The City for Incurable Women

Aim: The City for Incurable Women is coming to EdFringe... Help this queer-feminist play on its way (Warning: hysteria cure not included)

“It feels like someone ripping the rug out from under your feet when they tell you you’re crazy. Because we all secretly wonder if we are.”

Who we are

fish in a dress is a UK and Germany based theatre collective founded in 2024 by Christina Deinsberger, Charlotte McBurney, and Helena McBurney. We aim to devise and create new work from a queer-feminist perspective. Our interest lies in psychologically detailed, physically challenging, formally experimental work. In ‘The City for Incurable Women’ we explore new ways of storytelling and use a highly refined language in sound, design, and physicality. It is the first piece for the company.

Edinburgh

We have been programmed by The Pleasance to perform at the Upstairs venue at 1:35pm every day at Edinburgh Fringe. Which is incredibly exciting - and also means we need to raise some money!

Our Play

‘The City for Incurable Women’ has performed sold out work-in-progress shows in London, at both SPRINT festival at Camden Peoples Theatre, and at The Pleasance Futures Festival. We are about to perform one site-specific show at the Old Operating Theatre London in June. We have been hugely encouraged by the responses we have received from audiences and are excited to share it with as big and diverse an audience we can muster in Edinburgh. Taking the show to Fringe is an opportunity to share the play with larger audiences, including a more international crowd who come from around the world to see cutting-edge theatre. This will allow us to forge important connections with industry professionals and new audiences.

The Story

The City for Incurable Women is a one person play, about the history of hysteria and our gendered construction of madness. The storyteller, Kae, is fascinated by a hospital in the 1880s. Here, female patients performed "hysteria" on stage for the public. Kae imagines what happened in these anatomic theatres, traces the echoes to today, feeling them linger in their own body and perhaps gets a little too caught in the story. There are moments of high camp and humour, a sense of liberation. There are also moments of darkness and trauma, as this outrageous tale of medical misogyny unfolds.

What your donation will fund

• Venue hire
• PR: We’re working with a fantastic team who are enabling us to reach journalists and publications, which will help us share more about the background of our show, get reviewed, sell tickets at Fringe, and ensure a future life for the show post Fringe
• Travel: Our team is coming to Edinburgh from London and Berlin, travelling sustainably on trains
• Flyers: The infamous Fringe flyers. Lots of flyers are needed
• Lemons: We need 26 lemons. I really can’t explain more. You’ll have to come and see the show.
• Food that’s not lemons: We cannot, unfortunately, live on lemons.

A huge, huge thank you for supporting our work! 

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 28th August 2025 at 12:00pm