The Joy of F*cking Trans Women
Zoë Lina Comeau is an Acadian playwright, performer, director, and producer based in Kjipuktuk/Halifax.
Zoë Lina Comeau (she/her) performed F*cking Trans Women for the first time in her hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia. But her Mom had some doubts.
“My Mom told me she wasn’t going to come,” recalls Zoë. “My mom’s a very proud, religious woman. She was like: ‘I can’t handle it. I don’t know if I even want to be in the crowd of people who want to see a show like that.’ And I said: ‘Mom, it’s not that bad. It’s not what you think it’s about. Yes, it talks about sex. But that’s not what the play’s about.’”
“In the end, my Mom came to the show almost every single night,” Zoë smiles. “She would invite her friends from her church to come with her. They would wait for me at the end of every show so they could congratulate me and tell me how powerful it was.”
“I was expecting protests at first, to be honest,” Zoë confides. “What with the recent rise of transphobia. Me and my trans girlies, we talk,” Zoë emphasizes, “we trade horror stories. transphobia does exist.”
But the response to Zoë’s play has been nothing less than electric.
“Every performance felt like a spiritual experience. I went on stage and found myself in front of a whole audience who wanted to be there. They bought tickets to be there, to listen,” Zoë says. “And so, I wanted to make sure that I respected the ever living fuck out of my audience. I made sure everyone knew that they were supported. They laughed, and they cried.”
“I would stay onstage after the curtain call in case people wanted to talk to me, and I would have line ups of people calling me their trans big sister, calling me the representation they needed,” she shares. “All these people telling me all these stories about their trans awakenings, their experiences, their feelings.”
“And that’s when I knew my play was powerful.”
The Fringe Festival experience invites Audiences to take a creative chance, challenge perspectives, and discover the transformative power of storytelling. See Zoë’s show F*cking Trans Women at Venue 3, Nordic Studio Theatre. Get your tickets now at fringetheatre.ca.
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