We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lady Beaver a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Lady, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What is the most meaningful project you’re working on?

Screwdale! The most hilarious project I am working on right now is a sketch comedy series on YouTube called Screwdale. Screwdale is the name of a fictional town where everybody is a little bit screwy. We are inspired by Portlandia, with sketches about quirky people, unusual beliefs and human behavior. Because we are a small town, there are recurring characters that appear throughout several sketches and we continue week by week to build a world for these characters to flourish. My sketch partner Rique and I created Screwdale in June of 2023, and we have been putting out new sketches every Friday on YouTube since July of 2023.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

What is the origin story of Screwdale and who is Lady Beaver?

My artist name is Lady Beaver and I met my sketch partner Rique while I was doing creative direction and some acting for the music video, “Drive It Like You Stole It,” by Ava King in 2020. Rique was hired to be an actor in the video, and I immediately vibed with him and thought he was super talented. I remember in one of our first hangouts after the shoot, he mentioned that he wrote music and I got really excited, because I also write music and make music videos as Lady Beaver. I knew after that first video collaboration that I wanted to work more with him on future projects.

I have identified as the artist Lady Beaver since 2013. I am a high school art teacher, and I created my Lady Beaver persona after the HR department at my school asked to take down my artist website, which was under my real name. My artist identity is extremely important to me and my sense of well-being. I am a visual artist with a MFA from Pratt Institute, School of Art & Design, and while studying there I created a series called the Beaver Monologues inspired by flyers for the Vagina Monologues I saw around campus. I find it fascinating that in the English language, we have slang words and phrases to represent sexual organs, breasts, and masturbation references (pussy cat, cock, beaver, hooters, choke the chicken, flog the dolphin, spank the monkey, etc.). I am inspired by the absurdism of human behavior and drew brutally honest comics for over 10 years where I starred as the main character and documented my life. After moving to Los Angeles in 2014, I studied improv and sketch comedy at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade and afterwards hosted the improv show Minor League Harold Night at The Clubhouse in Hollywood for 5 years. I started making Lady Beaver music videos in 2013, which have won several awards in various film festivals.

I was approached by Film Sprint Film Festival in August 2022, to create a mockumentary for their online film festival challenge. I created The Anita Beaver Show, a comedy sketch which examines horrible first dates, along with artist Vestigial Kale. I acted as 5 different women, and Rique played the role of the “Stage 5 Clinger” bad date, which is based on a true story. I won best actress and the audience choice award. Rique acted again with me in a following Anita Beaver Show horror comedy sketch for Film Sprint Urban Legends in October 2022, where we won the audience choice award again. I also asked Rique to be a spirit dancer in my music video, We Are Artists, which debuted at the Hive Gallery & Studios Video Show in June 2023 and was selected as a finalist for Best Music Video in FilmHaus festival, in Berlin, Germany.

My life changed when my artist friend Perpetual Fungus told me to submit a video to Jim Garrett’s Hot 30 Shorts, a 30-second film festival with an emphasis on comedy that screens at El Cid in Los Angeles twice a year. The videos were so funny, and I felt blessed to be part of that creative community. I was exposed to some amazing comedy video artists, including Yerfdog, Kyle Helf, and Sethward, and discovered another comedy video show called Show and Tell, a monthly gathering of unpublished comedy videos. I called Rique afterwards, very excited to tell him about Hot 30, and I asked him if he would want to make a comedy video with me for Show and Tell. A few days later, he called me and asked if I wanted to create a sketch comedy video series about a fictional town, and we came up with the name Screwdale. Why Screwdale? Because everyone is a little screwy. Because Screwdale reminded us of Riverdale and gives our city a school presence. Because I want to screw Dale. And because, “Screw you, Dale!” We liked all the various meanings and interpretations for a comedy sketch series about a quirky and bizarre town of people with their own unique behaviors and beliefs.

Rique and I started filming for Screwdale in June 2023. We put our very first Screwdale sketch about a fortune telling dog named Madam Allagash in that month’s Show and Tell, which we released on YouTube the first Friday in July. Madam Allagash also stars the hilarious Lee Fariq, who also makes videos, art and music and is a fellow resident artist at the Hive Gallery with me. Rique edited our sketches on Adobe Premiere Pro and posted a new Screwdale sketch every Friday on our Screwdale YouTube.

On June 11, 2023, I was an art vendor in The Lyric Flea, an arts and crafts fair hosted by my old improv coach of many years, Mike McLendon, at The Lyric Hyperion. I was excited about Screwdale and was talking about it to some of the people there, and two people I met that day were very excited about it too: Bree Howard and Jacob Alden Roa. We immediately became friends and I invited them over to the next Screwdale shoot, where we all improvised characters who almost get arrested by police officer Lieutenant Leeds, played by Rique, but he lets them all go in the end.

Our first written sketch was for a sketch about Screwdale’s very own boy band, called Street Motion, where we were joined by actor Robert Michael Grant. In the sketch, our boy band characters struggle to come up with their first big single in the recording studio. It was discovered after they ordered pizza that the song should be called Stuff Your Crust, comparing pizza to the love of a woman. I wrote the song, “Stuff Your Crust,” with Rique, and he sang the main vocals on the track. Since then, Street Motion has created a second single for Christmas called Snow Angel Baby (that I wrote with Rique), where I performed a rap breakdown as my character Cory Timberloon.

Rique and I are frequently the directors, writers, actors, editors, graphic designers, songwriters, singers, choreographers, and dancers of Screwdale. Rique edited all the Screwdale sketches by himself for many months until he started to lose his mind, so I started editing sketches on Adobe Premiere Pro with Rique’s guidance and support to help lighten the load. Rique is an amazing editing mentor and acting coach, as well as friend who re-organized all the costumes and insane amount of clothes in my closet at home. Our quick editing style is inspired by comedian Brandon Rogers, who also produces comedy sketches on YouTube. Bree Howard also writes, directs, acts, sings, and recently started editing Screwdale sketches as well. We have had many artists come through Screwdale to play, including Perpetual Fungus, Buck Official, Carlos Cornejo, Kimy Kask, JSalvador Ramos, Jazmin Jude, Anna Katrina McBride, flyingstardust, Sean Humphries, Teod Tomlinson, Matt Deifer, Steve Waldinger, and Eric Hedlund. Screwdale is a community of weirdos, just like in real life! What is screwy about you?

Subscribe to @Screwdale on YouTube for weekly comedy sketches released every Friday!

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Netflix show! And/or other creative opportunities.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cityofscrewdale
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Screwdale
• Other: https://linktr.ee/screwdale

Image Credits
1. Rique 2. Rique, Lady Beaver, Bree Howard, Jacob Alden Roa, Robert Michael Grant 3. Rique, Lady Beaver 4. Matt Deifer 5. Lady Beaver, flyingstardust 6. Rique, Bree Howard, Robert Michael Grant, Lady Beaver, Jacob Alden Roa 7. Teod Tomlinson 8. Jacob Alden Roa 9. Rique, Lady Beaver, Bree Howard, Robert Michael Grant, Jacob Alden Roa 10. Rique