Evelina Rudasa and Kitty Peirson have got a slot for Why Won’t They Eat the Cake at theSpace on the Mile from August 18-23, a trip towards which they are fundraising on gofundme (search “Help us take our original play to Edinburgh Fringe!”)
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely to
00:06speak to Kitty and Evelina this afternoon. You are doing something truly exciting. You're
00:10both members of Chichester Festival Youth Theatre, but you are heading to Edinburgh,
00:15Edinburgh Fringe this summer, with Why Won't They Eat The Cake? A play written by the two
00:21of you, featuring just the two of you. Kitty, you start off. Tell me how this play came
00:26about then. So I was in my A Level Drama class, and it was suggested to the class that
00:36we could possibly take a piece to Edinburgh Fringe. And my brain immediately thought absolutely
00:43yes, but it wasn't received as excitedly by everybody else. So I texted Evelina, and I
00:53said, would you like to come to Edinburgh Fringe with me, just to see some shows, to explore
00:57Edinburgh Fringe? And she said, yeah, of course, let's go for a trip to Edinburgh. And then we
01:02thought, should we write something? And we just started writing, and we kind of just never stopped.
01:09And Evelina, you started with a shared document, a blank document, and just typed and typed and
01:17by the end of it, you had the play. Yeah, yeah, we did. It was, it was incredible. I mean, we
01:25could just watch each other typing, and I would be watching Kitty write, and I would just be like,
01:31oh my God, that's so genius. And then she told me how she would be doing exactly the same on
01:36her computer. And yeah, it just worked really, really well, actually. And it's about two girls
01:42who aren't named Girl 1 and Girl 2. Now, Kitty, tell me, to what extent are Girl 1 and Girl 2,
01:48the two of you? To some extent. We very much sort of came with the idea that we wanted the
01:59play to be rooted in what people are experiencing as their reality. So there are definitely elements
02:05of both of us in both of the characters. But the characters' lives are not our lives, they are not
02:12our experiences. But they are things that people are experiencing, and told through a lens of the
02:21experiences that we have had, if that makes any sort of sense. That makes perfect sense. So Evelina,
02:28tell me, what kinds of things does it touch on in the play? Yeah, so we cover grief. We cover
02:37emotional negligence. We slightly touch on eating disorders, and just general
02:46kind of mental health issues. And I think we definitely try to keep it relatively relatable
02:56for our audience. Because, you know, I mean, we're trying to kind of comment on how
03:03everybody struggles with what we speak about. And that shouldn't be overlooked.
03:11So are we talking about heavy drama or light comedy? What kind of piece is it?
03:16Yeah, I mean, to be honest, it's a bit of everything. We can definitely tell you it's
03:23entertaining from many sources. Yeah, I would definitely not put it under light comedy.
03:29No. But I would say you will laugh. You may cry. Yeah.
03:37And you both must be buzzing about this opportunity to take it to the Edinburgh Fringe.
03:42That's pretty exciting, isn't it? So, so, so excited. It feels very crazy.
03:48Every day, there's different things that need to be done. And it's so much hard work, but it just
03:55never feels like it. And the start of a new writing partnership. You didn't know that you
04:01could write together, did you? I don't think we even knew we could write.
04:09And to be fair, when we started, maybe we couldn't. But through many, many edits and rewrites,
04:17we definitely can write. So at what point do you start thinking about the next play? You've done
04:22this. You've got a prestigious slot for it. You're doing a London show. You're taking it to Edinburgh.
04:28You must start thinking about the next play at some point.
04:32Yeah, yeah, 100%. I mean, we're just kind of, we're trying to keep our focus on this one for
04:39the time being. I mean, Kitty's really good at multitasking, but I'm not.
04:47So yeah, I think definitely once this is more kind of organised and it's coming to an end of
04:57Edinburgh, it's definitely, definitely on the agenda to see what we can come up with.
05:03Brilliant. And you're doing a GoFundMe as well, and I'll put the details on that in the attached
05:08article. But really lovely to speak to you both. It sounds super exciting. I wish you all the best.
05:13Yeah, it was really nice to speak to you too.
05:15Congratulations, and look forward to the many more goes.