Aim

Help us take NUDE, our "funny and devastating" debut play about body image and the male gaze, to the Edinburgh Fringe.

Help us take NUDE to the Edinburgh Fringe

“No, but how funny would it be though? Like, he turns up, and it’s just me – with my tits out. His model student.”

In January 2025, that outrageous plan became the starting point for a new play at Menagerie Theatre Company’s Young Writers’ Workshop.

Eighteen months, many drafts and an R&D performance at Norwich Theatre Stage Two later, NUDE has become Bacchanalia’s debut production.

This August, we’ll perform twelve shows at theSpace on the Mile as part of our first Edinburgh Fringe. We’re asking for your help to give the play the strongest possible start.

What is NUDE?

Funny, provocative and devastating, NUDE follows university student Clara as she embarks on an outrageous plan: to pose nude at the life-drawing class attended by her favourite lecturer.

Clara is convinced that, if he sees her “in her totality” — and captures her on paper — she might finally find a version of herself that feels real.

What begins as an absurd stunt becomes an intimate and increasingly unsettling exploration of art, desire, shame and the ways women learn to see themselves through the eyes of others.

Why this play?

NUDE is a play about the stories women are taught about their bodies and their value long before they learn to tell their own.

Through Clara’s increasingly desperate attempt to be truly seen by the man she admires, the play explores the artistic nude, the male gaze, sexual power, fantasy, coercion and the seductive belief that being seen is the same as being empowered.

Clara initially draws the audience into her confidence, inviting them to share in the outrageousness and apparent comedy of her plan. But as her story unfolds, their position becomes less comfortable: they are not only her confidants, but her voyeurs.

We hope audiences leave laughing, unsettled and thinking differently about the forces that shape how women see themselves — and what it really means to look, to be looked at and to be seen.

Who are we?

We are Bacchanalia, a new East Anglian theatre company founded by Phoebe Segal and Merlyn Haycraft.

We create ambitious new theatre that interrogates the myths shaping how we see ourselves, one another and the world around us.

NUDE is our first production and our Edinburgh Fringe debut. Developed through Menagerie Theatre Company’s Young Writers’ Workshop and an R&D performance at Norwich Theatre Stage Two, it is written by Phoebe Segal, co-directed by Phoebe Segal and Merlyn Haycraft, and performed by Hattie Chapman.

Why Edinburgh?

The Edinburgh Fringe offers a rare opportunity for a new play to find audiences, reviewers, programmers and future collaborators in the same place.

For a brand-new company, it is a chance to introduce our work, build relationships and help NUDE find a life beyond this first production.

It is also a considerable financial risk.

Although NUDE is a small-scale show with a company of just three people, our currently known Fringe costs already total £5,347.53. That figure will rise once petrol to and from Edinburgh and the inevitable final production expenses are added.

We have kept the production deliberately small and are doing as much as possible ourselves. We are producing the show, creating and sourcing its set and costumes, and running our own publicity campaign. Even so, we have discovered that taking a “small-scale” show to Edinburgh involves a surprisingly large number of costs.

As Bacchanalia’s two founders, we have already invested heavily ourselves and are carrying the financial risk of the run. Your support will reduce the amount we have to fund personally while allowing us to make the production properly and pay our performer professionally.

Where the money goes

Our current budget includes approximately:

• £2,882 for venue hire, Fringe registration and the printed programme
• £1,262 for our performer’s professional fee
• £762 in accommodation costs and Edinburgh’s visitor levy currently included in the budget
• £231 for public liability and employers’ liability insurance
• £211 for publicity, costumes, materials and essential fire-safety treatment
• Further costs still to come, including petrol, transport and final production needs

Every contribution will go directly towards the cost of bringing NUDE to Edinburgh.

Paying artists matters

One cost we were not prepared to cut was paying Hattie for her work.

Too many actors are expected to rehearse and perform at the Fringe for little or no pay, with “exposure” offered in place of a professional fee. We don’t think the answer to the high cost of taking work to Edinburgh should be to pass that cost down to performers.

Hattie is a professional actor who has been central to the development of NUDE. Her fee is a committed production cost, not something dependent on the success of this campaign.

Independent theatre already relies on an enormous amount of unpaid and underpaid labour. We want Bacchanalia to grow into a company that values the artists who make its work possible, even when doing so makes the financial challenge greater.

Why is our target £2,000?

Our £2,000 target will not cover the full cost of taking NUDE to Edinburgh. It would, however, cover more than a third of our currently known budget and make a substantial difference to the personal financial burden we are carrying as the company’s founders.

We wanted to set a target that was both meaningful and achievable. The venue is booked, the dates are set and the production is going ahead; this campaign is about making that leap less financially precarious and giving the show the best possible chance to succeed.

Any money raised beyond £2,000 will continue to offset our Fringe costs, including travel and remaining production expenses. Should we be fortunate enough to cover the full shortfall, further funds will support the future life of NUDE beyond Edinburgh.

How you can help

Every contribution, whatever its size, will make a genuine difference.

Sharing this page is also enormously valuable. So is telling someone about the show, following Bacchanalia or booking a ticket to see NUDE in Edinburgh.

By supporting this campaign, you’ll be helping a new East Anglian company bring an original piece of feminist theatre to the Fringe — and giving NUDE the chance to find the audiences and opportunities that could carry it beyond August.

Thank you for believing in NUDE and in Bacchanalia. We can’t wait to share the play with you.

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 22nd September 2026 at 10:54pm