We need help to fund a Fringe run for "Help Yourself" - a brand new show by Glasgow-based theatre makers Jess Brodie & Victoria Bianchi!
by Emma Ruse Productions in Edinburgh, United Kingdom
If we can hit our stretch target we'll have security of being able to cover all of our costs before the Fringe begins, rather than relying on ticket sales. Then, once that's been achieved we'll be able to start paying ourselves for the time we spend working on the project - which would be a dream!
If you're a fan of:
then this is the project for you! Anything you can give will make a huge difference, even if that's just sharing online with your community.
Our project is part of the 2023 Creative Scotland Crowdmatch competition. Creative Scotland will match individual pledges from the crowd up to £10,000. So if you donate £20 to our cause, your donation will be matched with a £20 pledge from Creative Scotland, effectively doubling your donation!
"Help Yourself" is a new performance exploring grief and friendship by theatre-makers Jess Brodie and Victoria Bianchi. Drawing back the veil of self-care and toxic positivity, Help Yourself unpacks our relationship with loss and empathy, and asks why humans struggle to accept sadness in ourselves and others.
This new theatre production previewed as part of the Hidden Door festival in 2022 to great reviews. We're incredibly excited to deliver the show in 2023 and need your help to get there!
Praise for 2022 previews:
'Jess Brodie and Victoria Bianchi’s Help Yourself (****) emerged, last weekend, as a witty and moving account of the sheer uselessness of various modern forms of self-help, from mindfulness to consumerist self-indulgence, to a woman faced with the real tragedy of miscarriage, and the silence that surrounds it’ - Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman
‘Jess Brodie & Victoria Bianchi lit up the Pianodrome with ‘Help Yourself’, a genuinely laugh-out-loud funny (but ultimately heartbreaking) look at loss and grief, framed as a live self-help seminar’ - Snack Magazine
Fringe is incredibly expensive, we estimate that (without paying ourselves) our costs will come to approximately £8000. This will cover our venue costs, registration fees, marketing costs and the physical costs of the production such as paying a technician to operate our lights and sound. We hope to raise some of this via grants and ticket sales, and are aiming to raise the rest by crowdfunding before using any profits to pay ourselves for our time and invest in the quality of the production.
We are a team of three early-career Scotland-based theatre-makers; Jess Brodie, Victoria Bianchi & Emma Ruse. Jess & Victoria have been working together creatively since 2018 and have pulled Emma onboard to produce their show for Fringe 2023. This is the first production from Emma's new independent producing company, Emma Ruse Productions!
The money raised will be spent as follows:
As you can see, all of these costs add up. We are keen to use this opportunity to the fullest and the best way to do that is to invest in our marketing and PR for the run, ensuring a wide range of audiences see our show. However, this is expensive and any penny you can give will go towards covering these fees!
This project offers rewards in return for your donation. Please select a reward below.