Who we are.
Why we're here.
How we build together.

01

Why We Exist

There is no shortage of extraordinary artists. There is a shortage of accessible, well-supported opportunities for them to be seen, paid, and given room to grow.

Independent performers are frequently expected to create their own work, promote themselves, provide their own costumes and materials, travel, rehearse, and perform while receiving little or no compensation. Artists from marginalized communities face additional barriers to funding, institutional support, professional development, and access to established stages.

FemMenThem was created to help change that.

We believe artists deserve more than exposure. Artists deserve investment.

Our goal is to build an organization capable of consistently putting resources directly into the hands of performers while creating the infrastructure that allows independent art and community-driven performance to thrive.

02

What We Do

FemMenThem produces live shows, special events, collaborative productions, workshops, community programming, and opportunities for artists to develop and present original work.

Our programming intentionally brings together performers across disciplines, identities, generations, and levels of experience. An emerging artist may share a stage with an established professional. A drag performer may appear alongside a poet, dancer, musician, burlesque artist, or circus performer.

That cross-pollination is part of the point.

We want artists to meet one another, audiences to encounter work they might never otherwise see, and new collaborations to begin because people were given a reason to be in the same room.

And whenever possible, we pay the people who make that room possible.

As we grow, our priority is to increase artist compensation, commission new work, expand programming, create educational and professional-development opportunities, and provide more pathways for performers to turn their creative practice into sustainable paid work.

03

Our Mission

FemMenThem exists to amplify underrepresented voices through performance, create equitable paid opportunities for artists, and build community through bold, accessible, multidisciplinary art.

We use performance as a vehicle for creative expression, cultural exchange, visibility, education, joy, resistance, and connection.

Our long-term vision is not simply to produce successful shows. It is to help build a stronger and more sustainable creative ecosystem in which artists who have historically been asked to survive at the margins have the resources and opportunities to build lasting careers.

04

Building More Than a Stage

A performance can last ten minutes. The impact of investing in an artist can last much longer.

We want FemMenThem to become a resource artists can return to—not only for a booking, but for community, collaboration, mentorship, skill sharing, professional connections, and opportunities to experiment with work that might not have a home elsewhere.

We also recognize that strong arts communities cannot exist in isolation. They require venues, producers, educators, nonprofits, local businesses, cultural institutions, organizers, audiences, volunteers, donors, and neighbors who understand that independent art is part of a healthy community.

That is why collaboration is central to our work.

05

Who We Want to Work With

We are actively building relationships with artists and performers across disciplines; venues and cultural institutions; nonprofit and community organizations; educators and arts professionals; photographers, designers, filmmakers, producers, and other creative workers; local businesses and corporate partners; foundations and philanthropic organizations; sponsors; individual donors; volunteers; and people who simply believe that artists deserve to be paid for their labor.

We are especially interested in partnerships that allow us to create opportunities with communities rather than simply programming for them.

If your organization has a stage, classroom, meeting space, funding, equipment, expertise, audience, or other resource that could help artists create and earn, we want to talk.

06

Where Your Support Goes

Fundraising allows FemMenThem to move beyond what can be sustained through ticket sales alone.

Contributed support helps us pay performers and creative workers, produce new programming, commission original work, subsidize community events, provide rehearsal and production resources, improve accessibility, document artists' work professionally, develop workshops and educational programming, and bring opportunities to artists who may not otherwise have access to them.

As our funding grows, so does our ability to pay more artists—and pay them better.

We are building a diversified funding model that includes individual giving, recurring donors, grants, sponsorships, community partnerships, fundraising events, in-kind support, and earned revenue from performances and programming.

This model matters because we do not believe the financial survival of independent art should rest entirely on how many tickets artists can sell.

07

Why Invest in FemMenThem?

Supporting FemMenThem is an investment in people. It means helping an artist pay rent with their art. It means giving someone their first professional booking—or their fiftieth. It means making room for work that traditional institutions may overlook. It means keeping independent performance alive while building audiences that value it.

It also means recognizing something fundamental:

Art is labor. Culture has value. Representation requires resources. And artists deserve to be paid.

Every donation, sponsorship, partnership, ticket purchase, shared resource, and introduction expands what we are able to offer the people who step onto our stages.

08

Help Us Build What Comes Next

FemMenThem began by creating a stage. Now we are building the infrastructure around it. We are looking for people and organizations who want to help us create more performances, employ more artists, develop new programs, reach new communities, and build a sustainable organization capable of supporting this work for years to come. Whether you are an artist looking for a stage, an organization looking for a community partner, a business interested in sponsorship, a foundation seeking impactful arts programming, or an individual who simply wants more extraordinary queer art to exist in the world, there is a place for you in what we're building.

Fund the art. Pay the artists. Build the community.