Agent Wednesday is an Asian-American burlesque performer, illustrator, and costume designer. Currently based in NYC and a regular feature at The Red Pavilion in Brooklyn, she is from Honolulu, HI and graduated from Manhattan’s School of Visual Arts with a degree in design. Best known for her storytelling and comedic playfulness, she teaches costume design, creates film and TV props, and advocates for hospice reform legislation.
Here’s her 21.
1. How would you define yourself in three words?
Playful, silly, perceptive.
2. Who would play you in a movie about your life?
It has to be an animated movie because of all the frenetic color sequences. Ali Wong would voice me and Danny DeVito would voice everything in my head.
3. What is your biggest strength?
Creative problem solving. One of my art professors drilled into my brain that ‘design is solution’. Even though she was teaching in the context of graphics, it is absolutely applicable to burlesque as well in the context of costuming and choreography. Anything can be done! Nothing is futile! Everything is possible!
4. What is your biggest weakness?
I start like five projects at once instead of completing one and then moving onto the next. I will eventually get all five all done but work on all of them, constantly alternating. It’s slow and not efficient at all.
5. When are you most happy and inspired?
I feel my spirit most on fire when I’m with fellow performers on off-duty days, hanging out talking about ideas, and window shopping. We’re all fun weirdos sharing the same interest and I love that! I think any human thrives when they’re safe to fully express their true selves out loud. People connect, sparks fly, and once ignited, inspiration naturally overflows. I get to experience child-like excitement as an adult!
6. What is your favourite on-screen burlesque moment from film or TV?
The ending of Little Miss Sunshine. I think a lot of burlesque performers can relate to being negatively judged by small minded folk but can walk away from a hostile environment still feeling happy, confident, and loved.
7. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received?
Hairspray the bottom of your shoes before going on stage to make it grippy so you don’t slip on stage!
8. If you could switch lives with one person for a day, who would it be?
Does my cat count as a person? He’s so cozy and carefree! He doesn’t know anything about the world and has everything he wants! A jobless superstar!
9. What’s the biggest myth or misconception about burlesque?
That it’s for the straight male gaze. 90% of my audiences are women and gay men; the other 10% were dragged on dates. Even my Instagram stats show that nearly 80% of my followers are female. Burlesque is deliciously dangerous femininity– it’s weaponized glamour armoured in rhinestones. Men are historically uninterested in untouchable women; it’s not made for them.
10. If you could only perform to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Shania Twain’s Man! I Feel Like A Woman!. Everyone goes nuts and I feed off that energy!
11. What surprisingly useful things do you have in your show case?
I have an extremely thorough kit that I pack into every show bag (Amazon link to my kit contents), but the one magical item that keeps coming through is mini zip ties. They’re very small – four inches long – and thin. They’re great for keeping feather fans open, adding extra security to loose dance shoe buckles, or temporarily keeping together a broken zipper for a show. I pack a nail clipper in the pouch with them so I can nip them off at the end of the show.
12. Do you have a backstage ritual?
Yes. – stretch, stretch, stretch. Take care of your muscles!
13. What advice would you give to new performers starting out today?
Accolades are nice, but they’re not as important as you think they are for establishing who you are. I think it’s natural to feel like you need to prove yourself when you’re new (and it’s true to an extent), but your art, your professionalism, and kindness will establish who you are. No one will care about your TOP 50 ranking if you’re flaky and mean. Conversely, no one will care if you didn’t make the TOP 50 if you’re entertaining and nice! I’ve never placed and it’s okay – I’m regularly booked and creating what I want to create. I’m a working artist and that’s all I ever wanted in life.
If big recognition happens one day, great! But also invest that same gratitude and pride into your work, even if it doesn’t happen. I’m not sh*tting on competition or tournaments – I believe it’s healthy to enjoy time with friends as well as spiritually beneficial to share art communally – but it’s so important to not use it as a self-measurement of your value.
14. What is your proudest achievement?
Learning to advocate for both myself and others. I’m almost 40 years old and I’m VERY good at saying no now versus when I was in my twenties.
15. What is your biggest regret?
I regret holding onto things that weren’t working for me creatively for longer than I should’ve have. It’s okay to retire acts and stage personas you don’t resonate with anymore. It’s okay to change. It’s okay to change your mind, change your brand, change your boundaries. You don’t always have to hold on to what you did before. Change doesn’t make you a failure or disingenuous. It would be absurd to yell at a butterfly for not being a caterpillar anymore. Change is to honour your growth and become more of who you’re supposed to be! It’s wonderful! It’s not without reason why the best artists in the world have never peaked in their youth.
16. What is the biggest challenge facing today’s burlesque scene?
Booking more POC for racially diverse casts. You think awareness wouldn’t be difficult, especially after so much public discourse in 2020, but here we still are in 2025 wondering where that change is.
17. If you could go back and tell yourself one thing when you started out in burlesque, what would it be?
DON’T WORK FOR FREE! Getting paid in ‘exposure’ is a lie. Anyone who tries to tell you that you have to accept zero because you’re inexperienced is taking advantage of you. Every entry level job has starting pay, and Burlesque should be no different. You will learn what you need to learn. Get paid!
Also, it’s okay if you bomb every now and then when you’re trying new things. It can sometimes be a salty wound, but life goes on. Keep creating what you enjoy. You don’t expect perfection from people you love, so afford yourself the same grace.
18. What is a cause or issue that’s very important to you?
Oh my god, so many! Hospice reform and stalking accountability laws are probably at the top. I have a lot of Libra in my astrological chart; I love justice so much.
19. What are you currently reading, watching, and listening to?
I loved the Bruce Lee ESPN documentary Be Water (Disney+); he is such an idol to me and watching it made my heart so weighty. Reading How To Hold A Cockroach by Matthew Maxwell, and never not listening to my favorite album since childhood – the 1981 original London cast recording of Cats: The Musical. It’s a bit frightening how much I am not sick of it.
20. If you could share a dressing room with one performer for the rest of your career, who would it be?
Lilin! We speak enthusiastically in references from The Simpsons like it’s a second language. We need our own dressing room together because we would be annoying to anyone else.
21. What would you like your life and career to look like in 10 years time?
I’d like to still be performing in NYC. If I can’t perform for whatever reason, I would leave New York and live on a sunny farm somewhere with many ducks and cats.
Follow Agent Wednesday on Instagram and visit her website. You can also check out her vinyl stickers and totes on Etsy and catch her at the Asian Burlesque Festival on May 10.