Aim

Support Rainy Day Theatre head to the Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh Fringe for their debut production - To Do Lists by Amy Lever!

The fringe, as some of you may know, is expensive and as independent artists with no funding backing behind us we need your help to reduce our costs to ultimately support our artists receiving a healthier wage (aka nice profit share). The more money we raise the more we can support our team as our production costs will be covered by your gorgeous selves! We understand money is tight at the moment but if you have the means to  donate the price of a pint/coffee (£5) that would make a huge difference to us! Your donations will go towards supporting one of our biggest expenses, covering venue hire costs, the Edinburgh Fringe Brochure Fee & venue marketing fee (total = £1,709)

ABOUT THE SHOW

When we loose our ability to become productive, who are we underneath?

‘To Do Lists’ is an intricate and playful solo show, inspired by Amy Lever’s lived experience of obsessive to do list writing as a means to achieve her goals as an artist. Until her failsafe system starts to crumble after the unexpected loss of her father. 

We time travel through Amy’s books and books of to do lists to get to the root of where productivity starts to replace childhood from tackling exams in the one-size-fits-all school system to getting into Cambridge and making it as a writer. 

Amy takes us on a surprising journey into her own life from childhood to adulthood, set against a cartography of paper lists and post-its, propelled by her compulsive need to tick every item on her to lists for the day, for the week, for the month. 'To Do Lists' is a soul-searching discussion about what’s left of humanity when a human being no longer has a productive experience.

WHY?

‘To Do Lists’ is a coming-of-age story exploring life as a young neurodivergent person navigating productivity pressures in life, grief as a young person and how we can harness hope amidst it all. This is work close to all our teams work, heart and soul. A reason to 'why' we create in the first place. Rainy Day Theatre is a Manchester-based collective of young early-career artists and creative leaders making bold, experimental, multimedia-infused theatre rooted in accessibility, neurodivergence and playfulness. 

The team behind this show have joined forces out of a shared frustration: that boundary-pushing fringe work from the North struggles to reach the audiences and industry figures it deserves. Manchester has exceptional creative talent that deserves to be visible beyond the Rainy City without having to move to London to do so.

INTEGRATED CREATIVE CAPTIONS - STRIVING FOR MORE ACCESSIBLE, NEURODIVERGENT & INNOVATIVE THEATRE

The show is creatively captioned by the powerhouse that is Emily Bold. Creative Captioning takes a design approach to accessibility by embedding the captions into the overall creative vision of the show. It support work to be more accessible to d/deaf audiences, neurodivergent audiences as well as audiences who English isn't their first language. We’re striving for more accessible theatre and to bring access further into the narrative and more familiar in the mainstream.  Last year in Edinburgh there was only approx. 30 shows that were captioned every day.

WHERE IT BEGAN - 42ND STREET & THE HORSFALL

'To Do Lists' began development during Amy’s residency at the Horsfall in 2025 amidst burn out. Horsfall offered Amy space, time and a pocket of funding to ‘just create’ - there was no pressure to create anything, just create for creating’s sake. Rod (Creative Director) told her to do what she can and whatever she wants but just be creative - this enabled Amy to reflect and reconnect with herself. And so ‘To Do Lists’ was born …

This show is in development and supported by The Horsfall - 42nd Street's creative engagement space. We’re working directly with young and neurodivergent people who experience mental health struggles to explore how we can develop positive mental health through creativity. The show is being developed in consultation and tandem with them as we host creative workshops alongside the piece as we’re rehearsing.

42nd Street is an innovative Greater Manchester young people’s mental health charity with 40 years’ experience of providing free and confidential services to young people who are experiencing difficulties with their mental health and emotional wellbeing.

ABOUT AMY LEVER

Amy is a writer/ actor from Manchester. She was named a “writer to watch” by The Stage for her KEEP IT FRINGE winning play “Lost Girl” which transferred to and sold out at the Lowry theatre and was funded by arts council england. Amy was named a winner of the Alpine Fellowship Prize for Playwriting (2023), selected a script development scheme with Warner Bros, Wall to Wall and the Royal Exchange and was a finalist for the Channel 4 Writing for Television awards. Her debut short film script was funded by the BFI and her upcoming short is a recipient of the Roundhouse film fund. Amy was selected for a UNESCO funded playwriting residency in Nanjing China with Manchester City of Literature. Most recently Amy was a finalist for the North East Playwriting Prize judged by Lyn Gardner.

THE TEAM

Written & Performed by Amy Lever (she/her)

Directed by Giulia Grillo (she/her)

Produced by PJ Cunningham (she/they)

Dramaturg & Associate Director - Lauren Ellis-Stretch (she/her)

Creative Captions by Emily Bold (she/they)

Sound Design by Sofia Armella (they/she)

Associate Producer - Connor Goodwin (he/him)

THANK YOU!

Ultimately, you are supporting our group of exciting, neurodivergent early-career artists to receive a higher profit split and continue making work and taking risks! Thank you so much for your support in advance xxx

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 3rd September 2026 at 10:46am