another woman that was romantic, which is my lived experience.”
Women still also hear things like they need to be more feminine if they want to get certain roles, Page says. “Those barriers just seep in and make it so that women don’t even get to the professional level or nonbinary artists don’t even get to that level because they burn out and leave or don’t think there is a place for them. How do we address that?”
That’s where the power of community comes in. When like-minded people come together to talk, brainstorm, and learn from each other, change can happen. Fates Festival will champion femme women and people who identify as women as well as nonbinary voices through workshops, vendors, and three new comedies. There are writing workshops for BIPOC femmes and for Indigenous women as well as panels on topics like doing taxes as an artist and grant writing. YVR Fat Clothing Swap came onboard and will be hosting its second-annual swap of clothes for bigger bodies that helps save up to 15 tonnes of clothing from being wasted annually.
The trio of performances includes Ugly C*nts, which Page is co-creating with writing partner Raquel Neumann. It follows two alpha-male podcasters who are dragged to hell and forced to confront their sins against humanity. The work came about while the two were observing the rise of misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate and how so many young boys are naming him as a role model.
“It actually opened our eyes to male loneliness and how the patriarchy is hurting all of us,” Page says.
Long Live Lexi Bezos, created and performed by Sophia Saugstad, is a satirical one-woman show exploring materialism, greed, and the effects of a damaged relationship between humans and nature.
Not My Colour, created and performed by Cassidy Hergott, meanwhile, is an exploration of self-confidence and femininity combining pole dance, physical comedy, and pure silliness as it follows Hergott on her first date in a new city.
It just so happened that while the team at Promethean Theatre was in the beginning phase of getting Fates Festival off the ground, an opening came up at the Arts Club Theatre Company’s Newmont Stage. That’s where the organization’s youth programming takes place, and it seemed like a perfect fit for the fest, Page says.
“There’s all the young folks who are interested in re-engaging the Newmont as a cultural space and we were really into this idea of how can we make this more of a community event?” she says. “It’s such a special, beautiful space. It’s such a good community space. It’s so accessible with gender-neutral bathrooms and it’s a fully wheelchair-accessible building. We want to bring it more to life and create it as more of this cultural hub. It’s exciting because it feels like this brand-new slate. It’s only seven years old, and we can make this place more weird and abstract and community-based for all of us to come together as a central hub.” 
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