Chrome Dome and Schizo

We’re asking for your support to bring Chrome Dome and Schizo to life—a powerful, lived-experience poetry-theatre fusion that tells a true story of psychosis, love, and resilience. 

Our team is proudly queer-led and made up of incredibly talented creatives, all deeply committed to telling this story with care, authenticity, and artistry. But we need your help to make it happen. Over the past decade, funding for the arts in Aotearoa has been brutally cut, leaving independent artists like us struggling to bring important stories to the stage. While we’ve poured our own resources into this project, we’re crowdfunding to ensure we can fairly pay everyone involved and cover essential production costs—from set design and costumes to marketing and venue hire.

By supporting Chrome Dome and Schizo, you’re not just funding a play—you’re helping to amplify underrepresented voices, challenge harmful stereotypes, and create art that fosters empathy and understanding. Every contribution, no matter the size, brings us closer to sharing this vital story with the world. Join us in making this vision a reality!

At the helm of this project are writer/performer Dan Goodwin and director Rae Longshaw-Park, two passionate artists whose unique talents and shared commitment to authentic storytelling bring this work to life.

Dan Goodwin is a creator who thrives at the intersection of poetry and theatre. While theatre excels at telling stories driven by desires and obstacles, poetry has the power to expand moments in time, exploring images and emotions from every angle. It’s in the fusion of these two art forms that Dan finds their creative home. A prolific poet, Dan won the National Slam Poet Championship Aotearoa in 2021 and has been performing across the country for over a decade. Beyond their artistic practice, Dan is a dedicated mental health advocate and lived-experience worker, currently serving as Community Support Manager for Changing Minds and as a rōpū member for Nōku te Ao. Their work is deeply informed by these experiences, aiming to amplify the stories of those living with mental health conditions that are often stigmatized or misunderstood.

Rae Longshaw-Park is a director whose practice is rooted in process, care, and the elevation of lived experience narratives. With a history of directing works that demand sensitivity and nuance—such as An Organ of Soft Tissue, Dr Drama Makes A Show, Chrome and Schizo (Season One), and SORA—Rae brings a thoughtful and compassionate approach to storytelling. Their focus on wellbeing and collaboration ensures that the creative process is as meaningful as the final product.

Together, Dan and Rae form a dynamic partnership, united by their shared vision to create theatre that is both impactful and empathetic, giving voice to stories that are too often overlooked or misrepresented.

Our talented cast includes Brit O'Rourke (No Time To Dry), Georgie Llewellyn (How To Art, Cowboy Dreaming) and Sahil Arora. Our wider creative and production team includes sound designer Paige Pomana, lighting designer Paul Bennett and Producer Tash Lay. 

Independent theatre in Aotearoa is facing one of its most challenging periods in recent memory. Funding has dwindled, theatres and companies are closing at an alarming rate, and independent artists are being forced to leave the industry in search of better income and stability. Despite these immense challenges, our team has demonstrated a remarkable commitment to their craft, and we must honour their hard work and sacrifice.

Our goal is to provide our team with a flat fee to help cover some basic living costs, as well as funding the remainder of the essential expenses required to bring a production like this to life. These include:

• Printing: Scripts, programs, posters
• Marketing: Videography, photography, social media ads
• Consumables: Duct tape, wire, electrical tape
• Lighting gear: Lightbulbs, fixture rentals
• Costumes & Props
• Set pieces

Every dollar contributed goes directly toward supporting the artists and ensuring this production can reach its full potential. By investing in our team, we’re not only valuing their labour but also affirming the vital role independent theatre plays in our cultural landscape. Together, we can create something meaningful while standing in solidarity with those who make it possible.

Chrome Dome and Schizo tells the story of a young person living with psychosis who falls in love with one of their delusions. Through their journey, we witness the struggle to reconcile reality with the pull of their inner world, while navigating the complexities of relationships around them. This is a story that challenges stigma, celebrates queer love, and offers an authentic, deeply human window into an often-misunderstood experience. Blending performance poetry with traditional theatre, the play creates a unique and immersive storytelling experience.

Written by Dan Goodwin, the play is inspired by their real-life experiences living in London during the 2010s. It’s a love letter to a relationship, a preservation of memory, and ultimately, a lived-experience narrative that seeks to humanize those with mental health conditions often portrayed as "scary" or "other." At its heart, Chrome Dome and Schizo reminds us that people living with mental health challenges are just that—people. They are capable of love, loss, and the same depth of emotion as anyone else. This is a story we hope will foster empathy, understanding, and connection.

After a sell-out season in 2022, Dan spent the last year refining and rewriting to bring us the redeveloped script we will be presenting at Basement Theatre in March 2025.

Ultimately, we’re bringing this production to life because we believe authentic representation is essential. By sharing this story, we hope to help others find their voices, see their experiences reflected, and feel a sense of community and connection through the power of storytelling. When we see ourselves on stage, we are reminded that we are not alone—and that is a gift we want to give to our audience.

This is a queer love story that offers audiences an intimate and authentic glimpse into the experience of psychosis. For our lived experience community, representation is not just a hopeful outcome of storytelling—it is a vital necessity. Representation shapes how we understand ourselves, learn behaviours, and connect with the world and others. When positive representation is absent, and stigma and stereotypes take its place, storytelling can perpetuate harm rather than foster understanding.

Too often, the narratives surrounding mental health and disability in media are dominated by stories of violence, tragedy, and fear. From news outlets to movies and television, we are inundated with portrayals of "unbridled madness," addiction, or illness as forces that destroy lives and families. These narratives are not only reductive but deeply harmful, reinforcing stereotypes that alienate and dehumanize. As artists, we have an ethical responsibility to question and challenge these tropes, to ensure our stories reflect the full spectrum of human experience.

With Chrome Dome and Schizo, we aim to shift the narrative by centering the perspective of those living with a diagnosis, rather than the bystanders or those around them. Our hope is to create a story that empowers the mental health and disabled communities, while also offering insight and understanding to those outside these experiences. This project is a step toward more compassionate, authentic storytelling—one that honors the complexity of lived experience and challenges the harmful narratives that have gone unchallenged for too long.