This summer we’re taking our hit musical, The House Of Edgar, on (a very small) tour with a super talented cast and crew. We couldn’t be more excited!
We’ve already got the money to pay our venue hire and other production costs. But we want to do everything we can to support our cast who have volunteered their time for free.
We’re going to share any profit we make with them. But we don’t think that’s good enough.
We want to guarantee that every member of our cast will get at least £150 to help towards the cost of travel and accommodation. But we need your help!
Who We Are
Argosy Arts Co. is a young emerging theatre company formed by recent graduates of the University of Exeter. We’re into musical theatre and want to experiment with the format and explore new ways in which we can invert, exploit and manipulate that bond between music and drama.
The House Of Edgar is our first ever show. We took it to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2016 and got some great reviews. Now, two years later, we want to give the show a new life. Hopefully one that sees it going out on the road to tour the country. This summer is the start of that.
About The Show
Based on the life and works of Poe, The House Of Edgar show uses folk-styled songs to retell some of the american author’s most famous stories, from Annabel Lee and The Raven, to The Tell-Tale Heart and The House of Usher, weaving them into a ghostly new tale of love, loss and legacy.
Edgar Allan Poe is dead. His reputation ruined and his legacy crumbling, his work is all that remains. As a rival seizes Poe’s estate, echoes of the past emerge. Inside these walls, are the stories simply marks on a page, or something else entirely?
Our volunteer cast & crew
We’ve recruited 11 super talented cast and crew to create the show with us. Some of them were on the team when we took ‘Edgar’ to the fringe back in 2016. But there’s also some new faces who’ve joined. Take a look at their lovely faces below!
If you’re wondering who the three faded faces are, that's us! We (Beth Clarence, Thomas F. Arnold and Jack Dryden) run the company. This campaign isn't for us, all the money will go to our volunteer cast and crew. After all this is our project, and they are the ones helping us to bring it to life!
The cost of performing on tour
Sadly, travelling to perform with a show is expensive, particularly at the Edinburgh Fringe. With so many people in the city at once, accommodation costs sky-rocket. Clubbing together, we’ve done everything to keep the costs down for our cast and crew, but it still costs a lot.
For each member of our cast and crew it costs £450 for accommodation. Travel to and from Edinburgh will cost around £100 on top. That means that all together the costs for each member of our team could be up to £550.
What we are doing to support our cast
We’ve agreed to share any profit that our show makes with our volunteer cast and crew. But profits are fickle. The amount we have to give our cast is completely dependent on how many tickets we sell.
We've calculated that our show will break even and start to make profit if we sell 41% of the seats across our tour. When we did the Fringe in 2016 we averaged 48% capacity, so we're confident that we will break event and make some profit to share. However, profit is never guaranteed and we don't know how much we will make.
How you can help!
We want to guarantee that every member of our cast will get at least £150 to help them to cover their travel and accommodation costs. With 11 volunteer team members, we need to raise £1,650 in total to do that.
Any donation you can make, no matter how small, will be greatly appreciated!
Every penny that we raise from this campaign will go directly to our volunteer cast and crew. This money isn’t for us. It isn’t for the show. It’s for them.
We will cover the cost of all the rewards, and pay the small commission that Crowdfunder take ourselves. When we say that the money is for our cast and crew, we really mean it.
A little something to say thank you
To say thank you for your support, we’ve arranged some great rewards for people who help us.
Firstly, no matter how much you donate you can expect a personal thank you note from us. And for larger donations we’ve got a range of special gifts from copies of our original soundtrack, to tickets to see the show or even a dashing t-shirt with a printed Poe on the front.
But it’s not all about the money!
Even just sharing this video with your friends on Facebook, Twitter or other social media will really help us out. Thank You!