Chichester Festival Youth Theatre members heading for Edinburgh Fringe

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!”) - https://www.gofundme.com/f/wwtetc

As Evelina, aged 16, who lives in Chichester and is a student at Northbrook College, explains: “It began when Kitty was in her drama class and they offered just as a little idea if people wanted to write something to take to the Edinburgh Fringe. Kitty messaged me immediately and said ‘Evelina, do you want to write a play?’ I said yes absolutely so we just sat down with a shared doc and started writing.”

As Kitty says, they had no idea where it was going to go when they started: “We had no plan but we just kept on writing and writing.

“It's about two girls and it is the morning after one of their birthday parties. These girls just sit there and dissect everything that happened but simultaneously they dissect their lives. We started off as the characters and started off writing about what it feels like to be in the modern world. There are parts of both these characters in our lives but officially they don't have names. They are girl and girl 2".

Evelina added: “I'm girl. And you can definitely say she is problematic as a character. To be honest we're using this character to show different life experiences. We keep the qualities that would apply to anybody but the demographic is basically ours. And they both talk about the kinds of things that regular teenagers would talk about and battle with. We cover grief and we cover emotional neglect.”

Kitty, aged 17, a student at Seaford College, adds: “And we cover eating disorders a little bit. And we cover trauma as a generalised topic but we're not trying to write about the topics, to write a play about grief or about eating disorders. Really it is just part of people's lives without necessarily having a central place in them. But they are not our lives. They are not our experiences. They are things that people can relate to. We are just trying to comment on how everybody struggles with the things that we are talking about.”

Now they're counting down to the performances including a London preview on July 26 at the Drayton Arms Theatre, South Kensington.

Tickets on https://www.thedraytonarmstheatre.co.uk/eat-the-cake and for Edinburgh on https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/why-won-t-they-eat-the-cake

As Evelina says: “We are absolutely buzzing. Every now and again when we're speaking about it, it just hits you. It's so exhilarating to be able to show people what we have been working on.”