THE FUTURE IS NOW

Orange Tea Theatre’s new play, Strange Divide has been accepted into the Amsterdam Fringe Festival and we need your help to make it a great production!

We have been making English language theatre in Amsterdam for four years now. We receive no subsidy and are responsible for all our own fundraising. We have partnered with the Melkweg, Mezrab and Waterstones Bookshop in the past and now have a loyal following of both ex-pats and locals. For our audience we provide thought provoking, fun and 'gezellig' theatre experiences and we'd love you to come join us!

Strange Divide has been developed from the ground up by writer Esther O’Toole (that's me!) director Lora Mander and actors Loveday Smith, Ariel Lichtenstein, Eli Thorne and Brandon Miller.

We were fascinated by the radical advance of technology, artificial intelligence and biotech. With this exciting new production, we will use the technology of today to take an irreverent and blackly comic look at the tech of our immediate future and what it means for us as individuals, society and the world at large.

THE STORY

“These things always start 'the future is closer than you think' or 'the future is just around the corner' or even the 'future has arrived'. Truth is, the future's been here for ages. We just weren't paying attention. And now, here we are.”

It’s all coming together for Alice Dawes. The mind-bogglingly rich founder of DAWES BioTech has everything she could want on Earth but, she’s not interested in most of it, her ambitions reach far beyond our little blue dot. Biological augmentation has increased her lifespan, technology removed all drudgery from her daily existence and there is nothing, nothing, to curtail her imagination. She is free, to live as she chooses and to…create. Or so she thought. But when her cutting edge research turns out to have a mind of its own, the competition is sharp and the pressure’s on from the shareholders she comes to see making history is a tricky business and, maybe she underestimated making the future too..?

For Beth, everything’s a mess. The climate change fixes haven’t reached her suburban backwater yet, her boyfriend, Dave, is lovely but lacks ambition; she’s happy but anxious. Constantly. Like the apocalypse is nigh but she can’t see which direction it’s approaching from. Is she looking for meaning or escapism? And does she have time to look for either?

When it comes to creating intelligence how do we continue to define what is human? What is human enough to warrant trusting? And how can we be sure ‘it’ will trust us back?

Check out the trailer!

WHY THIS CROWDFUNDING?

Our aim is to set this play in the near future and we want to make it look and feel technologically advanced. This requires a team of people skilled in videography, design and to build an aesthetically modern set - for which we need additional funds. All funds raised on Voordekunst will go towards these additional costs, specific to this show.

All participants in the production are passionate professionals donating their time and effort for the love of the game and the audience! With the great Doubling Action from the VSB Fonds, who will double ALL donations made between 17th and 21st August! we hope to meet our VdK target and thereby offer the awesome cast a contribution towards their travel costs.

So, please, pledge now and support the fantastic team here at Orange Tea. Help us share a project that we care enormously about and think has real relevance today!

Other ways you can help

We know that not everyone can contribute to our cause, but we hope that you will support us in other ways, such as sharing our campaign and the information about our performance.

Please come see our performances in Amsterdam! After all, it in the end it’s all about the audience!

Het Amsterdamse Theaterhuis

September 3, 4, 12, 13