Help get the musical 'Domitius' to the Fringe!

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to the official fundraising page for getting the musical ‘Domitius’ to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival! ‘Domitius’ began as a project back in 2019, before COVID-19 struck. Despite the pandemic grinding the theatre industry nearly to a halt, we pulled off a limited debut of ‘Domitius’ in the heart of London in August 2021. This was a life-changing experience which has generated a huge interest in our show. With your help, we can debut our show online via the Edinburgh Fringe Festival!

What’s the story of the show?

‘Domitius’ is written by Henry Cao, Lux Knightley, and Luke McCormick. Love, Song, Dance, Humour & Murder – Domitius retells the tale of Roman Emperor Nero from an unbiased viewpoint that merely paves the way for an audience to live and experience a snapshot of Nero’s reign in ancient Roman life. 1st century Roman history, politics and characters are brought to musical life through a contemporary score inspired by the 1970s and 1980s with a script laced with 21st century pop culture references and humour.

Why is the show important to us?

The reasons are twofold. The first reason being that musical theatre is incredibly dear to each of us writers, but it’s the least representative of the creative industries. There has been great progress in diversity recently. However most creative teams, which have great control over the direction of their shows, are still predominantly white. On average, in a West End creative team of 15 people, only 1 is from an underrepresented group. Although many productions feature diverse casts, actors usually have limited say over the creative vision of the show. In our debut production, we employed 50% underrepresented groups and 50% female professionals in our creative team, cast, and crew. We hope that ‘Domitius’ is more than an exciting show, but a model for representation from the show’s inception to its staging.

The second reason is that we believe the crux of Nero’s story is about “chasing your truest dream”, something we can all identify with at one point in our lives or another. Just as Nero sacrificed a lot to attain his dream, we have also made great sacrifices to get Domitius on stage. We need your help to get ‘Domitius’ to the Edinburgh Fringe!

Why join the Edinburgh Fringe?

The Edinburgh Fringe will draw more interest within the theatre industry, since it’s the most famous and largest arts festival in the world. As of now, we have at least two producers from West End and Off-West End who are interested in producing the show. However, putting on a show from the producers’ perspective is often a major gamble, as only 25% of shows are profitable. Therefore, producers must see a proven track record of success before taking on a project, which is why a successful run at Edinburgh Fringe is so important.

Why GoFundMe?

Simply put, we used all our funds for the debut production in London back in August 2021. We were originally going to debut our show in Edinburgh. However, the organisers cancelled three weeks before opening night. We were forced to debut in London, which was 7 times more expensive than in Edinburgh. Finances in theatre are unpredictable, which is why so many productions rely on the generosity of people like you to keep them going.

Can I hear any music?

You can listen to excerpts of our songs on our website here, which also has more information about our debut performance, audience reviews, and our social media links.

How will the donations be spent?

Your donations will be spent on hiring back the actors to record vocals to the footage to ensure their quality and paying the sound engineers for recording, mixing, and mastering the final cast recording for the footage. The cast recording will be dubbed into the existing video and audio footage from our initial limited run. The final product will be a video recording perfect for the Edinburgh Fringe.

In short...

‘Domitius’ has already had a brief limited run in London. We are planning on debuting our show on the Edinburgh Fringe Festival’s online platform. The donations will be used to cover the cost of producing a final video and audio recording of the show for the Edinburgh Fringe.

Thanks for your support!

The Domitius Team

Here are some of the reviews our limited run achieved:

“New musical theatre is always exciting, but Domitius stands out from the pack in one important way: it screams out for a high-budget future. The quality of the raw material is undeniable and the recent successes of mega-hits like Hamilton, Hadestown and Six prove there is an audience waiting.”

★ ★ ★ ★ – Ian Bowkett, Musical Theatre Review

"Genius"

★ ★ ★ ★ - Louis Hartshorn (Olivier Award-winning Rotterdam, the Grammy and Olivier-award nominated Amelie the Musical, Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5, Madagascar the Musical, Woody Sez and the Immersive Great Gatsby and Doctor Who Time Fracture)

“An entertaining immersive lesson in late Roman history, what’s not to like about a production team and show that wants to bring much needed diversity to musical theatre, which let’s face it, is seriously low on its melanin count.”

★ ★ ★ ★ - Deborah Lawunmi, Abundant Art