past, present, and future projects
created by, and, or with
This is the dust we’re in
Hot Lunch & Henry Kelly
Melbourne Fringe Festival, Meat Market Stables, 2024
This is the dust we're in is a post-dramatic explosion of cultural legacy, artistic evolution, and the clumsy dance between tradition and change.
Hot Lunch (interrogators, back seat anthropologists and hacks) are picking apart what the hell we are supposed to do with Ray Lawler's Australian classic Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.
By tearing it apart, re-building, reheating, dropping tea bags on it and burning the edges, Hot Lunch obsessively flip the lid on what this Aussie classic means for them as theatre-makers and Australian citizens.
Book your Ansett flights, throw another shrimp on the barbie, and tear open pack of Tim Tams, this cold one is about to be cracked wide open.
"This is a non-stop-action, well-paced production... amazing performers... If you are looking for something funny, light and typical Australian. A play that is scripted and performed at a high standard. This is the dust we’re in should not be missed. ★★★★” - Theatre Matters
“Regardless how well you know Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (if at all), This is the dust we’re in is an intelligent and wildly energetic production that honours the past while looking to the now and the future.” - My Melbourne Arts
Nominee: Best Theatre, Melbourne Fringe Festival, 2024
Nominee: Spirit of Fringe, Melbourne Fringe Festival, 2024
3 x Judge’s Pick, Melbourne Fringe Festival, 2024
Created and Performed by Delta Brooks, Rebekah Carton, Henry Kelly and Tom Richards
Lighting Design & Stage Management by Brenton Ryan
girl at the bottom of a well
La Mama Courthouse, 2024
A one-man transmasculine fairy tale exploring grief, isolation, and euphoria.
girl has been banished, abandoned, hidden – in the depths of a well. There she waits until it is safe for her to emerge. She lost track of the days an eternity ago.
It seems all that is left is to watch the shadows on the wall and create an escape into the reality where she can be ‘he’.
Through poeticism of language and the body, girl shows us how the grief of isolation can also be healing and joyous, and how authenticity is necessary for survival.
"so delectably, unambiguously queer... his work is a moving exploration of the abstract reflections that despair can illuminate… ★★★★” - Theatre Matters
Winner: Excellence in Lighting Design - The Dionysus Awards, 2025
Written and Performed by Henry Kelly
Directed by George Lazaris
Produced by a ry presentation
Sound Design by Beau Esposito
Lighting and AV Design by Gabriel Bethune
Dramaturgy by Bridget Balodis
Stage Management by Estella Koce
HELL FIRE, mortal boys
Melbourne Theatre Company, Cybec Electric, 2023 (Staged Reading)
Midsumma Queer Playwriting Award Showcase, 2023 (Staged Excerpt)
A raucous, poetic journey of first love, venturing all the way to hell and back.
When Will’s best friend makes a move on him, his universe tilts. Watching on, three bored and spoiled celestials are desperate for the attention of their absent father - and Will may just be their perfect play-thing.
HELL FIRE, mortal boys is an intimate and deeply theatrical look at gender, sensuality and the rediscovery of self, through a prism of religious ideation and romantic annihilation.
Longlist: The Bruntwood International Playwriting Prize, 2025
Nominee: Midsumma Queer Playwriting Award, 2023
Call Me By Your Dead Name
The Butterfly Club, 2022
Henry was raised to be the perfect little altar girl. Henry grew up to be the exact opposite. With the apocalypse on his doorstep, Henry is now confronted with that big Catholic question: am I going to hell?
Call Me By Your Dead Name is a comedic and cathartic reflection on faith, gender, and sexuality. Brimming with tales that prove that life really is stranger than fiction, this heartfelt journey of self-acceptance is the coming of age story set in your midtwenties that you didn’t know you needed.
"A grand and beautiful vision" - Praise Dionysus
Written and Performed by Henry Kelly
Sound, Lighting, and Stage Management by Olivia McKenna
Puppet by Hahnie Goldfinch
Swim Between the Flags Pt. 1
The Victorian College of the Arts, 2019
In a town, in a hall, on a street, in a state - a meeting begins, to discuss the impending threat that has been in the room with us all along.
Presented at part of The Victorian College of the Arts Graduate Showcase, Swim Between the Flags Pt. 1, explores the bureaucracy of government, fear mongering, and the phenomenon of mass hysteria. Looking at the collective imagination and weaponising the immobilising horror of the unknown, Swim Between the Flags Pt. 1 leaves the audience gripped, as this riptide draws them into the open ocean, so that Pt. 2 to crash them to shore.
Created and Performed by Ava Campbell, Henry Kelly, William Strom, Dominic Weintraub and Hugo Williams
Set Design by Hahnie Goldfinch
Costume Design by Jemima Johnston
Lighting Design by Harrie Hogan
Sound Design by Gabriel Bethune
Children of Saturn
The Victorian College of the Arts, 2018
The boulder rolls up, slowly, but surely. Up and up it goes, held back from its fall by the sprained twisted figure underpinning it. The summit is reached. A moment of rest. The boulder rolls back down and the journey begins again. Children of Saturn is inspired by The Myth of Sisyphus and Goya's Black paintings. Created by VCA Theatre and Production students and directed by John Bolton, this new work combines strong physical imagery, text and sound.
Devised and Performed by Claire Bird, Ava Campbell, Kaine Hansen, Gabriella Imrichova, Henry Kelly, Stuart Owen, William Strom, Dominic Weintraub and Hugo Williams
Directed by John Bolton