Bold & Beautiful: Cupcake Addams

A few months ago, I had the honor of attending what would, unbeknownst to me and the performers, be the last Bewitched Productions show at The Beehive. This was the Dead Dance, one of the many uniquely themed shows Cupcake Addams has produced at The Beehive over the years, where local performance artists came together to portray their favorite deceased figure, ranging from Joan of Arc to Paul Reubens. Looking back, Addams is lucky that the last project she got to do there was so on theme, serving as a funeral to this beloved venue and the career she had built there.

Until a recent, difficult decision to sell the venue, The Beehive was owned by Addams’ partner, Andrew Earley. Addams and Earley met through the venue, where Addams used to do markets before shifting her focus to the performing arts. Despite the couple’s deep love for this passion project of a venue, Addams admits that “all of the signs were pointing to it being time to be done.” They are searching hard for a new location, but it has proven challenging to “replicate what it felt like there,” Addams reveals.

This transition period has given Addams a chance to look back on the past, an experience that has been good but emotional. One of the most cherished recurring events The Beehive hosted was Love Like Blood, a goth dance party run by DJ Dazzle, which served as the venue’s last hurrah. “I’ve watched the event grow from a mostly empty room to being packed by 9 p.m. I’m this 39-year-old elder goth getting teary-eyed at all the babies dancing,” Addams reminisces. 

Addams’ roots are in the circus industry, which eventually melded with burlesque. Specifically, the hobby that kickstarted this long chain of skills and opportunities that she wears around her waist was bellydancing, which I got the pleasure of witnessing at The Dead Dance. “I wanted the first thing I did there to be the last thing I did there,” she explains. From there, she’s learned lyra (aerial hoop), pole dancing and fire eating.

Now a teacher at Cirque Du Kairos, Addams took aerial classes for months before deciding she wanted to perform on her own. Addams looks to their father, who is a musician at heart but construction worker by trade, for inspiration. “If he had the chance to be a career musician, he would have, so he encourages me to follow my dreams,” she says lovingly. Getting her bearings as a performer and producer was scary, but she put in the work and made the connections.

One connection that has been instrumental to Addams’ career is with Violet Ends, who now co-produces many of the Bewitched Productions shows. From meeting her at a circus show they were both on, “I just thought there was something about her,” Addams declares, “so I cast her in one of my cabarets, we started working closely together and now she’s forever family.” Violet Ends is just one of the many people Addams has worked with who are “totally regular but miraculously talented.”

While Addams does so much that it’s hard to define, overall her goal is to “create art on stage.” She claims that she can’t get on stage and “just do a basic performance,” but she has to “bring something people haven’t seen before.” That’s what was so great about The Beehive: It allowed acts that were off the wall, from Addams’ first show, where she asked performers to create a performance based on a magical ritual, to her last. 

Addams ends this era of her life feeling grateful for what she was able to do in that building and plans to continue to do as much as she can. “I’m not done performing,” she teases, “and I don’t work with people who are bad at what they do.” Keep up with what is next for Cupcake Addams by following @cupcake.addams and @bewitchedproductions on Instagram. 

Read other Bold & Beautiful features from SLUG:
Angel or DaVil: We’re Not Going to Hell. We’re Going to the Capitol!
Bold & Beautiful: Baby Gorgeous 

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