Meet Jean and Lou: Creators of Dramageddon
1. Tell us a bit about yourself
Jean is a writer, dramaturg and director, and Lou is a comedian and composer. We usually work in theatre and have a strong focus on queer work and social satire, and we mainly work together because we both love big dumb jokes.
Our previous theatre credits include lesbian musical ROMEO IS NOT THE ONLY FRUIT (Green Room Award Nominee Best Writing and Best Ensemble) and drag extravaganza LOU WALL’S DRAG RACE (Best Emerging Artist Winner, Melbourne Fringe). We’re also currently developing a musical called FLAT EARTHERS: THE MUSICAL (alongside James Gales/Lighthouser), which had a reading at Arts Centre Melbourne earlier this year.
This is the first podcast we’ve ever made, and it’s been a steep learning curve but it’s also been exciting to come at the form pretty fresh, and leaning into the freedom of doing whatever feels right and testing things out together.
2. Tell us about Dramageddon - what motivated you to begin and continue the project?
Climate change is at the forefront of our generation’s minds (the immediacy of COVID-19 aside). It’s an impending and omnipresent threat that will increasingly affect everything.
The very real threat of violence and hardship incited by events like climate change exacerbate positions of privilege – which means queer communities, along with the intersecting marginalised groups including Blak & POC folk, people with disability, financially vulnerable people and rural communities, are at much higher risk from the fallout.
By putting our community in a position where they are able to talk about climate change hypothetically, through the safe lens of fiction, we hope to draw out a different form of discourse around the topic. One in which queer people can openly discuss their politics whilst also having a laugh at the ludicrously extreme nature of classic apocalypse tropes.
We believe in humour as an extremely useful tool to navigate stress and trauma. Through Dramageddon we use comedy as a way of lightening the mental load of engaging in potentially complex and murky territory of personal choice and political positions as we continue to work to mitigate this crisis in real life.
And frankly, we also just really wanted to see queer women and NB folk as protagonists in the cliched Hollywood-dude-kills-zombie-genre. Doesn’t everyone wish Armageddon was a little gayer?
3. How did you get into audio / podcast production?
This is actually our very first podcast. We were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. Queen Victoria Women’s Centre was looking for new online content makers and we were looking to write a podcast.
Lou has done a bit of radio in the past and had always loved the audio format. They pitched us to do an interview series and we pitched them back a queer, choose-your-own-adventure apocalypse podcast. Somehow they trusted our wild idea and Dramageddon was born.
4. What are some of your fave / most inspiring podcasts or audio works?
JT – It’s not necessarily the most inspiring per se, but Hunting Warhead stayed with me for a very long time. I also really enjoyed The Habitat.
LW – I (alongside the entire world) frothed Serial season 1 and I also really dug Hunting Warhead. Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s original How to Fail with Elizabeth Day episode also hit me in the feels.
5. What are you listening to at the moment?
JT – WeCrashed: The Rise and Fall of WeWork and Scam Goddess, because I love a good scam story. And also 7am for my sweet, sweet, daily update about what new horror we face each day.
LW – I’m loving the BBC’s Missing Crypto Queen pod, another super juicy podcast about scams and of course ABC’s Coronacast is steering my brain through this isolation. I’m also deeply into Shameless pod for my not-so-shameless fix of pop culture.
6. How do you stay motivated and on task with your project?
JT – Honestly, deadlines. I’m motivated by sheer anxiety about not meeting deadlines above anything else.
LW – Jean’s anxiety over deadlines also motivates me.
JT – We live in the same house.
7. Do you have any advice for aspiring podcast producers about how to get started?
There are a huge number of podcasts out there (and these social distancing measures are probably gonna give us a whole bunch more) so our advice would be to make sure you know what makes yours special.
For us, we found our uniqueness by amalgamating mediums we were interested in. We really loved the fictional world building heard in radio plays, the real-life interview format of podcasts and the choose-your-own-adventure design of video games. So we thought we’d combine the three by putting real life people into fictional situations to talk about real life. Simple, right?
Whilst it’s a crowded market, there are always niches and they lead to gaps in the market. If you know of any other queer, Melbourne-based, climate change apocalypse, choose-your-own-adventure podcast tell them we’re suing!
8. Which 3 audio makers would you love to pick the brains of, and why?
Alex Blumberg (Gimlet Media) – We love nerds and nerd topics and Blumberg is obviously a HUGE NERD. Don’t tag him.
Elizabeth Day (How to Fail with Elizabeth Day) – We (Lou) really want to know what Phoebe Waller-Bridge is like IRL.
Sarah Koenig (Serial) – We’d love to know how one person can be both a tenacious crime investigator and also have the voice of an angel.