The audience listened intently, perhaps more so because of the laptop onstage and the virtual presence of the composer, also listening from afar.
And as the script grew under David Farr's capable hand – I had seen and admired his stage productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford – and as I listened from afar to the progress of the four-month shoot, and was even treated now and then to snippets of film, I began to feel the buzz, those little churnings of the stomach that give an early warning of the excitement to come.
From 7 30 until just after 9, I sat in the theatre watching unfamiliar faces and listening from afar to a slew of inside jokes.
I then excused myself and listened from afar as the workshop went into full swing and Contessa elucidated upon the varying facets of their protocol, including the provision that Violet cannot look her in the eye without permission.
These guys are rockstars, I used to follow them on Twitter and listen to them from afar.
Listening to the speech from afar, Kroeber was most struck by how familiar the issues sounded to what the Chinese are discussing every day: the demand for economic fairness, the urgent need for innovation, and the appeals to national pride.
"People will be listening in and critical from afar.
"We listen to small fictions like nightsounds from afar," Butler writes in his introduction.
Then I hear someone calling from afar.
It is hard to know how many of the large crowd who listened and cheered the BJP leader were bussed in from afar and how many were locals who might vote, but the gathering was impressive in either case.
Listening to the heated talk about trade and immigration from afar, it's not surprising that many Americans think relations between the United States and Mexico are fraught, a one-way street where one side "unfairly" takes advantage of the other.
