Library play aims to write new chapter

Libraries – quiet, orderly ... boring? Far from it, as writer Amy Maree Fairall is out to prove to Illawarra theatre audiences.

So she wrote a play about a library enlivened by the five characters who mingle there – now, where to stage it?

How about a place with lots and lots of books?

Theatre collective The Corinthian Food Store will be transforming Wollongong Library into a stage for Public Access – by its very definition an immersive experience – from October 23 to 25.

Having previously written essays and short fiction, Amy took the opportunity to explore theatre when her dear friend and cast member, Anna Phillips, suggested joining the MerrigongX program.

"We thought – oh my gosh, the library is full of so many amazing stories. We should make something about the library,” Amy says.

Co-writer Desmond Edwards and director Duncan Ragg soon got involved, and the team swapped library stories. The team’s experiences came together as Amy honed in on the value of public libraries, developing the work over three years with MerrigongX.

“We would come together and throw all those [anecdotes] into a mix in the development room, throw lots of ideas around and then we started crafting these five characters. It was very much a collaborative development," Amy says.

“It became an expression of what libraries mean to us. I had all of these detailed insights on how a library works – and the characters you find there, and also the more institutional stuff, the challenges that libraries are facing at the moment.”

The play centres on new librarian Nic, who arrives in town hoping for a quiet life only to find herself facing pressure to streamline services and make cuts. For librarians today, Nic’s story is recognisable.

"Historically, these places have been really valuable because they're human facing, and they're places where people come together in community," Amy says.

"In the past 30 years, there's been a slow push to privatise those things and to provide them on a for-profit basis – by the logic of efficiency, to basically eat as much productivity as you can out of every dollar that's being spent within the public service,

"And increasingly what that means is that more of those services are outsourcing human jobs to technology, because tech is cheaper than people. There is a huge fallout for a lot of people who aren’t tech-savvy or whose issues are more complicated than what machines can grapple with.”

This site-specific work aims to make theatre as accessible as our library. The team honours a long history of theatre as a political art form with roots in the Greek agoras and in England, where theatre emerged as a means of communicating with people who were non-literate.

“Increasingly, theatre happens in quite expensive and fairly exclusive spaces – theatres can be quite intimidating.

“Site-specific works is a nice way to take theatre out of those spaces and into places where people actually go – and people who wouldn't normally see theatre might feel more comfortable.”

Public Access stars Anna Phillips, Desmond Edwards, Linda Nicholls-Gidley, Ian McColm and Alexander Morgan, with sound designer Kingsley Reeve and production designer Charlotte Layfield.

The Corinthian Food Store is known for their acclaimed short films and theatre exploring themes close to the community’s heart. Amy says Public Access can’t be separated from local audiences, especially as the library will be open for half of one night’s performance.

“I think [performing at the library] also creates a depth of experience, because it’s not an empty space, it’s very much alive.”

“Art tries to speak to the fact that there's no such thing as a flat surface or an empty blank canvas. Everything starts from something. And if we're going to make art and make marks on the world, it's always good to acknowledge that you are always working from something."

Public Access is the last of four innovative new works in MerrigongX’s 2025 season. The annual program helps local artists, giving them the time, resources and support to develop theatre that pushes boundaries.

“It's a really nice thing to feel like you're part of a community – that’s enabling us to actually get the show up. To have them support us and believe in us in that way is really great,” Amy says.

Amy hopes librarians will enjoy seeing their experiences captured, and the audiences enjoy place-based jokes and see their town immortalised in theatre.

"I really hope that their takeaway is just how wonderful and magical libraries are and how we shouldn't take them for granted,” Amy says.

"I think it's really important to not just make work about the problems, but to make work about the beautiful things that we don't want to lose. So that we can get excited about them and feel joyous about them and have a little bit of fire to protect them,

"Just remember that these institutions have been built by people who saw that it was possible to do something together. Amazing things happen when people work together and there is a real collective strength that's possible. I think the library is a really great embodiment of that."

See Public Access on Thursday, October 23; Friday 24th and Saturday 25th at 7:30pm at Wollongong Library. The show runs for one hour and 30 minutes with no interval and is suitable for ages 16+. For this MerrigongX show, reserve a seat free, then pay what you feel afterwards. Book via the Merrigong website