Three countries, more than eight cities and seven shows down and it is only July. These statistics do not faze theatre-maker and actress Lizzie Tollemache, whose dream of an all inclusive space is coming true in Dunedin this month, finds Rebecca Fox.
Lizzie Tollemache used to lie awake at night for hours on end hating herself.
She also spent a really long time trying to willpower her way out of the way her brain was working and then hating herself when she could not.
Like the many others experiencing similar feelings, she could not understand why the world seemed too loud, why stimulation was overwhelming and why she felt out of it.
"One thing that is unfortunately really effective at making you feel half normal is vodka or whatever the substance may be. And there are so many of us that spend a while in that because you don’t feel like a member of the human race, and you are desperate to find anything that seems like you are then on a more similar wavelength. You don’t understand why it’s not like this for everyone."
While coping with all of this, Tollemache was endlessly busy writing, directing and producing successful theatre shows, weaving circus, sideshow and variety arts into original mainstage shows.
Then the pandemic hit and she found herself with time on her hands as much of her work got cancelled late summer 2022.
"That is quite uncomfortable if you’ve been running away from parts of yourself for your entire adult life."
To keep herself busy, she tried out "morning pages" - a concept of writing for a set period each day with no self-censorship or editing.
"So I did that and then something started happening to me. And I was like, ‘oh no, I think I’m writing something. Oh no, I think I’m writing a show’."
At a similar time, she and some of her friends began to realise the "secret shame goblin things" they had been hiding were "making their way up to the surface and bubbling up".
"Thankfully it was at the same time as there was a bit of a global revelation of how chronically women and non-binary AFAB [assigned female at birth] folks have been completely ignored by all of the diagnostic criteria for most neurodivergence.
"And so we’re very lucky because that all happened in such a way that it allowed me and then in turn about six or seven of my friends to go through that process."
It meant Tollemache not only had a reason for how she felt - a mix of aspects of autism and ADHD - but she also discovered the tools to deal with it.
"So it can be little things like that of just going, if I want to be able to get the most out of myself when I’m writing or rehearsing, I need to not spend a particular period of time under aggressive overhead lights. I need to be able to have access to natural light or dim, gentle lights. It can be things like saying to people, ‘oh, if I don’t know you, I’m actually not going to hug you’."
There are hundreds of other examples of the little things that have changed for her which all add up to to an "absolute life-changing world".
"It might not seem like a big deal until you look at the statistics and you see that people who have undiagnosed and untreated neurodivergence have a lifespan, an average lifespan reduced by 21 years."
"There were just multiple times throughout that week where we all just kind of kept looking at each other going, ‘is it allowed to be like this? Is it allowed to feel like we’re not second guessing every single thing that we do and say?’"
She is aware of the warning about the difference between therapy and theatre, and agrees if you are in the middle of such a journey it is not the right time to "slam it on stage", but writing as you are going through it and then - once you are emotionally safe - sharing that to connect with other people "is a gift".
"I thought I would be more nervous than I was and then when I got to step out on stage and just see these people like, nodding and laughing and crying and gasping along, I felt nothing but joy and connection."
Some of the audience stayed for a couple of hours afterwards to talk and connect.
"The one recurring thing we had over and over and over again is people, mostly women, saying, ‘I didn’t know that anyone else thought like this. I didn’t know that anyone else had this inside their brain... I didn’t know I wasn’t alone’. And that’s heartbreaking when someone says it to you who’s 20 but it’s even more heartbreaking when someone says it to you and they are in their 40s, 50s, 60s and they have gone their entire life thinking that they were a stupid, lazy freak."
It was another reading that Dunedin director Kim Morgan, who has known Tollemache for years, experienced. She knew immediately it was something that needed to be staged in full.
Tollemache had been coming up against brick walls trying to get funding to premiere the show, which had become known as The Neurospice Girls, so when Morgan offered to get it off the ground - through her company Hic Sunt Dracones - and premiere it in Dunedin, she grabbed the opportunity.
Now with the premiere less than week away, Tollemache is excited, although admits even though she wrote the lines, they are not easier to learn.
"It’s quite scary. And so I’m on this big buzz of honesty in performance and I think there is an appetite right now, for a hunger for real, and for - you can call it lived experience, you can call it true stories, whatever, it doesn’t matter to me - but there is, especially when we’re in such a performative, online, curated time, for work which is still crafted and beautiful and funny and moving, but honest and real. I’m really hopeful when I see how much people want it and how hugely they respond when they get it."
She will be joined on stage by a group of local actors, Ellie Swann (New Athenaeum Theatre general manager and BRinG BaCK ThE STar FOuntAIN from the Dunedin Fringe Festival), Destiny Carvell (aerobics coach, Tahuna Normal Intermediate performing arts head), Mārama Grant (award-winning actor, singer, director, vocal coach and drama teacher) and Lexie Tomlinson (dancer, singer, guitar teacher and recent performing arts graduate).
"It’s this Greek chorus of fems and thems who kind of guide the story, in like all kinds of singing, dancing, aerobicising gloriousness. It means I get to connect with the actual community down here. There’s a skills exchange, that we get to do."
Tollemache sees this model of theatre as having exciting potential, as people in the industry are always looking at ways to tour more sustainably and more affordably.
"Why not take a show, take the person who made it, bring them in with a cast of locals and do it that way? So it genuinely is specific to the place every time."
With the Dunedin Dream Brokerage on board, a building has been found to be the "home" of the production, providing not only performance and rehearsal space but also break-out, exhibition and information spaces.
"Which means something that I’ve been dreaming about for years - people can come after the show, if they’re filled up with the show, because that’s what we want art to do, we want people to feel changed and inspired and like they have to talk about it."
So instead of heading home straight after a show, people can stay, talk and connect with others who have also experienced the show.
"When they come out after the show, there’ll be like resources. And if they’re fascinated about certain things, there’ll be the exact links written there that they can then follow up. There’ll be a space where if they just need a moment to regulate, there’s a quiet space available they can do that."
She has never seen or had that available before.
"Which is wild, because whether you’re neurodivergent or whether you’re neurotypical, that’s a cool thing."
It reinforces her faith in an industry which is known to be tough and unrelenting at times. She always tells aspiring theatre makers the only reason to become an actor is if "you can’t help yourself".
"If there is something else that you could do in an industry that would love you back a bit better, you should absolutely do that. Because this is going to break your heart."
For Tollemache there never was a choice. Ever since she was a child, she has been writing stories and developing characters.
"The signs were there, let’s just say that. I did all the theatre nerd stuff in high school, and did the Sheilah Wynn thing, and went to the Globe."
Despite having to make ends meet with a variety of jobs, from a charity clipboard person - "the worst job ever" - to the popular hospitality roles in bars, cafes and wineries, she continued to plug away.
"As the years go by, you get a bit more discerning and you start to realise that certain things set your soul on fire and certain things don’t. And not just the content, but also the way it’s made and how it’s led and the kind of people that you get to perform for, and that starts to guide and shape you."
So making her own content and co-founding Rollicking Entertainment with her partner David Ladderman came next. Pulling together both their strengths, they incorporate circus into theatre and have created nine shows for children and adults so far.
"They all had one thing in common. They all were about being able to tell the truth in the room and justifying why the audience was there."
Tollemache’s aim is to create work which makes the most of the live aspect - its point of difference from other entertainment - and break down the fourth wall.
"If we’re asking for emotional honesty and if we’re asking to take things that are a bit abstract or weird and find the truth amongst them, then I also want to have the freedom where if someone sneezes in the audience, to be able to acknowledge it."
Especially as for many years Tollemache found it easier to have a conversation with an audience of two to three hundred people than with just one person.
"So when the show’s going well when I’m emceeing or performing, there is a calm confidence and I feel like I feel like myself."
With the knowledge of why she feels the way she does, she finds performance to be a good fit.
"So the great thing about performance is the rules are clear and that is one of the things that most of us, most autistics, are desperately looking for all of the time is clarity.
"We will have this experience. At the end there will be applause and then we will walk off the stage and the performance is finished. And, oh, the relief in a world where people don’t say what they mean."
The variety of her work, the touring and the collaborations they do, mean the side of her that seeks novelty is very happy.
"There’s a routine going on stage [but] as well, the little ADHD dopamine goblin is really happy because there’s some adrenaline in there. It’s a nice well-ordered world. Routine and novelty."
But it all comes with sacrifices, such as having to spend time away from home in her cottage in New Brighton beach, Christchurch. She left home in February and apart from a couple of one day stop-offs will not be back until September.
"It’s an extraordinary privilege to be able to do what I’m doing, especially what I’m doing this year - I would love to have an equal balance of time at home and walking on a beach and being in my little cosy cave surrounded by all of the nice things that I like and being on the road - but if the price that I pay to be able to make the work I care about and take that to people and be an artist full time is to sometimes have big patches of not being at home, I’ve sacrificed far more than that to do things that I care about."
TO SEE:
The Neurospice Girls, by Lizzie Tollemache
24 Filleul St
July 23-27 at 7.30pm
July 26-27 at 3pm
