Reasons behind the project: Our Share of Tomorrow is the story of a young girl, Cleo, who comes to tell the man she thinks is her father that her mother has died. Accompanying her is a former soldier who she met in hospital when her mother lay dying, and who has fallen a little in love with her. However, when they meet her supposed father, he is not what she expects: he is a man whose memories of her mother make her question whether he knew her in the first place. The play asks: what really happens when you love somebody who it is impossible to love? How do you understand grief when you are the cause of that grief? The play is ultimately redemptive, with the final message being one of hope and forgiveness. It is the attention to the small realities that makes the play unusual. It approaches complex and intense experiences and keeps the audience’s gaze upon them, rather than pushing them aside for the sake of driving a narrative. The impact of the piece lies in its capacity to go into the deep, sometimes contradictory motivations that underlie people’s actions. Each character has been beautifully crafted within a detailed imaginary world, which produces believable characters that have experienced full imaginary lives. The project’s end goals are: • To produce Real Circumstance’s first self-generated play, Our Share of Tomorrow, at a range of high-profile venues. • To create first-time professional employment opportunities in theatre for young theatre-practitioners. • To secure significant exposure for the production, specifically from the press and important industry figures and promoters. • To develop Real Circumstance’s audience base and provide a profound and cathartic emotional experience for audiences. • To expose audiences – and the arts community more widely – to work that has been created in a non-traditional way, and through this to remove some of the prejudice towards other ways of making work. A brief financial breakdown: For the run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2010, we have secured funding from Arts Council East (£20,000) and the Foyle Foundation (£10,000); we have secured in-kind support from York Theatre Royal (£1,900) and Mosaic Publicity (£500); and we have factored estimated Box Office takings in to the budget. For the national tour – which will include runs high-profile venues such as York Theatre Royal and the Mercury Theatre Colchester, as well as a London run – the venues are providing in-kind support and estimated Box Office takings are factored into the budget, but there is a remaining £25,000 to raise to cover artist fees, touring travel and accommodation, set transportation, and physical production costs. A detailed project budget can be provided upon request.