Queer Joy @ Edinburgh Fringe

Jess Ducey | Theatre

$3,840 of $2,000 Raised

192%

44 Generous Donors

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Overview

Butch Mermaid Productions, the team who brought you Too Much Hair, are back with a double dose of gender euphoria and queer joy!

Ania and Will are writing a brand spankin' new pirate punk musical, Antonio!, to be premiered in New York City in July 2023. Then, we're off to Edinburgh Fringe with both A Bit Too Much Hair and Antonio! in rep at theSpace @ Surgeon's Hall.

Antonio!

What if The Bard wasn’t just reusing a character name, but instead was inspired by one hopelessly romantic pirate looking for love in all the wrong places? With his band The Fools, Antonio tells his own story for the very first time. Antonio! reframes - and reclaims! - characters from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, As You Like It, and Merchant of Venice, expressing the joys, frustrations, and rebellions of queer love in a world that might not have been quite ready for it.

A Bit Too Much Hair

'It’s a big, silly party where transness is centred and everyone is welcome!' - Theatreview

This gender euphoric cabaret is a musical paradise for thems, mens, femmes, and everyone in between. In 2022, we developed the show in collaboration with our trans and gender diverse whānau in Ōtautahi and Te Whanganui-A-Tara, released a digital season for Auckland Pride, made a bunch of music videos, and then had a two week season at BATS in Wellington, which was nominated for Excellence Awards for Theatre for Social Change and Best Ensemble at the Wellington Theatre Awards 2022 (and original cast member Jthan Morgan won The Campion Accolade for Outstanding Performance).

‘It feels like hanging out with your friends at a house party. With a band. And rainbow glitter. Everyone’s wearing sequins. You’re inside but you can pretty much guarantee unicorns and bunnies are frolicking around in the garden.’ - Regional News

Where you come in

Making theatre is hard even without contending with currency conversions. Our venue, registration, basic production, and accommodation costs come to $25,000, and that's without flights or paying anyone for their time. We're fundraising our lil gay hearts out, and we need your help to get Kiwi stories of queer and trans joy on the global stage. We've set our target at $2,000 but every dollar beyond that is time and peace of mind we can spend promoting and perfecting the shows instead of panicking. Every little bit helps!

The Butch Mermaid Team

Ania Upstill (they/them), co-creator & performer
William Duignan (he/him), co-creator & performer
Felix Crossley-Pritchard (he/him), performer
Andy Manning (they/them), performer
Jess Ducey (they/them), producer
Georgia Kellett (she/her), marketing assistant

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Donors

Anonymous
Jane Arthur
Penny Ashton

Make sure you take an umbrella ;)
Tracy Kellett
Rach Te Tau

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Project Updates

550 Days Ago

It's the final countdown!

Twenty four hours to go and we're almost to our stretch goal! Thank you to everyone who's donated so far. We appreciate you more than we can say.

If you're able to help us in these final hours by sharing the campaign and talking a bit about why you're backing us, that would be a huge boost (ba-dum-tsh) to our fundraising target.

Here's some of the gang talking about why we're doing this mahi:

"Queer representation matters. Even when you don’t know you need it, when you’ve been out for two decades and have a supportive community and family. That’s what I think - I hope - we can give other queers with A Bit Too Much Hair and Antonio." - Ania

"Joy is a human right. Everyone deserves to feel euphoria. You deserve to be the you that you ARE, not the you everyone tells you you are." - William

"As someone who was late to the party on their own queer identity, I believe in the importance of positive representation. If I'd seen more people living joyously and free in their gender and sexuality when I was a kid, my life would probably look very different today." - Jess

From the bottom of our gay pirate-y hearts,

Jess (for the crew)