Will OMahony

I'm looking to raise $2500 to help fund the birth of my new play MARSHMALLOW MEN: a story that will offer a unique look at the world's climate crisis and the ramifications of a do nothing response. 
I'm interested in creating work that disturbs the comfortable and comforts the disturbed and MARSHMALLOW MEN explores a dystopic future whereby agencies have been entrusted to curb the bloated global population and preselect genes for a sustainable future. 



It's title is inspired by famous research into sacrifice. 
The Stanford Marshmallow Experiment saw children led into an empty room with a marshmallow. 
The child was then left alone but not before being offered a deal: "If you can resist eating your marshmallow while I'm gone", said the supervisor, "I'll give you another one when I get back." 
Researchers then tracked each of the participants into adulthood and claimed that those children tested who were able to resist temptation and delay their gratification were far more likely to have forged 'better lives'. 

The play is a re-imagining of my first staged work THE IMPROVED, and whilst the dramatic space remains the same - an interrogation room - characters and plot will be rethought and restructured to make this an urgent play for our times. 
They say that writing is rewriting, and THE IMPROVED, for all its youthful exuberance, could benefit from a dramatic overhaul.
Looking forward, MARSHMALLOW MEN will be pitched to various fully funded companies across Australia in 2015, including Belvoir Theatre, Black Swan State Theatre Company and Griffin Theatre Company. 

MARSHMALLOW MEN marks an important stage in my development as a playwright and will attempt to tell a bold human story against a backdrop of planetary annihilation. 

Thanks to Creative Partnerships Australia, every dollar you pledge up to $2500 will be matched though their Match Crowdfunding for the Independent Arts Sector initiative, provided I reach my target!

My campaign was selected for inclusion in MATCH by The Blue Room Theatre, one of 17 independent arts organisations appointed by Creative Partnerships Australia to distribute matched funding, based on their capacity to reach, influence and work collectively with artists across different art forms. 

If I am successful in reaching my target of $2500 - which will then be MATCHED and soar to $5000 - I'm able to distribute the money as follows:

$3000: Research and write the play - PROPERLY. 
Playwriting is a craft that requires skill, care, time and thought. This money gives me a one month window to fully commit to the work and prevents me from making excuses like "but I had to do other things so I could pay my bills". 

$1800: Host a 2 day creative development in November at the Blue Room Theatre with four professional actors that will culminate in a public reading for industry and supporters. 
I believe in paying artists equity minimum and $1800 buys me around nine hours with four wonderful actors to hear what I've written where it belongs: in their mouths. 

$200: Dramaturgical support. 
Someone who can sit with me and say things like "cut this", "I don't get that", "what's your intention here?", "this character...annoying". Good dramaturgy is crucial to the the playwright. Like air traffic control, the dramaturge keeps the play moving in the right direction when bad weather hits - and bad weather ALWAYS hits.  

It's hard enough to write a play and harder still to write a good play. 
Plays come in all shapes, sizes and smells. 
In fact, a friend of mine says they're like children: never what you planned. 
So: a confession: I will be writing MARSHMALLOW MEN in the dark. 
And thank goodness. 
I'm interested in plays to the extent that they resemble a dream, and our stages need to be places where anything can happen. 
For this reason I can only hope MARSHMALLOW MEN will be weird, wonderful, scary, vivid, funny and thrilling. 
I'll need all my courage to write it and you'll need all your courage to support it.
It won't be perfect, it will have its blemishes and scars, but it will be alive - and you'll have helped deliver it into the world. 

Will O'Mahony