Caro Partigiano is an independent producing company, led by Michael Louis Kennedy, which has slowly materialised since 2022 . The name is a reference to the famous Partigiani, a title given to the anti-fascist resistance in Italy during World War II. Depending on how liberal your translation is, it could mean anything from Dear Partisan to Darling Comrade.
Caro Partigiano exists to bring to life multi-genre arts projects that have a feral, queer, iconoclastic, rebellious, anti-imperialist spirit.
See below for some key current and recent Caro Partigiano productions:
Reprobates
Coming in 2026.
Reprobates is a quarterly curated performance night in which five writer-performers are commissioned to create a 7-10 minute monologue from the perspective of a new character; the more eccentric the better.
The monologues will be presented to a live audience, by the writer, in costume at a Sydney pub. At the close of each performance the writer/performer will sit for a character portrait and at the end of each year the portraits and scripts will be published as a book, accumulating in volumes over time.
The Balloon Dog Bites
The Balloon Dog Bites is a raucous, irreverent multi-character solo-comedy by Michael Louis Kennedy, with a consensual audience participation element, unfolding over the course of a children’s birthday party. The work follows Paulie Accio, a queer, single, childless self-described ‘serious clown’, supplementing his serious clowning practice with birthday gigs. Over the course of the party he suffers a series of escalating humiliations and microaggressions at the hands of the well meaning but condescending parents and tactless kids.
The Balloon Dog Bites is underpinned by an exploration of the concept of Reproductive Futurism coined by Lee Edelman in his highly influential work of Queer Theory 'No Future'. Reproductive Futurism is a political philosophy which values children above all else; positioning them as metaphorical representations of the future itself, whose real and hypothetical interests must preserved above all others.
The show also utilises the clown as a metaphor speaking to the trivialisation of queer life modes of being, and the question of a serious vs unserious life.
And it does all this through the prism of a gay clown at war with a nine-year-old girl.
CREATIVE TEAM
Writer / Producer - Michael Louis Kennedy
Costume Designers – Nicol & Ford
Composer / Sound Designer – Oliver John Cameron
Lighting Designer – Saint Clair
Directorial Eyes – Tommy Misa / Jane Schon
PERFORMANCE HISTORY
August - September 2025 - Old Fitz, Sydney
October 2025 - Melbourne Fringe
REVIEWS
★★★★ “Kennedy is a beautiful writer, and the poetry of Paulie’s monologues are matched by the show’s thematic concinnity and latent humour.” - The Age (Melbourne Fringe Festival, Melbourne, 2025)
★★★★ “Kennedy is a talented playwright, and The Balloon Dog Bites is a feast of acute observation, wicked wit, and absurd twists.” - Stage Noise (Old Fitz, Sydney, 2025)
★★★★ “Sublimely silly, radiantly ridiculous, . . . THE BALLOON DOG BITES is an enthralling comedy with a bite equal to its bark.” - Sydney Arts Guide (Old Fitz, Sydney, 2025)
All The Fraudulent Horse Girls
Audrey is 11 years old and telepathically linked to all the other horse girls in the world (by her own reckoning). She devours all things horses; the saddle club, black beauty, her Shetland pony asthma inhaler, even Hudson Lamarque’s lauded violent Americana novel A Horse Without A Stable. When she tries to steal a police horse on a school trip as a way of proving the legitimacy of her equine obsession, she is kicked in the head and thereafter finds herself lost in a child’s pantomime imagining of a Mexican desert; in a Spaghetti Western fever dream wherein she must fight her way back to life.
All The Fraudulent Horse Girls is a one-act “one-person” comedy by Michael Louis Kennedy. The Caro Partigiano production was first staged in 2024 at the Old Fitz, Sydney with three performers each playing the one character at various stages of the show. It is a lean, modular show ideal for space sharing.
CREATIVE TEAM
Director - Jess Arthur
Playwright / Producer - Michael Louis Kennedy
Lighting Designer - Emma Van Veen
Set & Costume Designer - Paris Bell
Sound Designer - Madeleine Picard
Performers - Shirong Wu, Janet Anderson, & Caitlin A. Kearney
PERFORMANCE HISTORY
August - September 2024 - Old Fitz, Sydney
REVIEWS
★★★★ “A fantastic, silly and sometimes poignant adventure that tickles all the right places.” - Time Out Sydney
“This is a chaotic kaleidoscopic play that defies expectations and does so in the nicest way. Grab a drink from the bar and prepare for a fine ride on this priceless pony. Giddy-up!” - Theatre Travels
★★★★ 1/2 “At just 55 minutes, All the Fraudulent Horse Girls, by Michael Louis Kennedy and directed by Jessica Arthur, is an astonishing piece of work that feels much bigger and more significant than you might at first imagine it could.” - Stage Noise
Acqua Profonda
Acqua Profonda: A Trilogy is a trio of queer, site-specific, interactive audio works curated and produced by Caro Partigiano, for Bondi Festival 2022. The works respond to the creative and symbolic significance of the ocean and waterways, and are each written by a different queer writer based in Sydney, Australia. They are formally diverse works; Part I (The Clam Before The Storm by Michael Louis Kennedy) is a radio play, Part II (Sea Monster by Jules Orcullo) is a highly interactive work suitable for adults and children, and Part III (Ocean Loops by Luke Patterson) is an immersive sound poem. Each piece is accompanied by an original score by award winning composer Oliver John Cameron. The works are designed to be listened to on the banks of bodies of water, making them well suited to multi-arts festivals in coastal and lake-side cities.
REVIEWS
“The three pieces of Acqua Profunda were markedly different in their approaches, tones, and effects of exploring water as a medium and force. From the humorous and absurd to the intergalactic and back into the earth, Acqua Profunda was an inventive, creative, and reflective storytelling production examining a prominent but often under-interrogated touch stone in Australian culture.” - Night Writes
CREATIVE TEAMS
Producer - Michael Louis Kennedy
Composer / Sound Designer Oliver John Cameron
Associate Producer Olivia Costa
Part I: The Clam Before The Storm
Writer - Michael Louis Kennedy
Dramaturg - Polly Rowe
Performers - Liam Nunan, Mansoor Noor, & Michael Louis Kennedy
Part II: Sea Monster
Writer - Jules Orcullo
Dramaturg - Polly Rowe
Performer - Tuuli Narkle
Part III: Ocean Loop
Writer / Performer - Luke Patterson
PERFORMANCE HISTORY
July 2022 - Bondi Pavilion
For any presenters or programmers interested in the work or productions of
Caro Partigiano, please send an email with your enquiry to caropartigiano.productions@gmail.com
Pitch decks, technical specifications, scripts, and links can always be provided. And always up for a chat.