A $10,000 grant awarded at South by Southwest is enabling Chicago troupe Lady Parts Comedy to produce their first formal online series.
“Up until now we’ve been operating on a budget of whatever I have left after bills and survival,” says Lady Parts founder Jeph Porter, a former Second City writer.
“Having a solid budget opens up not only a ton of doors for production but a lot of new opportunities to take it further and create a show that utilizes the web as best it can.”
Lady Parts beat out five other finalists in Web Entertainment Guide’s national contest Feb. 15-March 20, garnering 49% of an online vote whose volume WEG said crashed their server, forcing a voting extension.
“We tapped into our pretty solid fan base on Facebook and started rolling in the votes,” Porter says. “We also did several events with local bars where we solicited votes from the patrons.”
Porter founded Lady Parts last September with his partner in Dirty Cricket Productions, Annoyance Theater performer Justin Howard?who, as Nordic Thunder, won the 2006, 2008, and 2010 Chicago air guitar championships.
