Lulla: a new queer dream play + creative workshops

Aim

Help us raise key funding to stage a wild new queer dream play at a leading London venue and run creative workshops for young LGBTQ+ people.

(Temporary main image © Martin Vlach. An original image will be designed for the production.)

WHY ARE WE ASKING FOR YOUR SUPPORT?

Ben SantaMaria is planning a production of their new queer and non-binary dream play, Lulla, at a leading London venue for new LGBTQ+ work next summer, directed by emerging queer artist Martha J. Baldwin.

Ben is producing the 2-week run of Lulla for their company, Flaming Theatre, following on from the UK tour of Ben's hit play Really Want to Hurt Me.

Ben and Martha will run free creative writing and physical devising workshops for LGBTQ+ people aged 16-25, linked to Lulla's core theme of developing a personal sense of queer identity and community as a young person.

Martha and Ben will also work closely with 2 leading organisations that support young LGBTQ+ people (1 local and 1 national) to co-host post-show discussions about the issues raised by Lulla with its audiences aged 16+.

Lulla is a completely non-profit project. 

Ben has applied for Arts Council England funding for the project, which Really Want to Hurt Me received twice. 

But if we're successful with that grant application, we still need to raise crucial match funding to reach our budget total. 

If we don't achieve this crowdfunding goal, we won't receive any potential ACE funding.

Every penny donated to this project will go directly to paying our cast of 4 actors and full essential team of 14 freelance creatives at fair industry rates. 

Ben's written several acclaimed plays since Flaming Theatre's last tour, but has waited to raise union-approved fees for everyone involved before staging the company's next full production.

The production is programmed and we'll be able to announce the venue details after ACE's funding decision in February.

If we don't receive ACE funding, we'll reapply for it and schedule later performance dates at the same venue. You can decide whether to have your donation fully refunded then, or allow us to wait until we have a final decision on that main funding.

But we need to raise our crowdfunding total by February to be ready to launch the project then if we are fully funded, as Flaming Theatre's previous runs were.

Your donation can be fully refunded to you at any point before we close this crowdfunding campaign. Just let us know if you change your mind.

Our paid team will consist of: writer; director; 4 actors (3 women and 1 man and/or non-binary performers); producer; associate producer (job-sharing so that Ben can balance writing/rehearsal/workshop/producing tasks); set and costume designer; sound designer; lighting designer; technical stage manager; intimacy coordinator; graphic designer. 

Our other costs include rehearsal room hire, venue hire and set/costumes/props.

WHAT IS LULLA? WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Lulla is a dizzyingly surreal journey into the dream world of a 16-year-old queer girl.

Lulla: a fragment word, echoing lullaby, sleep and childhood.

This funny, scary, wild new play reached the Verity Bargate Award top 100 longlist at Soho Theatre and was awarded a Peggy Ramsay Foundation grant. It follows Flaming Theatre’s award-nominated UK tour of Really Want to Hurt Me, which featured in The Guardian's Hottest Front-Room Seats: The Best Theatre to Watch Online.

"earthly dust from off thee shaken

shut your eyes

look through the glass

count your fingers

count your toes

breathe through it, you’ll be alright

come on

jump!"

Marin is 16 and just met the girl of her dreams. But when her disapproving mum and dad find out, all hell breaks loose. She escapes them by flying out of her bedroom window into the underworld of her subconscious, where birds are gods and choices are infinite. There she faces her deepest fantasies and nightmares, guided by the mysterious, gender-shifting Lady Nightshade, her witty sparring partner and ally. Warped versions of Marin's parents, late grandmother, girlfriend and school bully send her spiralling through this shadowland, as she grapples with the death of her childhood. Lulla is a poetic and transgressive adventure for young LGBTQ+ audiences and other thrill-seekers that asks: who am I, if I am not my family?

"you are now entering the infinite"

Martha J. Baldwin’s boldly physical production of this immersive play will delve into folk horror and dark fantasy, popular genres for queer audiences who question the nuclear family norm. 

"life is terror

with a clown mask superglued on"

At a time when queerness and gender diversity are once again under intense social attack, Lulla powerfully explores the pressure to conform and the shame forced upon many young LGBTQ+ people, through Marin’s battle to define herself and ultimately embrace her emerging desires.

"if you ever need me

just call for me at twilight"

If you're into Angela Carter, David Lynch, Caryl Churchill, Lorca, Maya Deren, The Wizard of Oz or LGBTQ+ stories that break the mould, we think you'll love Lulla.

WHO ARE WE?

We'll recruit our cast and the rest of our creative team after funding is confirmed.

Ben SantaMaria (they/them) is an award-nominated queer and non-binary writer based in Epping, Essex, who’s passionate about creating challenging, layered images of LGBTQ+ lives that speak to diverse audiences. They’re artistic director of Flaming Theatre and a Theatre503 dramaturg and senior reader. Ben was selected as a 2022-26 BAFTA Connect member, 2024-26 Paines Plough Mentored Writer, and for the Criterion Theatre New Writing and Story Development Programmes, Mercury Theatre Playwrights Programme, Soho Theatre Edinburgh Lab and National Theatre Directors Course.

Plays include: Really Want to Hurt Me (ACE-supported UK tour to Old Red Lion, Sheffield Crucible, Nottingham Playhouse, Theatr Clwyd, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Everyman Cheltenham, Barnfield Exeter, Key Theatre Peterborough and The Marlborough in Brighton; Theatre503; Soho Rising festival, Soho Theatre; Edinburgh Fringe, Assembly Hall; Brighton Fringe Award for Excellence shortlist), Demons (Paines Plough Tour the Writer scheme, attached to Mercury Theatre), Is This Desire? (Theatre503 International Playwriting Award and Bread & Roses Playwriting Award longlists; Omnibus Theatre rehearsed reading directed by Offie Award winner Matthew Parker), Jarman Garden (Riverside Studios; Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award finalist), In Need (Verity Bargate Award top 10% longlist), Hunters (ScriptSpace reading at The Space). 

Short films: Develop (Iris Prize Micro-Short Award finalist), Demons (BFI NETWORK South East Script Lab shortlist), Symptoms May Include (Virtual Collaborators Festival).

You can read more about Ben's work and critical/audience praise for Flaming Theatre's previous productions here.

Some images of Ben's work:

(All photo credits are listed on Ben's website.)

Martha J. Baldwin (she/her) is a queer theatre director and workshop facilitator based in London and originally from West Yorkshire. She has a MA with Distinction in Directing from Drama Centre London. She focuses on queer new writing, surreal and movement-centred performance, and also works in the Theatre for Young Audiences sector. 

Directing includes: Eleanor Webster’s Welsh myth adaptation, The Birth of Taliesin (ACE-funded R&D, Z-Arts, Manchester), Hannah Kennedy’s Supernova (Barons Court Theatre), Maria Irene Fornes's Mud (Drama Centre London).

Assistant directing includes: The Return of Benjamin Lay (Finborough), Rejoicing at Her Wondrous Vulva, the Young Woman Applauded Herself  (Ovalhouse).

Martha is an experienced Stage Manager, having worked with venues such as the New Diorama, Arcola, Finborough, King’s Head.

Some images of Martha's work:

(Image © Mark Duffield)

(Image © Ryan Morrison)

(Image © Ryan Morrison)

WHAT HAPPENS IF WE DON'T REACH OUR CROWDFUNDER TOTAL?

No crowdfunding, no show, no workshops. It's that simple and that vital!

If you're able to help us at all by donating, no matter how much, or by sharing our campaign with your friends, we’d be incredibly grateful. 

Ben and Martha's other ACE-supported projects, and Ben's past crowdfunded show, have all balanced their final budgets.

We promise to make every penny count for this important new queer and non-binary project.

This project successfully funded on 20th February 2026