“You start to see your life in a different way--you transform tragedy into stuff that’s just hilarious. Everything just washes off and you develop a thick skin,” said Festrogen cofounder Jess Bauldry in an interview with Delano in June 2023. Pictured: a Festrogen participant from a previous cohort. Photo: Mohsen Hoseini

“You start to see your life in a different way--you transform tragedy into stuff that’s just hilarious. Everything just washes off and you develop a thick skin,” said Festrogen cofounder Jess Bauldry in an interview with Delano in June 2023. Pictured: a Festrogen participant from a previous cohort. Photo: Mohsen Hoseini

Festrogen has announced that it will run three workshops and hold two comedy shows in October, a reprise of its main festival in June. In the view of the organisers, learning stand-up is a unique way to empower yourself with a new life skill.

“It doesn’t matter if you think you’re funny or not. At Festrogen Festival we believe that anyone who wants to can learn the tools to write and perform stand-up comedy.”

So says a press release from Festrogen, the women-centric comedy festival launched in Luxembourg in 2022. As cofounder Jess Bauldry , learning to perform stand-up can translate into core skills like confidence, self-awareness and (more obviously) humour.

The methodology, at its most basic level, appears to involve the conversion of stresses, ills, woes, rages, frustrations, despondencies and the like into strength.

“Whether you’re het up about the end of the holidays, crotchety about your next contrôle technique or wondering where you went wrong with your career, comedy is a great tool for turning all this background noise into laughter,” the press release says.

Mark your calendars

The Festrogen reprisal will take place on 27-29 October 2023 in Luxembourg City. (Find venue, timing and ticket details on .)

For aspiring jokewriters, Festrogen cofounders Anshita Koul and Erin Crouch will run a workshop on the basics of writing jokes, enabling students to draft, fine-time and workshop their (potentially) first pieces of material.

Another workshop tackles the art of being an MC: Mel Byron will be teaching how to work a crowd. “These highly useful skills can also be applied to hosting and facilitating corporate events and conferences,” says the press release.

The final workshop, run by psychologist Alexandra Neves and called “Standing up to impostor syndrome,” looks at mental health in comedy. “Going up on stage and exposing yourself (pun intended) can be very scary,” says the description in the press release. “But also very empowering. And also triggering. But also liberating.”

For their part, the two comedy shows--kicking off at 8:00pm on 27 and 28 October--will be firstly a solo show by Mel Byron called “Old movies saved my life 2” and secondly a mixed-bill show by the five Festrogen founders: Jess Bauldry, Erin Crouch, Mari Volar, Anshita Koul and Sharon VS.

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