LUNATIC CIRCVS

What it's for

Lunatic Circvs makes performance by and for people who aren't represented by traditional power structures: a cohort of women, femmes and thems, where everyone is welcome and men take part by lifting others up. It's built as much for people who have never been on a stage as for people who have, with coaching, skill shares and support from the first idea to the final costume.

It runs on a social contract: informed consent, privacy and safety in person and online, critique ideas not individuals. And it's community, not commerce: proceeds are split fairly and openly among everyone who made the show.

The name

Lunatic comes from luna, the moon, and the moon has long been tied to the menstrual cycle. Like hysteria (from the Greek for womb), it is old clinical language that turned ordinary parts of women's lives into illness, which makes it a dismissal of the female experience in one word. Naming the org after it takes the word back.

The spelling follows one rule: v where the word is Latin (CIRCVS), u where it is English (Lunatic).

Built for it

A private website for the cast, made for phones: this season's dates, rehearsal notes and booking, every message sent so far (filtered to your role), and a guide to how the year works, from rehearsals and privacy to the social contract. Invitations come next.

Performers' identities stay private: no names or photos here.