Tickets for The Madeline Minx Cabaret: Still Not Domesticated are on sale now, taking place at Performance Works from Sept 10 – 20. Book your spot today for just $18 per person!
I’m Noemi Zeigler, a writer, filmmaker, professor, performer, and chronically relapsing ’90s pop-star wannabe. I went to the American Film Institute for directing and spent years writing and making films from dark comedies to music videos.
I’ve always loved performing and I created this alter ego, the outrageous delusional popstar Madeline Minx. I started writing and recording original music and making ridiculous music videos, and eventually all those different parts of my life collided onstage. I’m so excited to bring The Madeline Minx Cabaret: Still Not Domesticated to Vancouver.
What is the plot of your show?
Madeline Minx has spent decades chasing the showbiz dream through strange detours, brushes with fame, near misses, and a stubborn refusal to give up.
In the cabaret, I belt, dance, resurrect my ’90s pop-star ambitions, and revisit some of my more showbiz misadventures, including an encounter with Courtney Love and a live radio call with Howard Stern that didn’t exactly go according to plan.
However, underneath the journey of never giving up, Madeline is still chasing the one rave review she can’t get: her mom’s. As the show unfolds, she starts asking another question: Why did her mother, who once dreamed of becoming a singer herself, give up her own dream, and is now so disapproving of Madeline’s ambition?
What inspired you to create this show?
I’m a semi-miserable person—kidding!—but I still wake up every day with the same dreams as a kid, wanting to sing songs and perform. My mother was a huge inspiration, as she was funny, blunt, glamorous, opinionated, and talented.
I spent a lot of my life seeking her approval, especially when it came to performing. But as I started looking back at her life, I became interested in something bigger: she had wanted to be a singer and performer herself. What happened to that dream?
The show grew out of that contradiction. Why am I still stubbornly chasing this ridiculous dream when she stopped chasing hers? And how much of what we want for ourselves comes from what our parents wanted (or didn’t get) for themselves?
I think that’s part of what Still Not Domesticated means to me. I’m still trying to figure out who I’m supposed to be versus who I actually am, and at this point I’m not particularly interested in becoming more well-behaved.
Fortunately, I explore all of this while wearing a gold cone bra, as I am still the same girl who wanted to wear Madonna’s outfit, sing, and dance, and continue to be not well-behaved.
What are you hoping audiences will experience or take away from your show?
I want the audience to have a ridiculously good time. There’s live music, comedy, pop songs, original songs, audience interaction, and some questionable choreography.
I also hope people recognize something of themselves in the story. Maybe there’s something they wanted to do and gave up on. Maybe they’re still waiting for someone’s approval. Maybe they’re realizing it’s not too late to embarrass themselves by trying again. It’s never too late to go after your dreams.
To me, being “still not domesticated” is partly about refusing to shrink yourself into whatever version of you is considered sensible at your age; it’s okay to be silly and vulnerable at any age.
How did the Fringe help you create your show and shape your Fringe experience?
The Fringe has been an incredible laboratory for me. I’ve workshopped both of my solo shows at the Rogue Festival in Fresno, which one of them was about being served divorce papers on top of a garbage bin. I toured You’ve Been Served at the Winnipeg and Edmonton Fringes, where I learned a lot about trusting an audience and letting a show evolve through performance.
I’m doing that again with The Madeline Minx Cabaret. The show keeps changing as I discover the real story beneath all the jokes and songs.
There’s something wonderfully democratic about Fringe. You can take a strange, personal idea that might be difficult to explain to anyone sensible, put it onstage, and find the people who get it.
Why should people come see your show?
Where else are you going to see a middle-aged woman in a gold cone bra sing Madonna, expose her failed attempts at fame, revisit her complicated relationship with her mother, and drag a perfectly respectable pianist into the whole thing?
My musician Greg Zema is joining me on keys, backup vocals, and assorted comic interference. There are original songs, pop anthems, audience participation, celebrity encounters, big feelings, and several decades of questionable career choices compressed into an hour. I also rap like a female Eminem.
Theatre edition: What is a hill you’re willing to die on?
You’re allowed to be ambitious and pursue your dreams at any age. In fact, I think you can get better with age because you know yourself better. You’re more honest, more vulnerable, and hopefully more able to laugh at yourself.
And sometimes you need a costume that gives you permission to become the biggest version of yourself. Mine happens to be a gold cone bra. I’m apparently still not domesticated.
