The F-Word: An exploration of friendship and fatness
By Laura Beldor, October 17 2025—
From Oct. 8 to 12, the Motel Theatre at the Werklund Centre was staging performances of The F-Word, presented by Downstage Theatre. The show is an examination of friendship, self-acceptance and the stigmatization of fatness. Both Keshia Cheesman and Bianca Miranda, the writers, producers and performers of the show, sat down with the Gauntlet to discuss creating and performing in the show.
“For me, it’s kind of an autobiographical journey of two friends,” Miranda said. “There’s some sketch comedy in it, there’s song, dance and also some scientific tidbits.”
Cheesman and Miranda describe how they have spent a large part of their lives being impacted by the negative connotations of the word ‘fat’. It was their numerous discussions on the topic that led the pair to do an examination of their thoughts and feelings on fatness by creating an original work based on their personal experiences.
“We decided to work together to do a piece on the word ‘fat’ and how it’s made us feel and dissecting that word and how that word has been villainized against us,” said Cheesman.
The show initially began as a 10-minute skit that the duo performed at the Handsome Alice Theatre in 2017. The interest and positive reviews generated by this first performance led to more opportunities for the pair to perform longer iterations of their piece all throughout Calgary. The full version of the show premiered in 2023 as part of Alberta Theatre Projects 2023-2024 season. After years of revising and expanding upon their work, The F-Word is now an 80-minute show consisting of Cheesman and Miranda tackling subjects such as diet culture and fatphobia, while also engaging with the audience through the use of humour, storytelling and music.
Cheesman and Miranda are both University of Calgary alumni, having graduated from the school’s Fine Arts Department. They initially became interested in writing their own show during their undergraduate studies while taking a performance creation class.
“That’s where we learned that we can actually create our own shows and use our voices to share stories,” said Cheesman.
Because Miranda and Cheesman pull from their real experiences as women of colour, the intersectionality of race and fatphobia is a significant topic throughout the show. The duo claim that this was a natural, additional element to the show — instead of intentional, they see their relationship to fatness as being tied to their culture and race.
“When people see us, what do they see? They see that we are fat women of colour,” said Cheesman. “Us being on stage is already a political statement, not by choice, but just by society.”
The F-Word first premiered in 2023, and the most significant factor that encourages Miranda and Cheesman to continue performing is the many people who have told them how they relate to their story.
“We’ve had so many people let us know that they felt seen for the first time,” said Miranda. “A lot of people who are seeing a theatre for the first time didn’t know that they could experience something like this. That in itself gives us the drive to keep going.”
Tickets for performances at the Motel Theatre can be found here.