Eve & Elin have been making SCREWDRIVER for the past year. Intrigued by the dynamic between the people sentenced to serve time in prison and the people who share that space out of their own free will, they began to write. Interviews, meetings and research followed. The women they met throughout their research painted a much more human, mundane, sometimes funny and often emotional experience than most TV depictions and newspaper headlines involving prison life would have you believe.
Supported with space and a sharing audience by TheatreDeli and the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, they tested out their first ten minutes. After a brilliant reception, they applied for a new award hosted by the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre. From over 100 applications, they won the inaugural Bill Cashmore Award, set up by friends and family of Bill in memory of the local actor, director, playwright and business owner. This secured lots of practical support from the Lyric, financial support for their writing time and the ability to bring on an additional member of the creative team, Designer Cindy Lin. The Award also includes the opportunity to perform as headliner of the Lyric’s Evolution Festival – a huge achievement & opportunity for two emerging writers.
Not only that, Eve & Elin are the performer and director (respectively) of SCREWDRIVER. This makes this performance slot at the Lyric Hammersmith an unrivalled chance to showcase themselves and their work as writers and as a performer and director and to progress their careers together.
This is where we need your help. The generous support of the Bill Cashmore Award has allowed us to write SCREWDRIVER, and consult with a Designer on how to bring it to life. But now we need to make it happen! To harness the possibilities of this opportunity we need:
These elements and new collaborators will elevate SCREWDRIVER from a bare bones show to a high quality production that raises up the artists and SCREWDRIVER to a new level. The quality of the writing has been celebrated at each stage of its development – with your support we could make this a captivating production that stands proudly on the Lyric Hammersmith Studio stage and can go on to harness the future opportunities this platform offers.
Eve Cowley and Elin Schofield are theatremakers from Leeds and Manchester, respectively. We met at the University of Sheffield where we became founding members of Footprint Theatre, with whom we created DANIEL (‘Disturbingly brilliant’ The Sunday Times; ‘Impressively nuanced and complex’ Exeunt) and SIGNALS (‘Fabulously crafted, and genuinely thrilling’ Edinburgh49+3; an Exeunt Pick of the Fringe; ⭐⭐⭐⭐ – Fest Magazine).
Independently Eve is an Actor and Elin is a Director, Movement Director and Facilitator. SCREWDRIVER is our first collaboration as writers, and the support and belief the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, Bill Cashmore Award and TheatreDeli Sheffield have demonstrated in this show is so valuable to us. This is our best work yet – we’re really proud of the script so far and we’re incredibly grateful for this opportunity. We’re excited to run this Kickstarter, meet new backers & supporters and have the chance to work with new Designers to develop SCREWDRIVER into the best production possible. If you’d like to chat with us more about the show or our process of creating please do get in touch – we’d love to hear from you!
Kickstarter is an all-or-nothing form of fundraising – so if we hit our target we’ll receive the funding, but if we fall short – we get nothing! The logic is that we’re not tied to delivering something if we only have 50% of the funding it would take to complete, but it does mean the pressure’s on and every donation is all the more precious! It also makes you sharing this page with your friends/family/networks/neighbours/passersby incredibly valuable!