Lydia Nicholson

I have been invited to perform my solo show "I'm not pale, I'm dead" at Assembly as part of the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe. "I'm not pale, I'm dead" is a show I wrote myself and follows the experiences of a young woman, killed on a Saturday night, who suddenly has the chance to speak to the living. I'll be performing July 31 - August 25 at 19:00 each day in the Baillie Room, a 60 seat venue in the Assembly Hall venue hub



"I'm not pale, I'm dead" was developed in the aftermath of the horrific street attack, rape and murder of a young woman in inner Melbourne in 2012. CCTV footage of the woman being approached by a hooded man ran rife across the internet and 30,000 Australians marched through Melbourne’s streets in solidarity after the offender was caught. That same month in Melbourne another woman was murdered, this time in her home and by her husband, and no-one batted an eyelid. "I'm not pale, I'm dead" explores our everyday risks – be they sexual, social, emotional or the risk of moments not taken - and delivers a funny and moving story of a young woman making the most of her life on the ‘other side.'

Here's what reviewers have said:
“Witty, charming, disarmingly frank…”  (Rip it Up)
“…stunning performance with brilliant material”  (Heckler)
“…thoroughly enjoyable and deeply moving…”  (Suzi Goes See)
“Nicholson gave a flawless performance…” ****  (Fringe Review UK)

The show was developed through a residency with the Rock Surfers Theatre Company where I had the privilege of spending a week workshopping my script down at the Bondi Pavilion theatre. During this week I had help from an excellent director and dramaturg, Tessa Leong, as well as performer Louisa Mignone and playwright Hilary Bell who gave me feedback as invaluable Outside Eyes.

The first season of 'I'm not pale, I'm dead' was during the 2013 Adelaide Fringe. I performed at Gluttony in a shipping container… a very small one… during one of the worst heat waves Adelaide had seen for a long time. Luckily my little shipping container had a very robust air conditioner so no-one *actually* died. Most nights of the Adelaide season were sold out which was pretty exciting!



At the end of the Adelaide Fringe I was honoured to be chosen as the recipient of the inaugural Minter Ellison Fringe and Beyond Award. The award was presented by the Helpmann Academy and the wonderful Women @ Minters group and provided me with $4500 in order to take the show interstate or overseas.

After the Adelaide season I reworked parts of the script and tried out some new material at Griffin Theatre Company as part of their Griffringe new writing showcase. Then in July 2013 I performed my second season of "I'm not pale, I'm dead" as part of the Rock Surfer's Bondi Feast Festival. The season completely sold out in advance and I had a lot of fun performing to bigger audiences.

Now I'm taking "I'm not pale, I'm dead" to the Edinburgh Fringe where I have been invited to perform with Assembly. Assembly have programmed a curated season of theatre at the Edinburgh Fringe since 1981. This year my show will be presented in a season alongside solo shows from Simon Callow and Dame Diana Rigg, comedians David O’Doherty and Hannah Gadsby, and new theatre works from Pulitzer Prize finalist and Fringe First winner Will Eno and Bruntwood Prize Winner Anna Jordan. To say that I'm excited to be performing in the room next to Simon Callow for a month is a serious understatement! I am really excited to share my writing with new audiences and think that the themes in "I'm not pale, I'm dead' are universal and will resonate with international theatre audiences.

http://theroofthehouse.wordpress.com
Facebook www.facebook.com/imnotpaleimdead
Twitter @theroofthehouse

Book tickets for the show at http://assemblyfestival.com/event.php?id=27

The full cost to take the show to the Edinburgh Fringe from Sydney is just shy of $20,000. This includes airfares, train fares, accommodation, insurance, venue hire, living allowances (so I can eat), Fringe registration and marketing costs. I still have $3500 from the Fringe and Beyond Award after my Sydney season of the show and I've applied for some other funding, however the bulk of the costs are coming out of my own savings.



I'm fundraising for $1600 to help me pay for the marketing costs associated with the season. As a solo performer without any connections in Edinburgh my marketing campaign will be very different to previous seasons of "I'm not pale, I'm dead"  where I've had a local network and was competing for audiences with a smaller number of other shows. My marketing campaign for Edinbugh will need to be much broader and more visible if I'm to attract audiences with over 3000 shows for them to choose from during the Festival!

I will be spending money on
- an advertisement in the Joint Venue Brochure (Assembly, Gilded Balloon, Pleasance and Underbelly)
- A3 posters, distributed around Edinburgh and at the other Assembly venues
- A5 flyers, distributed around Edinburgh, at all of the Assembly venues, and handed out by me for a few hours each day chatting to people about my show. Word-of-mouth is still the biggest way to attract audiences to your venue, and personally flyering is the best way to encourage people to see your work.
- two 1x1m foamex posters for outside the Assembly Hall venue, so that people have to walk past a 1mx1m version of my face every day.
- the costs associated with engaging a distribution company to distribute some of the posters and flyers.

Any funds raised beyond the target will be spend on
- Fringe registatration
- insurance
- internal transfers between London and Edinburgh

The artwork for all of my print marketing has been very kindly put together by my marvellous friend Oskar Wheatley with photos taken by the talented Amy Thornett
 http://www.theloop.com.au/amy-thornett/portfolio

Music for the video is "She Said" by Nicolette and Josh
 https://soundcloud.com/nicolette-and-josh  

The Edinburgh Fringe will be a huge challenge on a number of levels. I'll be performing every night from July 31  to August 25 with only two nights off, without a support team or fellow actors to help me. It will be an endurance challenge for myself as a performer and each day I'll have to make the show feel new and fresh for that audience. I pride myself on my professionalism and feel confident that I'm up to this challenge, in fact I'm really looking forward to it!

One of the biggest challenges I face is the financial risk of not attracting audiences, which means not making enough money at the box office, which means coming home deep in debt. That's why I'm fundraising for some of the costs, so that if for some reason everything fails, I will have at least broken even. That's also why I'm spending more money on marketing than I ever have for a show in the past, because the financial risks of touring to Edinburgh as an Australian performer, with airfares and accommodation costs to consider, means that I can't afford to arrive and not have anyone know I'm performing!