In Season: Presented by Fruit Box Theatre
Headlined by Etcetera Etcetera from RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under, and featuring musical cabarets, staged readings and premier productions of new queer Australian plays, come join us for a season of original works presented by Fruit Box Theatre!
★★★★
yes this is a drag show, but it is like no other… Etcetera Etcetera is no small queen, her heart is big and voice is loud that she is unstoppable force both in life and on the dance floor Sydney Scoop
★★★★
full of laughs, great tunes, and personal revelations that make it more than the sum of its sequined parts The Queer Review
★★★★★
Dazzles… flawless Sydney Theatre Reviews
may Whitney save you if you miss this enjoyable and quintessentially Mardi Gras show Theatre Thoughts Aus
like a glass of bubbly; fun, light, effervescent – but with a kick Theatre Red
It was kind of good that KXT’s new building on Broadway wasn’t ready for this play – I mean if you’ve got a play set in an adult store, with enough ultrarealistic props to fill a real shop, then it’s got to be performed in Kings Cross. Plus, where else do you get to see a gorgeous salt ‘n’ pepper-haired leather guy swagger through the play, and wonder if he is an actor or had wandered upstairs from the bar by mistake?
Big Screen Small Queen
( EVERYTHING I DIDN’T LEARN AT FILM SCHOOL )
11 - 23 February 2023
A One-Woman-Show by Etcetera Etcetera
Etcetera Etcetera is a drag superstar on the rise – but there’s some unresolved artistic conflict in her past. It’s time for her to open up about her struggles at film school and breaking into the film industry as a gender rebel and less-than-mainstream artist. Come along and discover everything she didn’t learn at film school in a hilarious and jaw- dropping interpretation of the history of cinema. Watch as she plays characters straight from the silver screen and shows some of her own films she made in film school. Life is a movie – and she’s the star. Get the popcorn ready!
Writer / Performer Etcetera Etcetera
Costume Designer Erin Carroll Designs; Tracks DJ Argonaut; Choreographer Carter Rickard; Set Designer Soham Apte; Lighting Designer Aron Murray; Assistant Producer Millsya Theda; Stage Manager Alex Bryant; AV Matthew Miceli Photography
Producers Madeleine Gandhi and Sean Landis
French Letters and Leather Cleaner
10 - 24 February 2023
A Play by Laurent Auclair
An ageing shop owner, a savvy twenty-something, a jaded drag queen and a straight Inner West couple come together one evening in an adult store. Once a haven for Sydney’s lost souls, today “French Letters” is an adult store in decline. Sales are down, gentrification is up, and store owner Robbie is on the verge of selling to developers. Thrust together one evening, a band of unlikely friends discover that they may have more in common than it first appears (ulterior motives aside). Sometimes it takes stepping outside of your comfort zone to find the community you’ve been looking for.
The world premiere of French Letters and Leather Cleaner explores the commodification of queer spaces without taking itself too seriously. This is a farce, after all.
Director Sean Landis With Robbie Wardhaugh; Kayla-Rose De Sousa; Marty Quinn; Mat Oldaker; Dennis Clements
Set and Costume Designer Soham Apte; Lighting Designer Aron Murray; Sound Designer Sam Cheng; Assistant Director and Props Clay Crighton; Stage Manager Alex Bryant; Dramaturg Rowan Brunt; AV Matthew Miceli Photography
Producer Emily Henderson; Executive Producers Madeleine Gandhi and Sean Landis
Developed through Fruit Box Theatre’s RIPE Development Program
Pride Play Reads
Back to Birdy
A Play by Z Bui
16 February 2023 || 7.30 pm
Everything’s on the table.
Sometimes the longest friendships are the most complicated ones. Warren and Emily have been best friends since high school, suffering together through shitty teachers, coming out and failed relationships. Since Warren’s transition, it’s become obvious that there are lots of things they’re not saying to each other. In one conversation at a pub, it all comes out. Back to Birdy explores the relationship between trans men and queer women, issuing a call for empathy and understanding in our own backyard.
Join us for a staged reading of Back to Birdy – the first public showing of this new play and a taster of what’s to come.
Director Lu Bradshaw with Tyler Dias; Rebekah Parsons; Hadrian Conyngham; CJ; Kayla-Rose De Sousa; Rachel Seeto
Costume Designer Daniel Rogers; Dramaturg Rowan Brunt; Stage Manager Alex Bryant; AV Matthew Miceli Photography Producer Emily Henderson; Executive Producers Madeleine Gandhi and Sean Landis
Developed through Fruit Box Theatre’s RIPE Development Program
Act Natural
A Play by Miso Bell
16 February 2023 || 9.00 pm
Watch yourself (live on camera).
A crew of amateur documentary filmmakers convince a timid recluse, Sam, to let them film him for a “quick” university project. Seven years later they are still filming. The constant gaze of the camera corrodes Sam into a dark, desperate imitation of the crew's ideal subject. Until he is no longer controllable, no longer just a subject but a force of subjugation. He is abandoned. Alone for the first time in years. With no camera, no director and no audience to perform for, Sam is left to wade through the waters of person and persona. Feeling himself sink, he turns to the footage of the last seven years.
Act Natural is a queer ontological thriller that explores the performativity of gender and sexuality - can you truly decipher the line between a performed self and a true self?
Join us for a staged reading of Act Natural – the first public showing of this new play and a taster of what’s to come.
please note that this show plays at KXT in the X, Level 2 KX Hotel.
Performance dates and times for this show are listed on the front page of the ticket site
Director Emma Burns with Clay Crighton; Marty Quinn; Ana Ika; Ziggy Resnick
Costume Designer Daniel Rogers; Assistant Director Rebekah Parsons; Stage Manager Alex Bryant; AV Matthew Miceli Photography; Producer & Dramaturg Rowan Brunt; Executive Producers Madeleine Gandhi and Sean Landis