It’s the final week of ‘Far Away From Me’ at The Ark
How did that happen? It seems like yesterday we were sitting in the workshop at the first reading and the whole adventure lay ahead of us. In the interim we’ve had a lot of laughs, some pulling out of hair, lots of late nights working on technical elements and lots of early mornings with yoga and warm ups happening in every corner of the building.
There have been so many school groups and families through the door in the time between opening night and today and their comments and feedback have been a real joy for us. In a stroke of genius Al, our marketing manager asked children to give us their written feedback on peas which box office staff then cut out and put up in our foyer. All the staff enjoy checking out the growing feedback on our 'pea station' at the start of every day. We are here to provide cultural activity for children so hearing from them of their enjoyment and appreciation of the work is really rewarding.
In addition to the production itself we had a lovely series of post show discussions across the mid- term break with our team of designers and the cast and crew of the show. The contact with the audience that these events allow and the opportunity to hear directly from our target audience makes my job so enjoyable. One stand-out moment was one young audience member who was really interested in the lighting and how it works - to the point where he went through very technical information with our lighting designer John Crudden and our Assistant Production Manager Franco Bistoni. The obvious joy that this ‘behind the scenes look’ gave to him was a reminder to us all about why we do what we do and the impact it can have. I have every faith I will come across this young man again in the future when he is a lighting designer.
Alongside the production we also catered for the adults with a wonderful evening discussion Once Upon a Timeless with Mags Walsh, Amy Conroy and Tanya Dean looking at the background, history and future of the genre of Fairy Tales. We had artists, teachers, students, writers and performers join us on the evening and the panel discussion quickly became a lively conversation between us all around the many aspects of fairytale that fascinate and also sometimes appal us. Surprisingly Frozen was only referenced once in the discussion!
This has been a great experience for me working on this production with some brilliant artists and I am delighted that we get to go out on the road now and take this production to other venues and audiences accross Ireland.
I will be sad when the run comes to an end and we break down the set and dim the lights and pack away the costumes. I may have to head away to a quiet spot with a few mattresses and no peas and have a long peaceful sleep with dreams of flying people and hummus on gluten free tortillas! You won’t get that reference if you haven’t seen the show yet – and if you haven’t seen it yet – what are you waiting for there’s only one weekend left!
Maria Fleming is Theatre Programmer at The Ark