The local comedy scene is finally listening to what its audience wants

Take three femmes with a passion for stand-up comedy and what do you get?

Proper answer: A night of fun and laughter led by the troupe of Bitches in Stitches.

A slightly improper answer: Crazy, riot, unhinged realness.

Now I’ll admit I had to do a double take when I first heard the term “all-female and all-queer comedy show.” The concept was foreign to me, and I’ve only watched predominantly male comedy shows in Manila, with one to two female acts in the lineup. 

And that’s what piqued my interest.

Maybe I’ve become accustomed to the stage being held by males that I don’t really know what it can look like.

I met Fran Ayala-Rock, Cristina Sebastian, and Veronica Litton to see what these bitches are up to. 

The early years: Bitches in Stitches Hong Kong

Stand-up comedy started out as a hobby for Ayala-Rock. She was living in Hong Kong for 13 years as a marketer when she finally listened to her friends and gave stand-up a chance.

And you guessed it—it was love at first open mic.

She immediately fell in love with the craft but also experienced the challenges as a female comic, such as the discrepancy between the number of male to female comics and the lengthy wait time for talent fees.

In 2021, Ayala-Rock, along with her co-founder, Dannie Higginbotham, decided to start Bitches in Stitches with the goal to produce an all-female comedy show. Propelled by her passion for stand-up comedy and the desire to create a more inclusive environment, the group sold out 30 consecutive shows in just two years and doubled the number of paid female comedians in the local comedy scene. 

“I wanted to create a safe space for women to express who they are. If you can show up and enjoy a good night of laughing your ass off without feeling like who you are is going to be laughed at instead, you are going to be with people who will laugh with you,” Ayala-Rock shares.

Of course I had to ask about their troupe name. The term ‘bitches’ is a self-declaration of owning back the name, with ‘stitches’ as a reference to the British phrase of “laughing so hard you’re in stitches.”

“I wanted to create a safe space for women to express who they are. If you can show up and enjoy a good night of laughing your ass off without feeling like who you are is going to be laughed at instead, you are going to be with people who will laugh with you,” Fran Ayala-Rock shares

“I would complain about female performers not being hired very often and it made me think, ‘Am I difficult to work with? Or am I just assertive because I’m asking for what I deserve?’ Bitches are the people who get things done and we’re the people who change things. Sometimes you have to be a bitch,” Ayala-Rock exclaims.

Back to Manila: Forming the unbreakable bitches in stitches

Coming back to Manila in 2023, Ayala-Rock dove right into the local comedy scene and witnessed the same reality of male vis-a-vis female comics with an alarming 80:6 ratio.

Thanks to an open mic event, Ayala-Rock met Litton, an ex-professional wrestler of 10 years (yes, you read it right) who had been immersed in the comedy scene since the mid-2000s. Shortly after, they met Sebastian, a screenwriter-actor who started stand-up in London in 2023.

The three instantly clicked and connected. Next thing you know they were writing together, participating in virtual workshops, and throwing jokes in the air asking each other, “Is this funny? Be honest.”

“When you’re a theater kid or a loud girl everyone’s like ‘Oh you’re so funny, you should be a comedian.’ I had a few friends who really meant it so it’s kind of crazy to be living this now and doing it regularly in shows with people that I admire so much,” Sebastian says.

“I was coming to a point where I was just creatively spent on every level. I had accomplished a lot of what I had set out to do but I was also burnt out at the same time—and stand-up saved me. What really kept me together and brought that fire back to life is really the sisterhood and how we basically bonded with each other over the fact that we like writing jokes. At its heart that’s who we are,” Litton opens up.

A unified culture of collaboration and inclusion

With stand-up work entailing a lot of writing, storytelling, and performance, the three found themselves in a sisterhood that has passion and collaboration at the heart of it. 

Sebastian shares that the beauty of working in an inclusive environment is that they can build things together and give each other constructive criticism in a friendly and cooperative way. The workshops and training helped their creative process so much that they could come up with material instantly and on the same day test it to their audience.

“There’s not a lot of female or queer comedians here in the Philippines and when we all met each other and realized we worked well creatively together, it lit up something inside of us that made us feel like we could take over the world with our laughter,” Litton says.

“There’s not a lot of female or queer comedians here in the Philippines and when we all met each other and realized we worked well creatively together, it lit up something inside of us that made us feel like we could take over the world with our laughter,” Veronica Litton says

Hearing it firsthand, I felt humbled to know more about the craft of comedy.

Comedy is more just laughter and humor. It’s an extensive study of the foundations of joke writing, the comedian’s ability to uncover unspoken human truths, the creativity to tackle on different concepts, and to find a way to write it all down in a way that’s concise and entertaining at the same time.

What’s next for Bitches in Stitches?

With two sold-out shows since July, this group is not stopping anytime to push their mission to make others feel seen and heard—and it’s the community that fuels them to go farther.

“What I want to do with our comedy shows is show that there are many different types of women, and all of these women are valid no matter how you tell your story, and we can all laugh about that—all these shared, relatable experiences or these new discoveries by telling jokes. I think we are going to be doing this until the day that three, or three hundred other loud ass, loud mouth women come and take our place,” Ayala-Rock exclaims.

“What’s beautiful about these shows is that we’re creating these dynamic communities that are safe spaces where we could basically laugh and cry just about anything. We have a tissue for every issue,” Litton says.

“The audience is waiting for you. The audience wants you to succeed. You’ll be surprised how much people want to listen,” says Cristina Sebastian

We had gone a bit overtime when I realized that our conversation flew by, propelled by three wonderful personalities passionate about their craft.

Before we ended, Sebastian had one thing to share to anyone scared or fearful of stepping out of the shadows. “The audience is waiting for you. The audience wants you to succeed. You’ll be surprised how much people want to listen.”

Witness Bitches in Stitches transform as Witches in Stitches in their Halloween Special on Oct. 23 at Sari Sari Cocktail Bar, Makati.