A personal experience, by Jessica Knight
I was about to embark on one of the most exciting creative experiences I ever thought possible. My one-woman show, Mormon Girl, which premiered at the 2019 Melbourne Fringe Festival, was going to get a six-show run at The Malthouse Theatre during Melbourne International Comedy Festival. But then COVID-19 and all its scariness hit. With it came the Melbourne lockdowns. The grief of my lost comedy festival opportunity hit me hard.
While I took bubble baths and struggled to even listen to music, I watched other creative people pivot and simply start doing other things and doing them well. I scrolled social media and simply hated myself.
It is very weird talking about sexually explicit moments from your past when your only live audience member is your cameraman boyfriend. The first filming night was a disaster. I was terrible and awkward and in a bad mood. The second time we did it, a week later, was better.
My partner spent hours editing the video and fixing the sound quality. I had a lovely person named Jacci Pillar do the captions on the YouTube video so my deaf friends and the deaf community could also enjoy my show about trying to find yourself outside of a patriarchal religion.
Mormon Girl is also a show about how I had no idea I was a part of the disability community. My parents never used the word disability. I just assumed everything I failed to do was my fault and not the faut of a system that marginalised disabled people who have so much to offer.
That’s why I decided to do my show in my living room during one of the many Melbourne lockdowns. I realised I had been ignoring an audience that was hungry for art and could not always go to venues and see it. So many places are inaccessible. My show’s performance venue at the comedy festival was not going to be wheelchair-accessible. I know what it’s like to miss out on things constantly due to ill health. I know how frustrating it is to be unable to see a band or a show because seats are too far away for extreme vision-impaired eyes (I have inoperable cataracts and no peripheral vision).
So I created an Eventbrite event that set a date and time for the release of the YouTube video recording of my show. I asked for a donation for booking a ticket: five dollars or more for waged people, anything or nothing for unwaged, NDIS or chronically ill people with low incomes. I released the video and now the link to it is in my Twitter and Instagram bios.
It felt good to be proactive and take matters into my own hands. I worked so hard on writing and preparing my show. I want people to see it, even if not how it was originally meant to be experienced. And with Melbourne now enduring yet another lockdown, what better time to watch a show written and performed by a creative disabled person, in the comfort of your own home?
