A Quarrantea Party in Lockdownland

We are blown away at the support so far! We can't wait to share some updates with you this weekend. More coming soon. Cheers, Jen and the Beastly Team.

We're almost halfway there and we'd just like to send a massive shout out to you for backing us and telling your friends about us... we really believe in what we are doing here, and can't wait to update you on our progress! For now, enjoy a little silly dancing from us... we are 100% prepared to be as silly as it takes if it means we can reach our goals for this project.

Hello, all you beastly people!

To raise hopes and funds, we just wanted to let you know are looking at planning a FREE Quarrantea Zoom party for you and your little pals (date TBC) as a way of increasing the accessibility of our show and assist in developing our concept further.

We are also working on partnering with a very special charity to help raise funds for, through our creativity. This group aligns closely with our core values as performers and we can't wait to share more details on this front.

Stay tuned as we develop our concept! This week has been a rough blow for us as performers, but we will continue on as before. Innovation is the nature of Fringe theatre so we are continuing to develop new avenues for this idea! If you have any friends who might like to join, encourage them to back what we are doing here!

PS: All donors are automatically granted VEGIE status (Very Important Guest in Entropy) and when we have nutted out the idea, you will be invited to join our ZOOM party. So make sure you include your email here or follow us on Facebook @BeastlyCompany for more updates in the future.

Please enjoy our computamousie shenanigans and stay tuned for more updates from us here at Beastly Company.

Jen

We're almost there! Thank you for showing your support for all the hard work we've been doing over these two months to get to perform our first ever show at Whangarei Fringe this year... as it happens, mostly after hours, rehearsing from Jen's humble garage! :)

Here's a wee vid to say a huge thanks and let you know where the money from our shows will go. Since we filmed this video we are 75% there! But there's still time left to contribute to this project - we have just 5 days to go to reach our target.

Don't forget to follow us on Facebook to stay updated on our progress with this project and look out for our livestream / zoom link for a chance to see the action wherever you happen to be! https://facebook.com/beastlycompany

For those of you that don't know a lot about Fringe Theatre, this is our opportunity to test and experiment with edgy, out-there and hilarious content and we are so grateful to you for giving us the support and encouragement to be creative with this project!

A Quarrantea Party in Lockdownland is a hilarious and unique story which deliberately invites our audiences to suspend all judgement, challenges convention, and through absurd theatrics (and plenty of silly dancing) join the party. Which is an outlet for children (and the grown-ups that care for them) to rethink "silliness" and learn how "being a little bit mad" is sometimes perfectly acceptable, sometimes essential to surviving life in the middle of Pandemonia, and beyond! Our themes draw directly from lived experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health challenges, anxieties brought around by uncertainty and and offer a form of connection, encouragement and permission to be whoever you want to be. Our short play combines dance, movement, drama, comedy and puppetry to dish up an experience like no other! A funny and interactive show combining absurd theatrics and exploring creativity, identity, mad pride and more. We can't wait to share the show with you in a couple of weeks time!

Check out our event listing over on http://www.whangareifringe.co.nz - and also take a look at the wonderful work happening from the team over http://www.dancetherapy.co.nz, our lovely friends who we will be fundraising for at every show, and giving all proceeds to after the bills are paid for - which is what our target goes towards. That includes music licencing, wardrobe, set, props and staging, tech gear (and some help with live-streaming), marketing, paying and keeping our crew happy.

Please pass on with anyone you know who might be willing to spare a coffee or two in the next week and instead donate to our cause - every little bit is most appreciated and gets us closer to our goal.

We are so committed to making this an unforgettable, delightful and inclusive experience to our unsuspecting tamariki, and every dollar will go towards making this interactive, immersive and engaging for our audiences. We thank you all for your support!!

Much love

Jen, Anna, Angela - Beastly Company

On behalf of the crew Ali Riddle - me, Jen Corbett, MADD Hattie - Angela Nicol and Hare-brain - Anna Moreton we would like to extend a massive thanks tonyou for believing in us and our vision for his project. We have successfully reached our target which is helping us to make this show larger than life, and provide us with the ability to consider things like live streaming and video production. Your support has greatly boosted our creative ambitions, our commitment to this project and creative mahi and innovation which continues right to the last few days of our production as we prepare for opening at Whangārei Fringe. Developing, devising and producing this show as been an intensive process, three months in the making from idea to page to stage, devised mostly from my garage. We can't wait to share what we have created and give you a sneak peek at the performance, so be sure to follow us on facebook.com/beastlycompany and/or email us on contactbeastly@gmail.com if you would like to be added to our mailing list to hear about any future plans for the development of this show, as well as future Beastly Company productions (yes, there will be more!)

Thanks again,

Jen and the Beastly Crew

With your help and the help of our supporters from the Fringe and Creative Communities Scheme, we opened our production on a high, selling out our opening show! We couldn't have wished for a better response to the show, and it was truly rewarding to see how much it was enjoyed by our audience - young and not-so alike - after all the hard work and literal blood, sweat and tears - to get this show ready to premiere. And on World Mental Health day no less!! Pure coincidence, but it was fitting for the theme of the show.

The kids absolutely loved it, and the grownups...after getting over what they had walked into, had a pretty great time too!

The kids loved the interaction, the energy... and the bubbles. Another Mum said, and I quote, "It was one of the most joyful things I've ever seen" and her boys had so much fun watching us perform.

We have taken a few clips just to share with you, we can't really share them publicly, so please don't share them on.

Check out the video and head to our facebook page at www.facebook.com/beastlycompany or follow us on instagram @Beastly_Company for more photos and stories as we present 'A Quarrantea Party in Lockdownland' at the Whangarei Fringe Festival.

We will have prettier, more professional photos coming soon, and fingers crossed a video recording of the show! Thanks again from all of us at Beastly - Jen, Anna, Angela - plus our amazing team behind-the-scenes - Shayla Thomas, and Scott of Belltech Audio, partners and our friends and family / support crew.

After a hellish year, this opportunity to bring a fresh fringe experience to some of the youngest audiences of Northland's first ever Fringe Festival - while sparking new enthusiasm here for alternative arts experiences in the process. Thank you!

A final update to tell you how our show went over the last two weekends!

Not only did we sell out 3 out of 4 shows we also succeeded in putting smiles on kids faces, giving them permission to dance, play party games and take part in all kinds of silliness inspired by the COVID-19 lockdown. Thank You for helping us to achieve this! It truly means so much.

To help supporters and friends see what we've achieved, we are making a video available to you to watch for a limited time. Link at the bottom of this post.

Here's what people had to say after seeing A Quarrantea Party:

"Great for the little kids, great energy... and the bubbles"

"I thought it was absolutely enchanting & my 7 year old loved it!!"

"One of the most joyful things I have ever seen!"

"We had so much fun at the Quarrantea party! Very, very well done!"

"My Grandaughter 5 years just loved it! A chance to dance and be silly...she loved it!"

And here it is! Please follow this link to watch a recording of the show performed at Whangarei Fringe Festival last weekend. It's not a professional edit, so bear with us, but we are delighted to have some video capturing the energy of the performance.

If you would like to see more photos from our show and stay in the loop with us and find out what we do next, you can check out:

• Facebook at fb.com/beastlycompany
• Instagram.com @beastly_company
• or drop us an email at contactbeastly@gmail.com to be added to our email list!

Cheers and thanks, Jen, Angela, Anna and Shayla.