Not A Cancer Play; A Cellular Undoing

This experience is the provocation to explore the relationship between pain and desire, illness and care, sex and death, ther personal and the political. How do we sustain ourselves through cycles of care, coming together & falling apart during moments of personal and collective crisis?

The body is a site of both pleasure and pain, where sensuality and sexuality exist alongside illness. Queerness refuses to be hidden away and neatly contained within the traditional family unit. Instead, queerness becomes a kind of superpower for how to survive personal and collective crises.

Caring for others becomes a political act , the personal crumbling amidst the crumbling of the world must include a type of pleasure activism. It is in these cracks we see the transformative power of loving and caring. This is the first play reading of this new play in development by writer, performance-maker & community organiser Noemie Huttner-Koros.

Written by Noemie Huttner-Koros & directed by Alanah Guiry.

Longlisted for the 2026 Griffin Award

While this play is inspired by true stories, it is not autobiographical. The characters and events in the play may bear a resemblance to people in real life but are all dramatisations.

This play was first developed through Melbourne Writers Theatre’s Gasworks Script Lab 2025 with mentorship by Laura Lethelean & Clare Mendes.