DEAR MOTHER NATURE (2020-21)

Periods, however messy, painful and inconvenient, are a sign of health and fertility for billions of menstruators. Following research into the lack of understanding and education of the menstrual cycle – and reproductive health as a whole for a menstruator – we have teamed up with period charity Ditch The Rag providing an insightful and unique project which encourages ending the taboo against menstruation, and open up the conversation surrounding period poverty.

Watch the 2020 Digital Series

DEAR MOTHER NATURE (2020-21)

Periods, however messy, painful and inconvenient, are a sign of health and fertility for billions of menstruators. Following research into the lack of understanding and education of the menstrual cycle – and reproductive health as a whole for a menstruator – we have teamed up with period charity Ditch The Rag providing an insightful and unique project which encourages ending the taboo against menstruation, and open up the conversation surrounding period poverty.

Watch the 2020 Digital Series

MEET THE WRITER

After receiving  114 incredible applications for our Pen to Period submission, we are thrilled to introduce you to our Writer, Robyn Grant.

Robyn is a writer, director and performer from Leeds. After graduating from East 15 she set up her company Fat Rascal Theatre and has been touring the country with her own work ever since. They recently became associate company to The Birmingham Hippodrome and Southampton MAST. Credits and awards include include: Theatre Weekly’s Best Musical of the Edinburgh Fringe two years running (‘Vulvarine’ 2018, ‘Unfortunate’ 2019), the Otherplace/Balkan Award, The Eddies Award, Stella Wilkie Award (‘Buzz’), VAULT festival’s Festival Spirit Award and Fairy Powered Productions’ Best New Writing Award (‘Tom and Bunny Save the World’), Stiles + Drewe ‘Best New Song’ Finalists 2019 (‘Miracles’ from ‘The Ascension of Mrs Leech’), Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award nominee 2020 (Best Bookwriting).

Robyn is also currently developing a new TV series The Broken Hearted Songbook with Coded Productions and Warner Chappell Music.

2021 TEAM

Pen to Period Seed Commission

We are delighted to announce that we have been awarded Arts Council England funding to progress to the next stage of our R&D of ‘Dear Mother Nature’, taking place at the end of August 2021.

We are striving to bring the project beyond its digital medium and into a full live production, and eventually onto the stage. The company intends to build on the partnership already created with period charity Ditch The Rag to develop school and community workshops to further inform young menstruators and to challenge the current statistics.

We are ring-fencing a proportion of this funding to offer a £3,000 seed commission to a writer (applications closed) for this next stage, alongside tailored dramaturgical advice and mentoring sessions with Macadie Amoroso.

2020 DIGITAL SERIES

In November 2020, we completed the first R&D stage of ‘Dear Mother Nature’ in the form of an online digital series. We worked with 18 menstruators across multiple backgrounds to create a series of monologues, poems and spoken word pieces exploring their experiences with menstruation, contraception and reproductive education, alongside the racial, gender and socio-economic discrimination they have faced in direct relation to their periods. Our aim was to dispel taboo, raise awareness, and empower all menstruators. At the culmination of the first phase of the project, Dear Mother Nature raised £310 for ‘Ditch The Rag’; the equivalent of providing a ten-year period pack for each young menstruator in a secondary school class. For more information about Ditch The Rag visit www.ditchtherag.com.

2020 Digital Series

In November 2020, we completed the first R&D stage of ‘Dear Mother Nature’ in the form of an online digital series. We worked with 18 menstruators across multiple backgrounds to create a series of monologues, poems and spoken word pieces exploring their experiences with menstruation, contraception and reproductive education, alongside the racial, gender and socio-economic discrimination they have faced in direct relation to their periods. Our aim was to dispel taboo, raise awareness, and empower all menstruators. At the culmination of the first phase of the project, Dear Mother Nature raised £310 for ‘Ditch The Rag’; the equivalent of providing a ten-year period pack for each young menstruator in a secondary school class. For more information about Ditch The Rag visit www.ditchtherag.com.

2020 DIGITAL SERIES TEAM

BREAD AND ROSES AWARD

In early 2021, we were awarded the Bread & Roses Theatre Emerging Company Award, for which we were offered funding and a space to continue the R&D for Dear Mother Nature for 6 weeks, exploring our engagement and research for our audiences.

BREADANDROSES