Our Story
The Name
Lysistrata, by Aristophanes, is an ancient comedy about a group of women who collectively decide to abstain from sex with their husbands in order to get them to end the war that’s been keeping them away from home. We believe that through working together and supporting each other, womxn can build and harness a collective power that will allow us to achieve anything.
The Mission
The Lysistrata Comedy Festival is a celebration of the collective power of funny womxn. Similar to a potluck, we curate a feast of the best comedic dishes from all styles of comedy. We do so to provide an opportunity for women and non-binary people to display their comedic talents in a safe and supportive environment while honing their craft through workshops and panels. We know that by doing so, we can elevate the voices of womxn and tackle challenging topics through humor.
The History
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2022
The inaugural Lysistrata Comedy Festival was held in 2022 in New Orleans, the former home base of two of its producers. With a miniscule budget and no sponsors, we had 36 performers from all over the country spread over 3 nights of improv, stand-up, storytelling, and short films, and it was amazing.
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2023
Year 2 brought us to Austin, where we partnered with ColdTowne Theater and found 8 sponsors to help us expand to 4 nights, 59 performers or groups, and the addition of daytime workshops to our schedule. We also saw a marked increase in ticket sales.
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2024
Year 3 spread us across 3 venues and the abundance of talent - 80+ performers - led to us scheduling concurrent shows. Our stand-up headliner filmed her 3rd special at our festival, and our improv headliner was Texas’s only all-Asian improv troupe. We opened up submissions for womxn to pitch workshops for the first time, and ended up with 12 scheduled over 2 days!