"Endgame: Ariel" - An exploration of gender identity
We – Dead Leaf Theatre Company - are aiming to raise between £900 and £2000 to take our current theatre production "Endgame: Ariel" to the Camden Fringe Festival this August. The project raises awareness of gender identity issues through physical theatre. Three of Shakespeare's early cross-dressing women take the audience on a journey towards freedom and pose questions that we can all relate to. What does it feel like to be entrapped in a body you don't feel comfortable in? What constraints does society place on us by labelling us "men" and "women"? And ultimately, would we all be happier without labels? We want to get the subject more out there and talked about, ideally finding a wider audience with people of all ages and backgrounds.
Who is Dead Leaf Theatre Company?
We are Dead Leaf - a three-woman-strong physical theatre company, entwining three nationalities and cultures. There's Katie from Scotland, Pernille from Norway and Meri from Germany. We are all currently studying at East 15 Acting School, where we met in 2014.
We're pushing the boundaries of theatre and politics, and they're pushing right back, creating something new and exhilarating.
Our Story
We strive to create fresh new writing and physical theatre through devised processes, dealing with the social and political issues of our time. Our current project, THE FIVE-YEAR PLAN, is a set of three productions putting gender under the microscope and exploring society's role in forming and constricting the way we view the sexes. Our pieces are created from interviews, video studies and improvisation creating verbatim theatre to give a true and accurate representation of the world we live in.
"Endgame: Ariel" is about gender identity - a subject we feel very passionately about, especially after conducting so many interviews with people from the transgender community. Their honesty and openness to share their stories, experiences and feelings has deeply inspired us and we want to take that inspiration to the stage, making all these stories accessible to everyone. Besides, the struggles the transgender community faces are things we can all relate to - friendships, relationships, love, exploring your own body, Sex, loneliness etc. The openness of our piece makes its message valuable to many people who want to come and watch us on stage.
A space for our work - How your donation supports us
If we are as lucky as to hit our minimum or even luckier - to hit our full target, the money will be spent on the registration fee for the festival, venue rental, technical equipment, publicity for our production and payment of our musicians, technician and other people involved. Any extra funds will go towards transport, payment of creatives involved and future theatre projects.
Breakdown of costs:
Registration fee : £99
Venue hire : £1500
Equipment and tech : £100
Publicity : £100
Payment to people involved : £200-500
Benefits for our donors
As thanks for any help we would be happy to have people come in and watch the process, have people come in to see a run (when it gets close to the opening of the show) or we can run private workshops.
Little snaps of our performances
The photos on this page were taken during a successful run of "Endgame: Ariel" at the Courtyard Theatre in London in January 2016.
Get in touch and find out more
If you are interested and want more information please visit our website http://www.deadleaftheatre.co.uk/, and follow us on twitter and facebook: https://twitter.com/deadleafpresent https://www.facebook.com/deadleaftc/
Also visit our Instagram account: DEADLEAFTC
How you can support us
If you are interested in our project, but unable to support us financially, please share our project with other people you think would be interested – that in itself is of great help to us! The more people who know about us and our project, the more likely we are to make this happen. Any support is greatly appreciated – even if it is just a few pennies or sharing our project with others. Thank you very much for visiting our fundraising page and for taking the time to find out what Dead Leaf is all about!
