Hello and welcome to the First Official Newsletter for Minotaur Theatre Company’s 2014 Edinburgh Fringe performance, The Psychosocial Gathering.

WEEK 1 | WEEK 2 >

This week, we’re going to talk about fundraising. We’ve had a busy few weeks planning and organising events around the University of East Anglia, and we’re not done yet! We’ll go through what we’ve achieved so far, and give you a sneak peek into the plans that are yet to come. Thank you anyone who has donated so far, hopefully, in the coming weeks, we’ll be able to show you how your money has been put to use.

Taking a show to the Fringe costs a lot of money. To give you an idea, the venue alone costs over £2,500, and that’s not including publicity costs, costume, set or props. For a student-run Theatre Company, which is entirely self-funded, it poses a huge challenge. But it’s not one we’re going to shy away from! We’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Minotaur Committees (this year and last) who have supported and helped our project from the start.

We’ve organised plenty of successful fundraisers over the last few weeks:

• Baking and cake sales

Every week, we banded together, baked some cakes, cookies and other confectionaries and took to the Students Union to sell them to the students.

• Variety Night

Working alongside another Minotaur production, Jerusalem, we hosted a variety night. We saw singers, guitarists and comedy in this eclectic night of entertainment.

• Whose Line is it Anyway?

Whose Line has become an annual event here at UEA, and it only gets better. This year, UEA Comedy Society (Headlights) joined in the fun once more, and participated in the three-team comedy faceoff and won! Congratulations to them and thanks again for helping out.

• Murder May

What would you do if everyone you knew could be out to kill you? Well, that’s what happened throughout May at UEA this year. Most of the Drama Students revealed their dark side when they were given an object, a location and the name of one of their friends. Get all three together and you ‘kill’ them. Congratulations to Ciara Morris, who ruled as the best serial murderer we had this year.

• 24-Hour Plays and 1-Page Plays

These two quick-fire performances gave way to comedy, fun and a very enjoyable two nights of entertainment. There were plays written, rehearsed and performed in 24-hours and plays, no longer than a page, performed one after the other, in a fast-paced night.

• "Barry" by Tom O’Sullivan, performed by Scott Brown

A huge thank you goes to both of these people, who helped us raise some extra money by performing this monologue within the UEA Drama Studio. We hope you had as much fun rehearsing and performing it as we all had watching!

As you may have noticed, our Wefund Page hit its target within two weeks of us signing it off as live. It’s incredible and a true testament to your generosity. Of course, the more money we make, the better the show will be on the day, so if you know anyone who might be interested in donating pass on our details, or if you would like to raise any of your donations please do! We’ve updated the page recently with our new Trailer, so if you haven’t seen it, now’s the perfect opportunity.

Your money will help us buy all of the essential props, costumes and set pieces that will make our performance truly one of a kind. In a conversation with the Writer, Sam Masters, we learnt that the set will consist of a sofa, some cupboards, a table and a multitude of props. It might not sound glamorous, but we couldn’t do the performance without them. We also learnt that there we’re going to have to craft a small puppet for the performance – I’m sure you’ll be able to see it progress from a concept to a creation in the coming weeks.

Another exciting development over for us is the redesign of the website, thanks to Ed Dyer, our Production Manager. He took it upon himself to revamp the site, add in information about Minotaur Productions over the last three years and make it a site we can be proud of. If you have a spare few minutes, please check out the new website: www.minotaurtheatre.co.uk and even send us a comment through the Contact Page!

Don’t forget to check your emails for a message from us when you first donated. If you have any outstanding prop suggestions, addresses for signed posters or dates for reserved tickets, please let us know and we can sort something out for you. If your reward includes tickets to the Norwich Preview performance, we’re happy to announce that it will be taking place at 6.30pm on Thursday 24th July in Union House 1.28.

That’s all for this week, we’ll see you next time when we’ll start looking into characters of The Psychosocial Gathering! Director, Martha Geelan, and Writer, Sam Masters, have been working hard over the last few days to create a solid rehearsal schedule so we make the best show we can and we can’t wait to tell you all about it. See you then!

The Cast and Crew of The Psychosocial Gathering

#edfringe2014 #psychosocialgathering