Donate to help Learlike tour the UK and Europe

We are Greensleeved, a young female-led theatre company formed of Cecilia Thoden van Velzen, Julia Vredenberg, Lucy Doig, Ariela Nazar-Rosen and Amber Frances, that reimagines classical text through a female-forward lens. After graduating from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2024, we are now taking our first-ever production Learlike to Shakespeare festivals all across Europe, and to do this, we need your help –

Learlike reimagines King Lear from the perspective of his daughters, as they grapple with his dark legacy and rise to their own queendoms. The production interrogates internalised patriarchy and self-censorship in young women and aims to give a voice to those who haven’t seen themselves represented in classical text. Though it uses many of the elements in Shakespeare’s much-loved original, Learlike includes a whole lot of new material, even an entirely new character – Isode.

Winning the ESFN’s ShakeSphere competition

Learlike is the first female-led production ever to win the European Shakespeare Festivals Network’s (ESFN) ShakeSphere competition and we will premiere our work at the York International Shakespeare Festival in May 2025. After York, we have been invited by the ESFN to tour this production to European Shakespeare festivals in Craiova, Ostrava, Verona and Gdansk over the summer.

Our show’s mission

Young women are significantly less likely to express themselves. In February 2025 the UN warned the UK’s levels of misogyny and violence against women are a national threat, and so, we need to do something. Along with our production, Greensleeved is offering free workshops to young women (aged 18 to 25) in London, York and hopefully across Europe to reclaim classical narratives, and turn Shakespeare’s words into a vessel for female expression and agency. After Learlike, our company will continue to create classical work that brings a diverse array of female experiences into focus.

Why we need your support

Because Greensleeved is an incredibly young company, we don’t have many of the funding options larger productions have available to them, and in an arts sector where funding is already tight, this means we are entirely dependent on public donations.

The ESFN is paying for our tour, but the creation of the work, the rehearsal weeks and the workshops we are offering for free, are currently unfunded.

Any donation, big or small, will contribute to us reaching our super goal of £12,000, we are setting our initial goal for £2.4k which will go towards our goal of £12,000. As part of our super goal your donation would go towards:

• Accommodation and transport for our two non-London based artists during our London rehearsals: £1500

• Costumes and set pieces: £500

• Fair pay for the entire company for rehearsals and workshops £10,000

About Greensleeved

Led by director/producer Cecilia Thoden van Velzen, Greensleeved is a female-forward London-based international ensemble formed of Lucy Doig, Julia Vredenberg, Ariela Nazar-Rosen and Amber Frances. Between the five of us, we double as performers, stage management, dramaturgs, designers, marketing managers and producers – and strive to make classical text an accessible and empowering experience for all.

If you’d like to follow us and Learlike as we make this happen: click here!