How I WrotE a book at 6 AND PROOFREAD IT AT 8

London, Greater London, United Kingdom

£1,601

Target: £33,500

We have raised 4% of our target 4%

37 supporters

66 days left

Donate

Rewards

This project has rewards available

Aim

To fund a team of autistic creators making bold theatre about masking, memory and the cost of correcting yourself before anyone else can.

A red pen rests on an open notebook in the top right corner. Below it, the show title appears in mixed black and red handwriting: “How I WrotE a book at 6 AND PROOFREAD IT AT 8”. In “WrotE”, the black “rot” is corrected with a red capital W and E. Smaller text reads “an autistic mathematical tragedy of words” above and “A lifetime of masking” below. The lines are separated by three infinity symbols, then two, then one.

Autistic? Polish? Migrant? Queer? Maths nerd?*
Passionate about new theatre? Tired high achiever?
Care about disability and its representation on stage?
Ever heard of Chopin? ;)

Or do you believe there is value in a team of neurodivergent theatre professionals coming together to make work from inside autistic experience?

Then please help us bring this piece to stages in London and beyond!

Access note: The teaser video has sound-effect captions; a full visual description is available in the YouTube description.

Small light bulb symbol. Uneven handwritten note reading: “Spring starts on the 21st of MARZEC.” The note appears on a lined notebook-style background with a red margin on the right.

WHAT ARE WE MAKING?

A 60-minute bilingual theatre piece in two bodies that turns autistic masking into an audience experience – through language, movement, sound, light and the quiet journey of a red pen.

WHAT MAKES IT UNUSUAL?

It moves beyond diagnosis, explanation and inspiration, towards a theatrical language built from autistic experience. 

WHO’S MAKING IT?

An all-neurodivergent team of performers, designers and theatre-makers building the piece as one shared live system.

WHAT DO WE WANT?

To create recognition for neurodivergent audiences – and ask everyone else to look harder at who is expected to adapt.

WHY DOES IT NEED PROPER FUNDING?

Because bold, sensory-aware, technically precise theatre takes time and professional labour.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

At least three by-invitation London development previews in 2026, shaped by audience feedback and sensory calibration. These previews are a focused development stage – not a commercial ticketed run – helping us refine the work, document the process and build towards longer festival runs in 2027.

IS IT IN ENGLISH OR POLISH?

Yes, and a bit of maths too! Polish gives one kind of access, not speaking Polish gives another. The difference is part of the show.

*Don’t worry, it’s ∨, not ∧.

Small light bulb symbol. Uneven handwritten note reading: “A standard pianino has 88 keys.” The letters “in” in “pianino” are crossed out with a red line, turning the word into “piano”. The note appears on a lined notebook-style background with a red margin on the right.

Help us make theatre that thinks differently.

The play is about masking, and the form has a mask too. On one level, it is an emotional story about growing up autistic, learning to mask, and trying to correct yourself before anyone else can. Underneath, patterns, numbers, sounds and repeated details keep rearranging what you think you have seen. It is designed to work once, and change when you look again. Your support will help us make formally bold theatre with the time and care it needs.

“The script is a fascinatingly woven piece of art, exploring the interplay of numbers and storytelling in a way I’ve never encountered before.” Edalia Day (Animation, she/her)

Help us fund the people, not just the idea.

This campaign is about giving an all-neurodivergent professional team the time, space and pay to build something still too rare in British theatre: ambitious work made from inside neurodivergent experience. Around 75% of our budget goes directly to professional fees. Because care is not an abstract value here – it is rehearsal and design time, skill, attention and labour.

“I’m excited to be a part of a project that takes so much care to have the right team on board, and explores feelings and sensations that are close to home.” Abi Turner (Sensory Dramaturgy / Access, they/them)

Help us make a piece that resonates.

Across the UK and the world, more people than ever are re-reading their lives through autism, ADHD, masking and late diagnosis. In England alone, 13 times more people were waiting for an autism assessment in September 2025 than in April 2019. This show gives theatrical shape to that strange aftershock: looking back at childhood, school, work, relationships and burnout, and realising the pattern was there long before the word arrived.

“I think there is a very big misconception around autism that it is always external and 'loud'. With this piece, it is the power of patterns and subtleties that means the most to me.” Daisy Simmons (Light, she/her)

Help us push neurodivergent representation further.

More neurodivergent stories are reaching stages and screens – and that matters. We want to help move the conversation beyond understanding alone, towards work that demands more of the room. This show asks who still has to mask, who gets called difficult, and why the work of adjustment so often lands on the person already quietly doing the most work.

“Making this kind of work is a radical act in a world determined to push disabled and neurodivergent communities to the margins.” Megan Brewer (Associate Director, she/they)

Help us put Polish-British experience on stage.

Polish is one of the most widely spoken languages in the UK after English, but Polish-British stories rarely get this kind of theatrical space. This show is shaped by Polish childhood, English adulthood, Chopin, autistic and queer self-translation, and the strange pressure of becoming legible in more than one language. It is not a “migration story” in the usual sense. It is about what gets corrected, softened or hidden when you are trying to belong.

“The piece explores Eastern Europeanness and neurodivergence in a non-traditional, non-hierarchical way that just makes sense for anyone who navigates the world from this perspective, including me.” Rebeka Dió (Movement, they/them)

Help us make access part of the art.

The show has edges – it should. But edges need shaping. We want audiences to feel invited into the world of the play, not left to guess how to navigate it. Your backing will help us build access into the creative process, through clear information, careful testing and preview feedback. The aim is not to soften the work, but to make its intensity precise and generous.

“Inclusivity is embedded into the fabric of the production rather than treated as an add-on.” Maja Lach (Stage Management, she/her)

Help us make a show with a future life.

Once developed and tested, this will be a compact, tourable theatre piece: two performers, minimal set, and a strong world built through sound, light, movement and language. Your support will help us create a version that can reach audiences beyond one London run: across the UK, across Europe, and in different communities where its questions around neurodivergence, migration, belonging and adjustment can land in new ways.

“What excites me about this project is the unique and culturally coded representation of neurodivergence that feels novel and has a sense of mystery.” Almaas Bokhari (Black Figure, he/him)

Small light bulb symbol. Uneven handwritten note reading: “Wołacz (the ‘caller’) is the 7th case in the Polish language.” The note appears on a lined notebook-style background with a red margin on the right.

BUDGET

Project budget is £32,000. Crowdfunder target is £33,500, to allow for transaction fees

What takes time? Now: Script, team and supporting materials ready. Self-funded movement exploration and early Black Figure work. September: 1. Preparation – team reading, planning, access conversations and creative questions. October: 2. Rehearsal R&D – text, movement, choreography, line delivery and two-body staging. 3. Design and creation – props, costumes, sound ideas, access planning, sensory calibration and graphic design are developed alongside the rehearsal process. 4. Design integration – sound, light, props, costumes, blackouts, transitions and cueing are brought into the room and tested as one live system. 5. Preview 1 – first, by-invitation London preview, followed by feedback evaluation. November: 6. Preview 2 – feedback integration, adjustments and second preview. 7. Preview 3 + recording – feedback integration, final London preview, documentation and preparation for 2027 festival/touring conversations. Afterwards: 2027 festival/touring conversations.

Why crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is a conscious choice. It lets this project gather a large group of people around it now – people who believe it should exist – while we also build towards longer-term institutional and festival support.

The show asks what rooms notice, reward and correct. Here, that question becomes practical: what kind of theatre do we collectively choose to make space for?

Too often, autism is treated as behaviour to be observed from the outside – on stage, in life, even in diagnosis. This show asks what happens when autistic perception shapes the rhythm, structure and pressure of the work itself. Backing this campaign helps show that there is an audience for theatre that is autistic in its form, not only in its subject.

If this sounds like the kind of work theatre needs more of, crowdfunding is where that belief becomes material.

What your support pays for

This is a cue-heavy, body-heavy, sensory show. The timing matters: blackouts, bells, movement, sound, silence and breath all need rehearsal, testing and adjustment.

Your support pays for the people and time to make that precision possible: choreography, sound-and-light integration, three London previews, audience feedback, and a recorded version to help us reach future programmers and festivals.

It also funds sensory dramaturgy: the work of shaping how far the show can go, how hard it can hit, and what information, pacing or care helps audiences stay with it. The aim is not to make the piece comfortable. It is to stage distress without causing avoidable distress.

Handwritten-like black-and-white pie chart titled “Where the £32,000 goes”. The largest section is 75% for paying people at equity rates. Smaller sections show 11% for rehearsal and preview space, 10% for other costs, and 4% for props, costumes and audience materials. Each section uses a different hand-drawn hatch pattern.

No separate writer’s fee is included; this budget is focused on paying the wider team and funding the rehearsal, preview and documentation process.

75% – Paying people at equity rates
Three quarters of the budget goes directly to people: a team of 10 neurodivergent artists, makers and theatre professionals ready to bring lived and professional expertise to performance, movement, sound, light, access and design – alongside the photographers, videographers and practical makers helping us document and build this next stage.

11% – Rehearsal and preview space
Discounted room hire, technical development space and London preview venue hire. The previews are limited-access development showings rather than a commercial ticketed run, so this stage is not meaningfully offset by ticket income. This campaign directly funds the space needed to test the work properly.

4% – Props, costumes and audience materials
The practical materials needed for the show and its audience experience, including costumes, key stage objects, access materials, handouts and programme printing.

10% – Other
Insurance, basic running costs and a small contingency to absorb unavoidable unexpected costs without cutting into people’s fees.

Childlike black line drawing of an ant on lined notebook paper, with uneven handwritten letters “m”, “r”, “ó”, “w”, “k” and “a” scattered around it, spelling “mrówka”, the Polish word for “ant”. The drawing appears on a lined notebook-style background with a red margin on the left.

CAST

Maks Marzec (he/him)
Playing Maksio and Masking M
Polish-British writer-performer and linguist originally from Lublin, creating the piece from autistic, bilingual, queer and migrant experience.

Almaas Bokhari (he/him)
Playing the Black Figure
AuDHD contemporary dancer, circus artist and festival performer.


CREATIVE TEAM

Megan Brewer (she/they)
Associate Director
Theatre director, producer and facilitator creating and supporting migrant theatre; Co-Artistic Director of Halfpace Theatre.

Abi Turner (they/them)
Sensory Dramaturgy / Access
Autistic, ADHD and chronically ill access consultant, specialising in creative access and sensory-aware theatre.

Rebeka Dió (they/them)
Movement
Hungarian theatre-maker working through movement, rhythm, identity, queerness and embodied discovery.

Calum Perrin (they/them)
Sound
Award-winning sound designer and composer working across theatre, music, live art and radio.

Daisy Simmons (she/her)
Light
London-based lighting designer and technician, trained at LAMDA.

Maja Lach (she/her)
Stage Management
London-based Polish freelance stage manager passionate about accessible theatre and queer, migrant and minority voices.

Edalia Day (she/her)
Crowdfunder Animation
Trans animator, projection designer, actor, poet and theatre-maker.

Ella Cerys Mae Simpson (she/her)
Graphic Design / Props
Designer and model maker trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.

In the text the words Sisyphus and Applause are spelt out. “They say Sisyphus defied the gods. I’m not interested in his defiance, only in the clarity of his punishment. (...) Everyone thinks the tragedy is in the climb. But it lives in the moment after – the break, the drop, the altitude still ringing in his ribs, the certainty that the height will summon him again, and the quiet belief that his hands should have held what no human hands can hold. His descent is not calm. It is the muted ache of almost belonging. They call him a hero. But he only keeps going because stopping costs more than applause.”

If you believe this work should exist, please back the campaign and share it.

The donation levels below are suggestions. You are welcome to give any amount that feels meaningful to you.

As a thank-you, each supporter will be offered a digital copy of the play programme once it has been developed.

Image access: Alt text has been added to all image elements in this campaign.

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 21st August 2026 at 9:00pm

Report project

Show your support

Donate

Payment and personal details are protected