Today we’d like to introduce you to Christine Perez
Hi Christine, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m Christine Perez (she/they), a podcast and web series co-creator, writer, producer, and performer. Along with my husband Nick and daughter Banca, I co-own PowerTeam Studios, an online entertainment network.
I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ve always been a creative person, and throughout childhood I was passionate about lots of arts at different times: writing, acting, dancing, singing, fashion design, drawing, playing the cello, etc. In college I majored in English Literature, then Film, then Musical Theatre. Other than my continued writing, those arts fell by the wayside whenever I started a new hobby. I tortured myself with guilt over all the artistic and academic pursuits I had abandoned over the years.
As a young adult, I worked several retail and food service jobs and spent my longest periods working as a barista. I still managed to write and sing in choirs and musicals on the side, almost always getting to perform alongside my brilliant husband Nick. And once I got diagnosed with ADHD, I could make better sense of my Jack-of-All-Trades history. This perspective helped me embrace all the skills I had learned on those paths instead of focusing on the negative connotations of my dilettantism.
Soon after that Nick and I visited Walt Disney World with my parents and instantly knew we wanted to work there, so we followed our dream to Orlando to join the Disney College Program. Working at Disney with Nick for six years gave me ample opportunities to bring many of those skills together – performing as an event host, singing, dancing, and using the customer service skills I had learned in food service. It was an incredibly fulfilling time for me creatively. After having our daughter, I returned to being a barista while Nick and I started a pub trivia company, PowerTeam Trivia. We hosted trivia events at Mystic Dunes Resort and SeaWorld, putting our hosting experience from Disney to good use.
At the same time, I started writing scripts for a short-form comedy web series about being a barista called Welcome to Mermaid Coffee. Although most of the customers I encountered as a barista were nice people, and some were incredibly kind to me, there were also many difficult, argumentative, angry customers. As I wrote more and more episodes of this show, I realized it was the easiest writing I had ever done, flowing out of me from the years of being a barista and having to deal with mean customers while maintaining a friendly demeanor. Being in a service industry brings out a unique power dynamic between the consumer and the worker, and so many of my friends have experienced that. It was also my love letter to all the quirky, delightful, hard-working baristas who had become my work family, who had made the job fun, even on tough days.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
In addition to my feelings of shame over abandoning one creative hobby after another, I also struggled with low self-esteem and social anxiety throughout childhood. I was born with Moebius Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder in my face that leaves me unable to move my lips in the same way other people can. My smile looks more like a frown to some people, I can’t close my eyes fully, and I lack typical facial expression in general. Constant bullying and undiagnosed depression made my school life very difficult. Despite having a loving and supportive family, I always saw myself as an outcast, a dork, a weirdo.
My brother, who was five years older than me, passed away suddenly while I was in high school. We had never had the same passions – he loved baseball, I loved the arts – and we hadn’t always gotten along as kids, but in the years before he died we had started to grow closer. It was a really difficult time for my family, but I was glad that he and I had patched things up before he passed.
Here and in so many other areas, it was my passion for the arts and general nerdiness that saved me, helping me find other creative weirdos out there who shared my love of theatre, gaming, writing, and film. My best friends in high school were people I made mockumentaries with; after that, my community was the theatre scene in Oklahoma. Here in Florida, we’ve connected with other performers who love Star Trek, board games, and tabletop RPGs.
While I still struggle with low confidence and social anxiety, I have found many groups of good friends that I could work, hang out, and make art with throughout the years. I sometimes feel shy around strangers, but I also now understand that the world is full of delightful weirdos, and that there will always be people out there who understand and appreciate us for who we are.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Our family’s entertainment network, PowerTeam Studios, produces four podcasts (available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcatcher), one web series, and videos for a kids’ channel on YouTube:
Our flagship podcast is The PowerTeam Trivia Podcast, which is the podcast version of our pub trivia game show. Anchored by Nick, who is a fantastic trivia writer and host, The PowerTeam Trivia Podcast is his vision of a classic game show, with two teams of three contestants each answering sets of questions over the course of about an hour until one team emerges victorious. Winning teams go on to compete in our Tournament of Champions. Although most categories on the show are a grab bag of general trivia, we also have themed holiday episodes! Our show features moments of triumph, hilarious wrong answers, and even bitter rivalries, but it’s all in good fun! Although the trivia is real, I add our fake studio audience and sound effects in editing to give it an authentic game show feel. This show is fun for the whole family!
Bitch, Yes!: Your Favorite AITA Podcast is our comedy advice podcast where cohosts Katie, Brandon, Nick, and I answer Reddit’s “Am I the A-hole?” questions in way more depth than those questions deserve. Katie and Brandon are our longtime dear friends, and they’re both insightful and hilarious. While we take the questions on the show seriously, we don’t take ourselves seriously at all. If you can’t tell from the title, this podcast is for adults.
Nick and I love watching reality shows about food, so our first podcast as a network was Crumbshoes: The Crime Scene Kitchen Podcast. This show covers our favorite baking competition series, Crime Scene Kitchen, which has a unique premise: teams of two bakers look through a kitchen to find clues to a mystery dessert, then have a limited amount of time to bake what they think is the correct dessert. They are judged on accuracy and understanding of the clues first, and then on the quality of the bake. While we approach all our content through the lens of comedy, Crumbshoes is also a positive, family-friendly fancast. We cover every episode in depth and have even gotten to interview some of the winners and finalists from the show!
Our other favorite genre is Gordon Ramsay’s prolific array of reality cooking shows, so on Hell’s Podcast: The Ramsay Report, Nick and I recap one Ramsay offering at a time, taking an honest look at the good, the bad, the silly, and the problematic in his reality TV career. This show has adult language.
I think every job and every hobby is an art, and podcasting is no exception. Since Nick and I began our entertainment network, I have learned so much about podcasting, both co-hosting and editing. The social media and website-building aspects of the business also require skill and hard work! I love getting to be present for every part of the process.
Our 7-year-old daughter even created her own YouTube channel, called Club Banca! Her channel features toy unboxings and video game playthroughs for the whole family. She’s a creative kid and has a great sense of humor, so it’s extra special to make fun videos with her and help her showcase her awesome personality!
My stop-motion comedy series, Welcome to Mermaid Coffee, is a labor of love that is incredibly fulfilling to work on, alongside some extremely talented actors. Nick and our daughter Banca have been super supportive in this endeavor, from reading my scripts and giving me helpful notes, to helping me create sets, to acting in the series!
I am most proud of Welcome to Mermaid Coffee, both the scripts I’ve written and the hard work that so many people have contributed to make such a fun show! There is much more to come for the future of the show; although we’re still filming Season 1, I am currently writing Season 12! This series, on YouTube and TikTok, has some adult language.
More than pride, I feel immense gratitude for the incredibly talented individuals in my friend group, my wonderful supportive parents, and especially my brilliant husband and daughter, who are the greatest co-creators and the most loving and kind family anyone could ask for!
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
After COVID made live trivia events pretty much impossible, Nick and I changed PowerTeam Trivia to PowerTeam Studios and shifted to making podcasts. I learned to use Audacity to edit podcasts by watching how-to videos on YouTube. We knew our new entertainment company would also be a great place to put my web series, which I wanted to make using dolls. So then I learned how to do stop-motion animation for the show.
Throughout this process, I’ve learned many new skills, and gotten better at all of them through trial and error. I also take advantage of my trademark neurospicy impulsivity and all-in attitude, which can be surprisingly helpful at times! That lifelong tendency to dabble in different arts is now my secret weapon for learning doll photography, building a website, designing logos, sewing tiny doll clothes, directing voice actors, managing multiple creator accounts on all the social media platforms, cohosting and editing podcasts alongside my husband and friends, filming our daughter’s unboxing videos, writing and revising short comedy scripts, stop-motion animating, video editing, and making doll-sized film studio spaces.
In PowerTeam Studios, my family and I have created a world of play and creativity that I am so lucky to be a part of!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.PowerTeamStudios.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/powerteamstudios/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PowerTeamStudios
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@powerteamstudios
- Other: http://bio.site/powerteamstudios
