Check out our pitch video

Why

Hey, I'm Esme, I'm one of the co-writers, the co-producer and the actor who will be performing in Up Her Sleeve. 

The idea of Up Her Sleeve came to me when I was driving home from rehearsals for a play that I was in last October. At the time I was going through the process of trying to work out what the variety of symptoms I was having meant. This meant numerous google searches, doctors calls and tests. 

Through this time I did a lot of research and a lot of talking to other people about what I was going through and to my shock so many females around me were experiencing the same issues. This made me start questioning so many of my experiences from the many years previous. For example; when I went to the doctors for heavy and painful periods why did they just put me on contraception instead of doing some tests to see what was causing these symptoms? Why, when I was in school, was there so much educational focus on a woman's baby having purpose and nothing about the possibility of infertility? 

I felt that through my socialisation and upbringing I had been lead to believe that the likelihood of a woman having an ovarian disorder or having fertility issues was around one in a thousand. I was very quickly learning the reality of the statistics;

• About 1 in 5 women struggle with infertility in the UK
• PCOS and Endometriosis affects 1 in 10 women in the UK
• There are around 21 new ovarian cancer cases a day in the UK 

This all lead me to my decision to take my experience, questions, anger, pain and put it into a play, to hopefully help others who are going through the same thoughts and feelings as me.

Molly’s favorite quote 

“At least I know where my vagina is now.”

Who

The night that I got the idea for the play I made a group chat with Molly and Dan straight away. They were both, naturally, the first people I thought of to come on this journey with me (whatever it may have been) 

I first met Molly in pre-school and eventually we met again at secondary school. We would always be writing together, wether it be songs, stories or plays. She’s also always been one of my biggest fans in regards to my career and I wanted her and her creative talents on board.

I met Dan when I was studying acting at the New York Film Academy, he was studying screenwriting. We became very close friends and would always pitch ideas for different films to each other and I knew he had recently branched out into playwriting. I was extremely excited by the idea to have his work ethic, talent, and insight involved to turn my idea into something real. 
After monthssss of writing myself, Molly and Dan (aka The Egg Heads) decided that we would approach Lauren, the producer co-owner of Jury’s Out Theatre Company, to see if she would take on Up Her Sleeve, you have probably guessed by now that very excitingly she said yes. 

I have been a member of Jury’s Out Theatre Company for around a year now and I had the privilege of creating a piece of digital sketch theatre, Aunt Flo’s School for Girls, which premiered at Sparkfest last summer, with eight very talented actors. 

After Jury’s Out decided to do a production of Up Her Sleeve pre-production really started to get moving. Molly became head marketer, I became co-producer with Lauren and the amazing Beth came on board as our social media intern and is currently making Jury’s Out’s Instagram beautiful and Up Her Sleeve look very cool. 

We decided that we wanted to do a promo shoot and to my delight George agreed to do a shoot with us. I have know George for just over three years now and I have always loved her work, in this time we have done two photo shoots together and somehow he always makes me not knowing what to do look amazing. Abi, aka Bite My Cheesecake, is now making all of those beautiful pictures Up Her Sleeve-esque with her gorgeous artwork and graphic design skills. From the start of the Up Her Sleeve process I knew I wanted her as her brand is exactly the vibe that I wanted for the play. 

And, finally, very soon Deeba, my multi-talented actor, composer and best friend, will be hitting the keyboard and composing some original songs for the play (which will be uploaded here before we premiere!!) 

What & When 

Up Her Sleeve is a one woman, dark comedy and we have accepted a venue at this years Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the worlds largest arts festival, which is a massive deal for everyone that I have mentioned so far on this page! 

Our venue is in an amazing location, just off of The Royal Mile, and we will be there for the full three week run (!!!)

Prop shopping!!

Esme’s favorite quote

“People can’t be wrong.”

BTS of our promo shoot with George Turner!

@scruffyturner on Instagram

How

This is where you come into it! As you will have gathered from this page we are asking you to help us towards getting to Edinburgh! You can pledge as much or as little as you can (every little helps!) there are also some rewards so that your extremely generous act of pledging some money does hurt quite as much. 
 

What we’re asking for;

Venue: £2,255.40

Props: £100

Fringe Fees: £295.20

Travel: £200

Accommodation: £650

Food: £500