Produced by The Good Room & Critical Stages
Created by The Good Room : Daniel Evans, Amy Ingram with Collaborator Nathan Sibthorpe
Director: Daniel Evans
Key Creatives : Amy Ingram and Nathan Sibthorpe
Dramaturg: Saffron Benner
Producer: Amy Ingram
Production Design: Jonathan Hindmarsh
Lighting Design : Jason Glenwright
Composer & Sound Design : Dane Alexander
Sound Associate: Mike Willmett
Video Design: Craig Wilkinson (Optikal Bloc)
Choreography: Nerida Matthaei
Sydney Stage Manager: Jeremy Gordon
Assistant Stage Manager: Sarah Robertson
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Original Young People Producer: Annette Box
Original Costume Designer: Madeline Taylor
Why do you have to go to work? How come adults drink to have fun? Is 50 too old to learn to surf? What was life like before the Internet?
This is a work full of questions. Asked by young people. Answered by adults. Transformed inside a theatre-turned-playground-turned-battleground delivered by Generation Up Next. Watch as age collides with experience in a revealing one-hour tell-all, where adults take a backseat as a powerful panel of 9 to 13-year-olds drop some truths… and the mic.
APAM 2018 marked the first development of ‘I’ve Been Meaning To Ask You’; a work conceived to travel and adapt across different cities – each with its own ensemble of young people, with their own questions of the people bigger (and supposedly smarter) than themselves. It received an immediately enthusiastic response from presenters in Australia, New Zealand and internationally and will premiere at Brisbane Festival in September this year.
Combining anonymous submission with high-impact image, the work pits Age against Experience in a conversation built around three key starting points: what you’ve been told, what you know to be true and what you want to believe. Built in collaboration with and performed by young people, for audiences both old and young.
Available to Tour
2020-2021
Artform
Theatre for adults and young people, devised, created and performed by young people.
Audience
Ideally suited for ages 9+
Duration
60 minutes no interval
Minimum Stage
10m x 8m or less
Previous Seasons
TBA
What people are saying
PRESS
“Where do I begin? I loved all of it.” Broadway World
“the surprises keep coming… an extraordinary work.” Blue Curtains Brisbane
PARTICIPANTS
“This goes far, far beyond any drama education for children I have encountered – a truly unique and valuable process with highly qualified, respected and talented professionals” – Parent of Participant
“The Good Room creatives have planted little seeds of thoughts that have not only expanded my children’s empathy for humanity and for themselves but ultimately celebrate life.”- Natalie Parish, Parent of Participant
“The Good Room allowed my daughter to feel safe & at home in their creative space & as she grew through the process so did her sense of personal validity… The whole team gave these young people a professional platform to express safely & with guidance. They allowed them to celebrate communication through creativity & gave a new power to their young voices.” – Parent of Participant
2022 Performance Dates
25 – 29 January
HotHouse Theatre
16-17 July
Art House Wyong
2021 Tour Dates
17 – 20 March
Riverside Theatres, Parramatta
Presented with Australian Theatre for Young People
9 – 10 July
The Street Canberra
Presented with The Street Theatre
3 – 4 September
Horizon Festival Darwin
Presented with Corrugated Iron Youth Arts
25 September
Moncrieff Entertainment Centre
Presented with Bundaberg Regional Council
7 – 10 October
HotHouse Theatre
Community Engagement
- The engagement will begin when looking for young people in your community to be involved and will continue throughout the process all the way to performance. This project is all about the community engagement that will take place.
- Built in collaboration with young people, leveraging what the company has learned from their previous crowd-sourced performance works, including Í Want to Know What Love Is (touring with Critical Stages in 2019). This work privileges the experiences of young people as ‘makers’in the artistic process.
- As experienced youth arts facilitators, The Good Room is excited about this work being not only for young people but made with them.
- Unlike a conventional theatre model, this project is realiesd by a team of artists comprised of diverse skills including The Good Room’s core artists – Lauren Clelland, Daniel Evans, Amy Ingram and Kieran Swann. This project also features producer Tara Hobbs and specialist education consultant Annette Box
This is not a conventional theatre production, but an opportunity to bring the team from The Good Room to your town to make a work with young people FROM your community FOR your community.
“The great thing about this project is that its able to be reactive and responsive to your city or your community. Which means that we can arrive and tailor make a theatre show that is completely specific to your environment and where you live.” Dan Evans, Director and co-creator
Good To Know… Resources & More
FOR VENUES
A Marketing Kit including poster and flyer, press release, high quality production stills and a new video trailer are available.
Education kits, interviews with the key artists / facilitators, testimonials from participants, social media resources & more.
The Good Room’s creative and education team, Critical Stages Touring Creative Producer and an Audience Engagement Consultant will all work closely with you throughout the process to ensure maximum engagement with this new work in your town, centre or community.
INTEREST POINTS
This is an excitingly original piece of theatre that brings the voices and ideas of local young people to your stage. A performance model, designed to travel and work with ensembles of local young people in your town. Each show will be uniquely created for your town or community.
An original touring concept that will genuinely engage young people in your community in not just the process or the workshop but also the outcome!
Long-term benefits to the community as a result of the extended engagement with young people by the artists from The Good Room will include: development of skills, confidence, articulation of ideas and much more.
Originally commissioned by Brisbane Festival and produced in association with QUT Creative Industries at La Boite Theatre in 2018. I’ve Been Meaning to Ask You is supported by Arts Queensland, Russell Mills Foundation, the Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund – an Australian Government initiative, and the Australia Council for the Arts, the arts funding and advisory body of the Australian Government.
