The sausage fest that is comedy, whether it’s stand-up, sketch, or late-night, is tired. While there are female comics out there – Jessica Williams, Mindy Kaling, and Amy Schumer, to name a few – they are greatly outnumbered, generally billed after their male counterparts, and generally only given space to perform their craft after the public has deemed them hot enough.
Enter BanterGirl. Founded by Trish Nelson, producer of the acclaimed “Women of Letters,” BanterGirl is a new and brilliant female production company that supports the original work of female comics, or, as Nelson calls them, creators. Comics are “geniuses,” Nelson told BUST, and she wants to fund their genius. The entertainment formular (male writers with male producers and male hosts speaing to male audiences) is, as Nelson told BUST, “missing the boat.” Female creators are far, far more numerous than the current field suggests: When asked where she finds women creators, Nelson told BUST that it is “painfully easy”: “As I reached out to women saying ‘I don’t know…can you connect me to anyone?’ I would get these lists of like, ‘why yes I can, here’s 70.’ And it was just so exciting.”
BanterGirl is not only supporting female creators, but aiming to support a diversity of female creators, in terms of race, body type, sexuality, etc. They are currently crowdfunding on Seed&Spark. Creators who give $40 will have their projects considered for support. One project that was produced by BanterGirl was Carolyn Castiglia’s Right NOW!, an all-female late-night show. It truly was all-female; all the writing, directing, producing, hosting, technical work, is done by women.
BanterGirl is “comedy created by women for everyone” and we here at BUST are so excited to see the fabulous new projects they produce in the coming year!
Image via BanterGirl, video via MSNBC
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