We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Stella Cheeks. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Stella below.

Stella , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

Plan 9 Burlesque was born out of frustration and a desire to be more creatively free. We were working with a now-defunct company that profited off nerd culture without caring about the fans, audience, or fandom in any way. So we “enacted Plan 9” and left and formed our own company eleven years ago.

The great thing about nerd culture being so ubiquitous is that it’s way more accessible, and you’re not likely to get punched at recess for talking about which Star Trek Captain is the best (It’s Sisko, but Kirk gets points for style). The “bad” thing is that everyone wants to monopolize fandom without necessarily participating in fandom themselves. Which is, honestly, fine. You don’t need to have read every issue of Batman to do a Batman burlesque act. Most people will still enjoy your sexy Batman act. But the other cofounders of Plan 9 (Right This Way Robbie and Busy Beaver) and I wanted to create a space that was for the hardcore nerds to create acts that were meaningful to them and that they, frankly, may not be able to do other places. Look, not every venue can host an eight-minute Dean Winchester act that involves video screens, crying, and lots of pie. But at Plan 9, we say the weirder, the better.

Our philosophy has always been the audience doesn’t have to get every reference as long as the act is entertaining. Hell, we don’t even want you to get all the references. It’s more fun that way. I know I’ve booked acts that I didn’t understand but was entertained by! Plus, there is a perverse joy when a single audience member laughs or claps at a joke that you made.

Now that’s not to say we only do deep cuts, but rather we’re all about peppering layers and inside jokes into our acts and bits. Ideally, our shows are fun for non-nerd and hardcore nerds alike. The performers get to indulge in our very specific deep-cut fandoms, and the audience gets to enjoy a fun, nerdy show and potentially learn about a new fandom. We’re all about reverse gatekeeping. We desperately want you to like the things we like too.

Stella, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I come from a theater background. For a long time, I really wanted to be a professional classical actress. I had dreams of performing at The Stratford Shakespeare Festival and even attended literal Shakespeare camps. Talk about a nerd. But when I graduated college – yes, with an embarrassing theater degree – I did a few shows and found that my heart wasn’t into it. The best thing about classical theater is it’s free, so anyone can do it. The worst thing about classical theater is that it’s free, and anyone can do it. But I had been performing for so long that I didn’t know what to do with myself. I found an audition for a burlesque show, and the rest is history.

I love nerdlesque because it’s a combination of all the things I love. Burlesque, theater, cosplay, and fan fiction. You get to create these little pocket alternate universes and share them with people live! And as a producer, I love that we have created a space that allows performers to indulge and create or perform niche-as-hell acts.

plan 9 burlesque performers every other month on the second Saturday of the month at The Newport theater

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

2023 is Plan 9 Burlesque’s eleventh year! Which is wild to me. We’ve grown and changed, but the core of Plan 9 is still the same, which is why I think we’ve lasted so long. We have a dedicated crew, and a dedicated audience, and we bring something unique to the Chicago burlesque landscape.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me, the most rewarding thing about producing Plan 9 is the response from our audience. I don’t really know how to describe it, but our audience is, frankly, the best flippin’ audience in the game. We have people coming to our shows that have been coming for the whole ten years! They are loud, supportive, and know all the words to the Raffle Time song (a song that I still can’t remember the words for)! It’s like performing for your friends instead of a group of relative strangers. It’s the absolute best place to try new things on stage because they are game for anything and everything, and boy, will they let you know it!

In recent years we’ve also gotten a lot of new audience members thanks to The Newport Theater being a hub for all things burlesque. Which has been amazing. It’s my absolute favorite thing to have someone come up to me after the show and say, “I didn’t know what to expect, and I had a fantastic time!” Because at the end of the day, even if performing makes us performers feel good and stroke our egos, it’s always about the audience.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.plan9burlesque.com // www.stellacheeks.com
• Instagram: @Plan9Burlesque // @Stellacheeks
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Plan9Burlesque
• Twitter: @Stella_Cheeks
• Other: https://www.thenerdlesqueexperience.com/

Image Credits
Two Branches Photography Jeff Millies Photography Marisa KM Photography Greg Inda Photography