YORK Theatre Royal has felt like a home away from home for nearly 15 years.

I first ‘worked’ in the building when I was 11, as a millennium bug in Berwick Kaler’s panto Old Mother Milly – I had a Geordie accent, some green lycra and four furry arms.

Since then I’ve worked there as part of Box Office, as a resident company with Belt Up Theatre, as an assistant director for Peter Pan and Forty Years On, as Associate Director on The Mystery Plays 2012, as an associate company with The Flanagan Collective, and as the Creative Producer for On Our Turf.

I work around the UK in theatres, halls, pubs, railway arches and abandoned buildings, but there is always such a joy and warmth in coming home to YTR.

The building supports such a remarkable and vast community – from those who simply come to use the café every week, to folks like me whose careers and passions have been fostered here.

Many productive days have been spent in the foyers, meeting and talking to other creative folk; spent in their rehearsal rooms, developing the first ideas of a show; in their performance spaces, nervously watching as the first lines of a new show spill out.

It’s quite amazing that, from being a green lycra-clad bug, I’ve been allowed to make work on the main stage; I’ve been put in charge of 800 community cast members; and recently that York Theatre Royal have started making shows with us, we ran Sherlock Holmes: A Working Hypothesis over summer in association with York Theatre Royal.

But what is more amazing, is that I am not unique. York Theatre Royal has big, warm arms and holds so many folks in the city and beyond within its reassuring, welcoming and supportive hands.

If you drew a family tree, then you’d end up planting a forest of shoots, siblings and surrogate families.

The building and the organisation offers so much to so many. Whether as a member of staff, a member of the arts, or most importantly as a member of the community, I will be stood eagerly outside the new foyer doors, waiting for our new building to welcome the family back in – and hopefully some new folks too.

By Alex Wright

• For more information on the Theatre’s appeal go to www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk, or to donate Text YTRC15 £(amount you wish to donate) to 70070 or go to: justgiving.com/yorktheatreroyal/donate