An Endeavour for an Edinburgh Adventure
A young person's crowd-funding project, supported by somewhereto_
Written by Max Cunningham from Bare Project.
For a young theatre company, getting to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival can be a daunting prospect. We’ve got ourselves a lovely venue in C nova, we’ve found accommodation; we have an incredibly talented cast, we have visionary designers designing set pieces, costumes and a big ol’ bear puppet, and a beautiful piece of new writing written by a handsome, young Sheffield graduate. All of these individuals are taking part for the sheer love of theatre and trust in the play, but the bill: £6000.
Edinburgh Fringe is an amazing opportunity for young thespians. For all involved individually and for our company (The Bare Project) it would be an extremely valuable experience to professionally develop, platform our work and meet like-minded artists. We had our debut production as a company in December and since then have put on a further two productions. One of which was Stainless, a somewhereto_ project in partnership with Art in the Park, in which we transformed the inside of a local arts gallery into a Bauhausian metal-themed fiesta to celebrate 100 years of stainless steel in Sheffield and platform the artistic endeavours of some local writers, designers, actors and musicians.
1: A dialogue between a Knife and Fork in 'Cutlery Drawer' by Joseph Houlders
This is the fundamental aim of The Bare Project: to support new writing and to explore immersive theatre in Sheffield.
Our Edinburgh show, Goodbye Sun and Bear, is a tale of looking for things in the snow; most notably, an escaped circus bear, a boy named Luka, and some warmth. Luka navigates blizzards the size of five winters to find Alpa the bear. His parents race after him into an ever-expanding winter, fearing for his life. In the snowstorm Luka chances upon a troop of pseudo "doctors" bellowing their cherished memories into the snow, warding off the all-encompassing cold, and delighting in their resultant lack of hypothermia. All the while Alpa’s whiskey-soaked trainer descends into guilt-ridden madness.
Through the heart-warming tale of a boy and his bear The Bare Project aims to raise awareness and stimulate discussion about mental health issues, specifically autism, depression and alcoholism. Stigmas concerning mental health are still rife in society today. This issue is finally beginning to be discussed publicly, in newspaper articles and documentaries. We feel that the medium of storytelling is a natural way to contribute to the growing movement of challenging these stigmas: by celebrating vivid characters who are honest about their struggles to be happy.
One of the ways we are fundraising for the Fringe is through crowd funding. We hope to raise £3000 before the 10th of June. At the time of writing we’re on about £1500. In exchange for donations, donors get fun little gifts, potentially a watercolour from our designer, or a hand-made bear finger puppet, or even a night’s stay with us at our Edinburgh flat! Please do have a look at our website, maybe give a little (you can sponsor us HERE) and spread the word as far as you can through the worlds of social media.
Thank you for reading! Bare love.
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