I’ve been dreading this moment for a while now, my goodbye to The Performance Corporation. I have now tied up the Swampoodle development week, set up the tax sheet for the rest of the year, tidied up the server as well as my desk, shed a few tears and was very touched when Jo, Tom and the Swampoodle gang gave me my leaving present and a group hug – apparently that’s what they do in America 🙂

It has been an amazingly busy year and a half. I’m not going to say it was always easy, but it was always rewarding. It was hard when we had to strike Power Point every night in the Camden Court, when finances were pulled on Project X Athy, when our core funding was cut, when we were cleaning butts off the front of Rathfarnham Castle at 1 in the morning, when our server died and the RSVP list was lost 2 days before opening night, when we did 3 shows in 36 hours including get in, tech, dress,  3 performances, strike and get out, when a sudden conflict came up in a venue for Help Me! Help Me!, when Irene left for London  :-), when the roads of Ireland became impassible due to snow in the middle of Slattery’s Sago Saga national tour and when I brought sound tapes instead of miniDV tapes to the very last opportunity to record a show (we did make the recording in the end).

For every one of these there are many very rewarding moments: packed houses for Power Point and Slattey’s Sago Saga, amazing audience feedback, praising reviews, real Finnish sauna in Finland, fantasticaly talented young artists using the rehearsal space in Castletown House, people who lend you a fabulous Austin Healey Mk 3 because they like what you do, your show in World News and China World, brainstorming outcomes, shooting 100 performers dressed in paper costume, performing outside the White House, From the Heart nominated for multiple Fringe Awards, seeing the Imeall cameraman chuckling away behind his camera – but most of all,  meeting and working with people who make all this happen.

It has been an absolute honour working with The Performance Corporation and I can’t wait to see our their future shows as an audience member.

Watch out for Swampoodle, it will be great.