Baby Box follows the life and relationship of two sisters, starting when they’ve just entered puberty and ending around their early thirties. It covers a huge amount of ground (endometriosis, love, loss, homosexuality, depression) but at its heart it’s just a tale of the bizarre, fragile, unconditional love shared between sisters. There’s a lot of dark humour, a lot of very bad punning and some interesting 2000’s fashion choices – what’s not to like?

Vaginas. The moment something has anything to do with a vagina it somehow acquires this stigma around it. Also we’re told from such an early age that periods will hurt, they’ll cramp, you’ll have blood in your pants and you better suck it up – it’s a fact of life. It just means that female pain is normalized to the extent that endometriosis is often missed. We’re so often asked ‘have you tried the Pill?’ as if the Pill is this one-trick wonder that magically fixes everything that might be wrong with your abdomen. Endo has been consistently underfunded (receiving 10% the amount of money given to diabetes research), consistently ignored, consistently disbelieved. It sucks.

That’s a really good question. We’re obviously partly reaching out to an audience that has had experience with endometriosis, but we’re really just pushing for an audience that enjoys listening to female stories. While endo is a big part of the piece, it’s not all-consuming – the heart of Baby Box lies with sisters Chloe and Jamie, and the overriding message is one of hope. Everyone who has ever felt unconditional love for someone will identify with this piece – it’s just about two wonderful, nuanced, complicated women and their lives together.

Absolutely. Let’s be honest, us females have had a bit of a rough ride since forever, and it’s only really started being noticed in the industry over the last couple of years. Entertainment is for some reason still obsessed with this image of a ‘strong’ woman, pieces with ‘strong female roles’, featuring a ‘strong female lead’. I find it hilarious that ‘strong’ female parts basically boil down to the absolute minimum one would expect from a normal three-dimensional character – opinions, objectives and a narrative arc. Women come in so many different forms and with so many different pasts and stories, we want to celebrate this and show all of these wonderfully different, colourful narratives onstage.

There are obviously some challenges, but I don’t think these challenges are big enough to merit not trying. This is the one time in our careers where we’re actually allowed to fuck up. Committing to paying everyone is utterly terrifying but it’s a totally necessary step – and not one you have to take alone. Equity are the Most Wonderful People, they will take your individual show and individual circumstances into account and talk you through every little clause on the contract; they totally understand the pressures faced by emerging companies. Yes, it requires a lot of determination and the willingness to put your money where your mouth is, but paying people for their time and expertise is just the right thing to do. It shows those you’re working with that you understand and value the skills they bring to the process, and creates an environment where people want to give you the best they have to offer – because they know you’re fighting to treat them right.

It’s an exciting year for us! After Baby Box premieres at the King’s Head we move on to the Bunker as one of their Breaking Out companies to produce Nine Foot Nine – focussed around the question ‘what would happen if every single self-identifying woman in the world suddenly grew to nine foot tall?’. For Nine Foot Nine we’re totally committed to improving our accessibility, and are planning all performances to be captioned and audio-described with a cast including performers that identify as D/deaf or Disabled. It’s then heading up to perform at Assembly for a full run at the Fringe, keeping as many of the accessibility features as our budget can possibly allow! Our big ‘thing’ at Sleepless is to create environments where everyone (audiences and performers alike) feel valued and welcomed, no matter what their individual needs may be.