Helen Hopcroft, aka Marie, is producer and MC of the show titled Mad B*tches, and said the key theme throughout will be "breaking the chain" tied to women and helping them find freedom in their everday life.

"It's a little bit of anarchy on stage, it's a female fronted cabaret show that brings together burlesque, poetry, circus, uncontrolled pyromania and observational comedy," she said. "You go away entertained but hopefully a couple of days later you're still thinking about some of the points that we raised in the show."

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She said often women hold themselves back from joy because they're too busy or caring for others, and when curating the performers for the show wanted them to think about breaking that cycle.

"It's about finding more freedom in your everyday life and celebrating the moment you're in," Ms Hopcroft said.

The Hunter-based performer said spending an entire year extravagantly dressed as Marie Antoinette helped her own freedom and felt it pushed her forward instead or back.

The 12-month performance as France's last Queen before the Revolution was to highlight the importance of the arts in her community and bring a smile to people's faces.

"You can't go out dressed like that and expect to have a normal life," she said of the unique experience which included heading to the gym, school pickup and supermarket in 18^th Century-inspired garb.

"It was a really nice way of foregrounding creativity in my own life and in my community, because you see someone who looks so strange and you automatically become curious.

"It was a great opportunity to really seize the microphone and talk about Maitland's creative community and the incredible role creative people play in their communities.

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Ms Hopcroft said Wollongong has a good reputation for being an artistic and cultural hub, and likened the steel city to Newcastle.

"They've both got that gritty, graininess that tends to breed very good creatives for some reason," she said. "They do seem to create a disproportionately high number of creative people for whatever reason, maybe it's that back against the wall feeling that creatives seem to need at times or maybe it's because of that really strong sense of community."

Mad B*tches is at the Phoenix Theatre in Coniston, Saturday June 26, 8:30pm. Recommended for adult audiences only. Tickets through: www.trybooking.com/BRELA

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