This Is My Story

Pests Production are an organisation that  collaborates with emerging performers to produce high quality live performance in Dorset and the South West of England. Our work takes place across a range of platforms and within theatrical and non-theatrical spaces. We engage with emerging performers that are both local to Dorset and work outside of the county. Our aim is to put Dorset on the map as a hub of creative and cultural engagement, rivaling other coastal cities such as Brighton or Bristol.

This Is My Story will be season of DIY, small scale, low tech theatre performances centering round contemporary expressions of identity. We will be helping to show some of the incredible plethora of human identities. This Is My Story will take place as soon as we are able to organise public gatherings again. 

*IMPORTANT UPDATE* As we've hit our original goal of £1,000. We are going to keep the fundraiser open, and any money that we raise above this figure will be split between the 6 theatre makers that we are programming. Upping their fee to a sixth of whatever we are able to raise. This will  help the recovery of our community directly by paying back some of the money lost in the closures we've all faced. Thank you so much for your incredible support! 

We're fundraising for £1,000 to help launch this new 6 month theatre programme. This Is My Story is a series of theatre performances made by theatre makers focusing on the theme of identity, telling unique, challenging, engaging stories in amazing, daring, new ways.

 Your donation is very important to us and will go towards helping us make the entire project happen, that includes:

Giving emerging artists the opportunity to perform in a town that doesn't often provide these artistic opportunities. 

Helping emerging artists reach as large an audience as possible by creating engaging marketing materials and being able to push these in larger scales than we have previously.

Buying vital equipment that helps us programme more technically complex shows, not just for this project but for all our future projects.

Making sure that we can keep our ticket prices at affordable and accessible prices, so that no one feels that they are priced out of going to the theatre.

Thank you for taking the time to look at our fundraiser. With your donations and support, you're helping to give emerging performers the opportunity to showcase their talents and bring new, exciting creative performances to Dorset.

As many of you know, Pests were successful in our first ever Arts Council bid, meaning we have earned some of the money needed to create this project. Now, we need to raise this last thousand to be able to deliver the project as fully and successfully as we can. 

Additional Details on some of our rewards:

Thank you letter

Everyone that donates will receive a thank you letter with some information about the project.

This Is Your Story Zine

Everyone that donates will receive a copy of ‘This Is Your Story’ Zine. A zine is a DIY magazine about a certain theme or topic.

Photo of Oscar and Fred 

Each pack comes with an original picture of Fred and Oscar, our morale officers, numbered on the back to prove that it is original in this series.

Name of our Website - You’ve become a Pest

Everyone that donates will become an honorary Pest. We’ll be thanking you on our website, in our programme, and at our live events. 

A badge

In each donation pack, you’ll receive a Pests badge. 

Sponsorship of a Show

Once the lineup of performances is confirmed, we will contact you to ask you for the following: 1) an image/logo to go in the advertising programme to go with the show. This image will also be present at the live event of the performance 2) a message to be read out (if you would like this) at the end of a live performance. You will get to select a performance that you are sponsoring but it will be on a first come first serve basis in terms of when you reply to our email letting you know what the shows are. That is, we believe, the fairest way that we are able to do this. 

Sponsorship of the tea station

If you’ve been to a live performance, you’ll know that we have brilliant volunteers running a tea station where you receive free teas, coffees, and biscuits included in the cost of your ticket. With your donation, you’re able to sponsor our tea station. When our line of performances has been confirmed, we will contact you for the following: 1) An image/logo to go on the tea station for that show. 2) A message to go with your image which will be on display at our tea station. We will also verbally thank you at the end of the performance for sponsoring the tea station. 

Suggestion for Future Drag Show Theme

Your suggestion will be put up against other suggestions in a round-robin knockout style tournament, with a single winner eventually emerging. This will be run from our Twitter and Facebook platforms. There potentially will be several rounds of voting, depending on the number of suggestions we have. We will be emailing you shortly to ask you for your suggestion. You may have already received this email. If you are not a social media user, please let us know in the email so that we can keep you up to date on the progress your theme is making in the voting.

Prize draw to name the Pests Ant

We’ve never named our ant. Now, you’ve got the chance. Once the window for donation has closed. We’ll be drawing your suggestions out of a hat and the winner will be notified by email and will also receive a knitted ant! We will announce the winner via social media and email. 

Similarly to the drag show theme suggestion, we’ll be emailing you to ask you for your suggestion for our Ants name. 

Reading/Shoutout by Cilly

Cilly will provide you with a personal video where she either reads you or gives you a shout out. The best way to describe ‘reading’ is ‘banter but bitchier’. If you’ve ever wanted Cilly to say something mean about you, now is your chance! Or on the flip side of that. If you want Cilly to give you a personal shoutout video that you can post on your social media, here you go. We’ll email you, we may already have, asking you whether you’d like ‘a read’ or ‘a shoutout’ and we’ll discuss how that happens with you from there. 

If you've got any questions about the project, please send us an email at [email protected]