Sideways: A Variety Show About Eating Disorders, OCD and Being Human
Performance Information + Guidelines
Hello, Brave Human! We're delighted that you're considering applying to perform at SIDEWAYS: A Variety Show About Eating Disorders, OCD, and Being Human—a fundraiser for The Busyhead Project hosted by Opal: Food + Body Wisdom.
Before you leap into the application, we want to make sure you know exactly what you're signing up for.
The Important Stuff
SIDEWAYS is built around real stories, real people, and real vulnerability. We imagine you'll be sharing a meaningful piece of your lived experience with an audience of roughly 250 humans.
We fully expect those humans to arrive with open hearts, supportive energy, and a strong appreciation for courage. But still... they're humans.
Because this is a public performance, confidentiality cannot be guaranteed. We will ask audience members to refrain from taking photos, videos, or audio recordings, but once a story is shared publicly, we can't control where it travels.
For that reason, we encourage performers to participate primarily for their own benefit. Our hope is that the act of creating and sharing can be meaningful, healing, empowering, cathartic, hilarious, liberating—or all of the above.
At the same time, vulnerability comes with risk. Sometimes things go beautifully. Sometimes things go sideways. Despite everyone's best intentions, performing can bring up unexpected emotions or feel more difficult than anticipated.
We ask that you carefully consider both the potential benefits and risks before applying. Please only participate if, after thoughtful consideration, you believe the potential rewards outweigh the possible challenges for you. If you do choose to go for it, know that the Sideways team is here to support you along the way.
The Show
📅 Saturday, August 29, 2026
🕢 7:30 PM
📍 Fremont Abbey, Seattle
Performers will receive free admission to the event and our eternal admiration.
We're expecting approximately 10 performers, and performance order will be determined before the event. Applying is an act of courage in itself. Because we may receive more applications than available performance slots, we won't be able to offer a spot to everyone who applies.Whether or not you're selected to perform on the Sideways stage, we deeply appreciate your willingness to put yourself out there and share your work. Thank you for taking the risk—we're honored to consider your application.
Applications will be reviewed by a committee, and we hope to notify applicants of our decisions no later than mid-August.
Since SIDEWAYS is a variety show, we're looking for a variety of voices, styles, perspectives, and creative expressions connected to the lived experience of eating disorders, OCD, and the wonderfully complicated experience of being human.
Performance Guidelines
1. Tell the story that's yours to tell.
Performances should be grounded in your authentic lived experience with OCD and/or an eating disorder. If you're sharing a story, it should be your story. If you're singing, dancing, joking, or performing magic about your experience, it should come from a place of truth.
2. Bring your weird, wonderful art.
Creative expression can take many forms at SIDEWAYS. Stories (Moth-inspired or otherwise), dance, music, poetry, comedy, spoken word, duets, visual art, magic, interpretive movement, dramatic readings, puppet shows, or something we've never seen before are all welcome.
3. Keep it real.
We are not looking for polished "I recovered perfectly and now everything is amazing" narratives.
We're interested in honesty.
The hard parts. The funny parts. The cringe parts.
The moments of triumph. The moments of defeat. The moments that make absolutely no sense in hindsight.
Bring us the rock bottoms and the breakthroughs. The absurd rituals. The surprising joys. The humanity of it all.
Our hope is that the audience laughs, cries, laughs again, and leaves feeling a little less alone.
4. Aim for about five minutes.
Most performances will be approximately five minutes long, though we may be flexible depending on the needs of the show and the overall program.
Short, powerful, and memorable is often the sweet spot—but if your piece needs a little more room to breathe, tell us about it.
Ready? If you've read all of this and are still thinking, "Yes, this feels scary and meaningful and exactly like something I want to do," then we'd love to hear from you.
Thank you for considering sharing your story, your art, and your humanity with us.
