Hi there and welcome to Ford Cassella Productions – or FCP as we like to call it around the office! Okay the virtual office. Cuz who needs an office when you’ve got a laptop, camera gear and a wealth of ideas?
Piloted by Katie Ford and Maggie Cassella, FCP is trying to trying to change the conversation around content creation from “monetise, monetise, monetise”, to “serve, serve, serve” communities and audiences and committing to donate a meaningful portion of our profits to the Rainbow Charity Network (formerly the We’re Funny That Way Foundation), a charitable foundation which supports queer charities, two-spirit indigenous programs, and queer refugees. Sure we intend to make a living being creators and producers, but we’d also like to help change the world while doing it.
Our motto is: Do Good. Do Good Business. And this is how we intend to fulfil that motto.
RECENT AND CONTINUING PROJECTS:
We’re Funny That Way Virtual Pride Special – Winner Canadian Screen Award Best Performing Arts Special 2021
FCP was fortunate to team up with the über successful Project 10 Productions (Schitt’s Creek, Jan, Son of a Critch, Kids in the Hall) to bring a virtual We’re Funny That Festival to CBC. Airing in the pandemic locked downs of 2020-21, the show was nominated for four Canadian Screen Awards. Best Performing Arts Special, Best Writing Variety or Sketch Comedy, Best Performance Sketch Comedy (Individual or Ensemble), and Best Host, Talk Show or Entertainment News. We were thrilled to have WON the 2021 CSA for Best Performing Arts Special with our first show out of the blocks!
Maggie Mysteries: A Comedy Short Garnering 15 International Film Festival Laurels and Counting
Our first production was the comedy short Maggie Mysteries. A parody of the loved-around-the-world Murdoch Mysteries, Maggie Mysteries tells the story of a super smart gender non-conforming butch trying to make her mark on the force as its first female detective. We were honoured to be nominated for Best International Comedy at the Atlanta Women’s Comedy Film Festival as well as winning a Jury Award and an Award of Merit at two other international festivals.
The We’re Funny That Way Festival – Now in it’s 20 year!
we’re funny that way® Performance Festival – The world’s first queer comedy festival turned full on cabaret festival returns virtually and IRL in 2022.
The we’re funny that way® Comedy Festival created by Maggie Cassella in 1996 was the first international queer comedy festival in the world. It is a charitable event that benefits The Rainbow Charity Network (formerly known as The We’re Funny That Way Foundation). Since it’s inception, the Festival has donated close to half a million dollars in donations to queer charities and causes .
This year’s festival was planned as a virtual event due to the difficulty in booking a theatre coming out of the fog of Covid. Having worked on several online events during the pandemic, FCP developed a virtual show within a virtual show! The Centre: A Virtual Fundraiser is shooting in the summer of 2022 and that’s all we’re going to tell you about it because it really is like nothing you’ve ever seen in the virtual fundraising space before. Stay tuned!
As it happened while The Centre was in the works, Maggie Cassella was approached by Tim Jones (ArtSpace, Buddies in Bad Times) about collaborating on some live events at a new venture he is involved with in Picton, Ontario. And with that, a live version of WFTW will be returning Labour Day Weekend 2022 with six amazing shows of eight amazing acts! It remains a charity event and the proceeds this year are going to support the relocation of a gay refugee from Yeman to Toronto.
If you’d like to be involved in the festival (sponsorship, volunteer, perform) please write us here we’d love to hear from you.