About.
We didn’t set out to start a company. We set out to make our own work better, then everyone else’s.
How we got here.
We needed it. So we built it.
Upstage didn’t start as a company. It started as two artists tired of patching together a studio, a coach, a software stack, and a network that nobody had built for the way we work.
So we started building it ourselves, in that order: the studio first, then the coaching, then the software.
Two doors. One standard.
We don’t treat the doors like product lines. A coaching practice and a studio are different tools for the same job, which is making a performer better at the work in front of them.
A teenager’s first lesson, a working actor’s audition, and a finished record all get held to the same standard.
Family-run. Built to last.
We run every room ourselves. The cohort stays small on purpose and the studio runs on applications, because attention is the thing we’re selling and it doesn’t scale.
We’re not in a hurry to be bigger than that.
Where we’re going.
The next stretch is more records out of the studio, Cohort I in the room, and Rehearsal Room out of private beta.
After that, a permanent home with all of it under one roof.
Four lines we keep coming back to.
We teach the person in front of us.
A beginner gets the same hour as a pro.
If the tool doesn’t exist, we build it.
We’d rather keep the room small.
Joy and Cee.
Joy Mwandemange is a performer, playwright, and arts educator with credits at the NAC, GCTC, Black Theatre Workshop, Ottawa Fringe and more. Cee Zavi is a seasoned performer who has shared stages with T.I., Mobb Deep, and Azealia Banks, as well as a recording engineer who graduated from Algonquin’s Music Industry Arts program. Joy runs the room, Cee runs the board. Together, they’re Upstage.
Read the full story →
Joy Mwandemange
Performer · Educator
Cee Zavi
Recording Engineer · Producer
We want more records, better tools, and a room big enough to hold all of it.
That takes a while, and we’re fine with that. If you want to be part of it, get in touch.
You know
where to find us.
A young performer, a parent, an artist, or someone who thinks we ought to know each other - write to us. One of us reads it and one of us writes back.