#AmazingPeople

In developing Too Soon? I have worked with some amazing people who have given time and expertise, bringing knowledge, insight and depth to the project.

• Josh Hyams - film and TV producer whose recent work on the drama ‘I am Ruth’, earned him a BAFTA.
• Tamsyn Kelly - stand up comedian and writer
• Garth Cruickshank, aka Harry Ainsworth, DJ and pub quiz maestro - script consultant, the original Ash back when he was called Brendan Clarke, and one reason that Ash has to be Scottish.
• Mary Harrod - Associate Professor at the University of Warwick, an authority on the romantic comedy genre, and gender and identity in contemporary popular culture.

Numerous other friends and associates have read drafts of the script - often multiple times! - to help ensure I am dealing with the subject-matter sensitively, yet still with the bitingly hard-edged darkly comic approach that I have wanted to take.

They’ve helped ensure the play stays sharp and focussed in its aim to entertain and explore, to question, and to leave audiences with a minefield of thoughts to deal with.

New writing always needs a team of phenomenal actors.

And these guys are definitely that. Together their skills will help "Too Soon?" reach its final form, when it's living and breathing in the rehearsal room - redundant dialogue spotted and culled, lines delivered in ways you'd not conceived, added aspects of meaning you can only feel when it's on its feet moving around. And then finally it's ready, on stage, for you our lovely audiences.

Check out their showreels via these links:

• Lauren's Spotlight

(total comic genius in the car scene.)

• Josh's Spotlight

(look at that angelic face!)

• Check out this bit of one of Sophie's stand-up shows...

(content warning before you click: adult themes & strong language!)

•  And here's a little something from me...

I've also recruited a fantastic Assistant Director, Meg Wilde, to get the best out of me and the rest of the cast, make sure there's always an outside-eye in rehearsals, and to add another valuable female voice to the process.

A dual national British American assistant director and actor based in London, Meg read Film at Sussex and trained on the MA Acting course at East 15 Acting School. Meg has worked freelance since 2007 within independent film, shorts, television, commercial, corporate, live events, festivals and theatre. In 2018 she co-wrote, produced, directed and performed in "Battleaxe" at the Camden People’s Theatre, part of the Camden Fringe Festival. Recently she was 1st AD for short film "Starring!" (written & directed by Rebecca Holmes) and 3rd AD for short film "Parallel" (written & directed by Rosanna Lee), which was selected for the London Short Film Festival 2023.

A freelance technician at The Young Vic, Meg has filmed and directed many live events, including The Hay Literary Festival, training there as a visual mixer. A love of film, especially independent cinema, has led to work with Picturehouse Cinemas, Sundance Film Festival London and the BBC.
She also works as a carer and access coordinator on set and in theatres, facilitating specific needs, and enjoys expanding awareness of accessibility and inclusivity within the industry.

And you...

So many of you reading this have been so supportive and kept me going over the last ten years, through times when I've completely lost faith in the project, in myself, and wondered whether all the time and effort is worth it. Missed holidays, lost weekends, over half my annual leave since 2017 spent working on the play...

At key moments you've given me belief.

A quiet drink when I really needed it, a reminder of how much you love the script, telling me to shut up and just get the hell on with it. And now we're here, about to start the world premiere run.

You're part of the team, and I need your help again now, to ensure this isn't the end of the journey, but just the beginning.

#CashChat

The pie chart below kinda highlights how fringe theatre survives.

Theatre companies do everything we can to keep costs down. Mates' rates from a photographer friend for good marketing shots, using things you already have for set & props (some of you who have spent time at my home will see how I've done this with the set!), actors using their own items for costume & make up...

Then there are things you can't escape. It's a rarity to find a highly skilled theatre technician who will work at a cut-rate, and insurance just simply has to be paid. And especially in today's Britain, you need some contingency for unexpected travel and transport snafus.

You'll see how the largest wedges in the pie are rehearsal space hire and cast and creative team wages.

These are the costs most often sacrificed for fringe theatre projects to be financially viable.

If you total up the other costs they come to £1,861.82

If we sell-out the full five night run of "Too Soon?", our income from ticket sales (@£14 per ticket) comes to around £1,640.

This factors in

• a 50/50 split on ticket sales with the Lion & Unicorn Theatre
• the Camden Fringe taking their (totally fair enough) cut of 15%(ish)
• 25 of the 300 tickets being comps for industry types that I and the team are inviting to help us move the project to the next stage.

You can see how the income tallies close enough to the budget for us to call it close to breaking even. And in that way of doing things, you can see that crowdfunding wouldn't necessarily be needed.

"So why not follow the conventional fringe model..?"

Sure, but there are risks.

Rehearsal space... While it's great that community centres, church halls, colleges... allow you to hire spaces, these still do often cost.

If you get somewhere for free, there'll likely be concessions - not being able to have the times you really want, working late into the evenings, maxing out weekends. Or rehearsing in a few different places, time lost trying to find five different venues on five different days.

Hiring a dedicated theatre rehearsal space means you and your team have all the facilities needed to help you do the best job you can.

You know that you'll have the time and space you want, you can feel confident you won't be randomly disturbed. You're working with building staff that really understand your needs.

Your team can feel 100% relaxed and focussed. You can make that space your own, so that you can explore, play, develop the work to produce a piece of theatre that audiences will love.

I want to give this run of "Too Soon?" the best chance. Proper, settled, rehearsal spaces are an important factor.

But obviously being mindful to keep costs down, we have two venues...

• A theatre space @ £10/hr
• Rehearsal rooms of varying sizes in a dedicated theatre complex, depending on the number of the team needed in at that time, costs @ £8/hr - £13.25/hr

Beyond this, the audition space was £255.00 over two weekend days. Weekends can be more expensive, plus we needed somewhere central, easy to get to, and where the auditioners would feel safe with a bunch of strangers.

"And... the actors?"

What, like the most important element of the show - the people who actually bring the story to life?

Many fringe theatre projects offer profit-share as a way to pay the actors, with both parties sullenly aware and accepting that there will be no actual profits to share.

So actors often work for low or no pay, getting expenses only... if that. Having been in many fringe productions, I know how we work on a project because we believe in it - the story we're telling, the team, and in the hope that it will lead to further fruitful work.

Actors are skilled craftspeople. They train, develop and hone their skills to entertain us, make us laugh, make us cry, take us on journeys to places we did not expect.

They're artists.

Whether this Crowdfundr hits the funding target or not, the "Too Soon?" cast and creative team will be paid what I've contractually committed to, and the play you will enjoy will be of the highest quality possible.

It will be so much tighter, slicker, impactful, because they can focus on the project and not have money worries creeping in.

I have taken pains to consult Equity and other bodies on rates for fringe theatre, to pay a fair wage:

• £15/hr for the time they’re needed in rehearsals (that time reflective of the stage time their character has)
• £100 performance / stage management fee
• £25/day expenses for every day they're needed to work.

Again, they will be paid. The question is whether they're ultimately paid by lovely patrons of the arts like yourselves or...

As audiences we’re not often aware of what actors have to do to maintain their careers.

We see the final product. The on stage glamour, the applause, the adulation. We don’t see the supermarket, restaurant and call centre shifts, the hectic going to and fro between rehearsals and their "money job", running themselves ragged to make ends meet while maintaining their dreams.

This isn’t how I want anyone to be working on "Too Soon?"

More than once I've seen someone duck out of a play because they've burnt themselves out trying to work their day-job around rehearsals. Or because - fair enough - an offer of paid acting work came their way.

So many massively talented people duck out of the industry due to financial necessity. And we lose so much richness from our culture as a result.

This is equally true of other theatre professionals, like assistant directors, who may not be on stage, but who are equally as important as the actors in bringing to life the story you’ll be immersed in.

So this Crowdfundr exists because I don't want to risk losing any of my team mid-process. I don't want any of them to burn out.

I want the team to feel financially secure, and if they need to, to be able to schedule any day-job work in a calm, realistic and non-stressful way around the time they're needed for rehearsals. And so they can have some time to have a break and relax!

And because they're skilled professionals who should be paid for their time.

"Break a leg! ...and break-even!"

Focussing this Crowdfundr on team wages and rehearsal space hire will bring us close to break-even.

The finance types amongst you will have probably already done this maths, but you'll have noticed that the total for...

• Cast and Assistant Director's wages (£7,718.75) PLUS Rehearsal space hire (£1,479.00) = £9,197.75

is close to the loss that will be made by the project without this Crowdfundr

• Income from Ticket Sales (£1,640.00) MINUS Total Project Budget (£11,059.57) = £9,419.57

And it means I could set up the perks to give you a clear sense of what you're funding in the project .

" The perks..?"

I didn't include the budget details for the perks and their fulfilment in the pie chart above, as I am going to pass on those costs to you, if that's okay.

If you choose a £50 perk or above, shipping costs will cover the cost of printing too, totalling £5.52 for the UK, or the equivalent of £13.83 for the US or Canada.

But if it's annoying to have that extra cost, I've set the perks as flexible amounts so you can subtract £5.52 or £13.83 off your funding amount.

I'm going to keep the campaign open until the end of September, but will start fulfilling any perks claimed before 1st Sept as soon as September begins. So you will have your stuff by the end of that month. And then anyone who claims a perk in September, you will get your stuff by the end of October.

I have endeavoured to be clever with the perks we're offering to keep costs minimal, but hopefully providing you with something of reasonably high quality that will give sentimental value, and hopefully collector's value over time.

We're a big team... one of us has got to make it big!

"Every little innit!"

These are costs to ensure I'm being a good employer, and to not be working under the shadow of the risks described above.

I believe in the project and in this way of doing things. And I hope I've inspired you enough to agree and see the worth in dedicating money to the project.

Any progress towards the target will make a huge difference to the future of "Too Soon?" and is hugely appreciated.

If we exceed the target - amazing! That will mean we can cover the other costs of the production. And if we go way above the target, the excess will stay in the dedicated bank account for the project and go towards the next run.

You really will be funding the future!