Tucked away in the basement of an unassuming alley in Perth’s city centre is Lucy’s Love Shack, the venue that plays host to monthly queer alternative party Cherry Bomb. Since its debut five years ago Cherry Bomb has become an institution of the Perth queer scene—one that’s helped launch the careers of dozens of new drag and burlesque talent.
Not Safe For Queers chats to the founder of Cherry Bomb, Georgia Sassenfeld, as well as four burgeoning drag artists—Itty Bitty Nikky, Kitten Proper, Saargeant, and Vivienne Angelou —about the impact that the party has had on the city’s queer performers.
Speaking first with founder Georgia Sassenfeld, it is immediately apparent that Cherry Bomb emerged out of a passion for serving the Perth arts and entertainment landscape. “I’m going to make what I want to see in the city—foster the community here, because we need it,” Sassenfeld explains as their motivation for establishing the event in WA (rather than over east or abroad).
As an event, Cherry Bomb has carved out a niche in the alternative queer party scene, attracting a particularly sapphic audience. Sassenfeld describes Cherry Bomb’s punk, political elements as “core” to its work in “helping the community itself.”
Each Cherry Bomb party is structured roughly the same way: involving an amateur competition followed by a professional feature show. For new drag and burlesque artists, this is often their first chance to perform—and unlike other competitions, Cherry Bomb is accessible to brand-new talent and is free to enter.
The Cherry Bomb performers we spoke with praised the party for its welcoming audiences, supportive backstage environment and the mentorship offered by feature show performers.
“Cherry Bomb does absolutely love fresh meat, or, as they love to call them ‘drag virgins’,” says drag king and Cherry Bomb regular Saargeant. Drag queen Kitten Proper explains, “people know you’re amateur and don’t expect this super, super high level of drag.” These sentiments are echoed by burlesque performer Itty Bitty Nikky, “Cherry Bomb makes it very clear that these are amateurs—so these people deserve extra love. Because it’s, like, a really big thing to get out on stage.”
Not only is it a space for performers to gain experience, but they can practice new routines or explore different facets of their performance personas, too.
“You can get weird with it,” Kitten jokes.
The party’s regularity facilitates the development of a close-knit community, providing what burlesque performer Vivienne Angelou describes as a good networking event. This monthly routine enables her to meet and learn from performers that she, “looked up to and inspired her to start doing burlesque”, transforming burlesque from a hobby into something she is now pursuing more seriously.
For Itty Bitty Nikky, advice from their ~icon in burlesque~ and experienced professional performer Lotta L’amour led to them creating a burlesque social media account, opening them up to a number of new performance opportunities. Kitten, too, feels that winning the July Cherry Bomb amateur competition put her “on peoples’ radars”, while Vivienne has started receiving paid performance opportunities and has big plans for 2025.
In Viv’s words, “I owe it all to Cherry Bomb”.
At Cherry Bomb, amateur competitors who demonstrate strong potential and want to develop their talent are provided access to not only a welcoming community but Sassenfeld’s own mentorship and connections. For Sassenfeld, it’s all about helping to foster local talent, “the community only gets better if we’re all helping each other. There’s some amazing talent that we have here, and I think it helps because we have such a good community.”
For those underrepresented in performance spaces, the opportunity Cherry Bomb provides is particularly valued. In determining the line-ups Sassenfeld prioritises BIPOC performers and drag kings. This is not unnoticed by Itty Bitty Nikky, who explains, “this is one of the only spaces where I’ve been given an equal opportunity to do this. I’m a brown, queer, mentally ill woman. When you’re a minority and you’re given opportunities to do things like this it really means a lot”.
For those aspiring to make a career of drag and burlesque, Cherry Bomb is a rare opportunity to get a start in the industry. For others, the party provides an outlet to do something that they love in a pressure-free environment. All four performers—Itty Bitty Nikky, Kitten Proper, Saargeant, and Vivienne Angelou—expressed that performing at Cherry Bomb has helped with their confidence, body image and life satisfaction.
Before performing at Cherry Bomb, Kitten Proper feels they “wanted something more out of life” but now describes themselves as “flourishing” in drag. Vivienne Angelou has since become “a lot more comfortable” in her skin and laughs that, “you’d have thought it might be the opposite— having to get almost naked in a room full of people”.
As Itty Bitty Nikky eloquently puts it, “it’s suddenly a moment that I feel really beautiful and especially in such a safe and loving crowd of queer people”.
While Sassenfeld’s dedication to the Perth queer arts community is admirable and extremely important, it may be Cherry Bomb’s promotion of queer joy that its patrons and performers value most.
Cherry Bomb runs to a regular, monthly schedule—with special events occurring frequently. For specific dates, head to Get Weird.