Michael Louis Kennedy is a playwright, theatre maker and independent artists creating feral, unruly nonsense at every available opportunity. His works have been produced across Australia and internationally, both through Caro Partigiano and through partnerships and collaborations with a number of production companies, directors, venues, festivals and independent artists.
Key recent works are listed below:
The Balloon Dog Bites
The Balloon Dog Bites is a one-act, one-man comedy about a very serious gay clown feuding with a nine-year-old girl. It unfolds over the course of one upper-middle class birthday party as the clown in question, Paulie Accio, wrestles with a horrendous come-down, an anal injury, and a parade of microaggressions from the precocious children and their entitled parents.
The work riffs on Leoncavallo’s sad clown opera Pagliacci and Lee Edelman’s queer theory polemic No Future. It explores Edelman’s concept of Reproductive Futurism or the ways in which society is fundamentally structured around the pearl-clutching preservation of real and hypothetical children’s real and speculative interests, often justifying the curtailment of free expression of queer adults.
It’s Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap meets Children of the Corn. It’s The Wicker Man as directed by John Waters.
And above all else, it’s an angry gay clown in a life-or-death battle with an innocent child.
★★★★ “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)
PRESENTATION HISTORY
Caro Partigiano
Directed and performed by Michael Louis Kennedy
Old Fitz, Sydney - August - September 2025
Brooklyn Rep
Directed by Charles Quittner
The Ditch, Shoreditch Playhouse, London - July 2025
Lazy Yarns
Directed by Mitch Whelan
The Blue Room, Perth - January 2026
The Balloon Dog Bites (Caro Partigiano | Old Fitz Theatre, Sydney, 2025). Photos by Phil Erbacher.
The Balloon Dog Bites directed by Charles Quittner (Brooklyn Rep | Shoreditch Town Hall, London, 2025). Photos by Max Kennedy.
The Racket
The Racket is an ensemble comedy for young people drawing heavily on the tropes of classic organised crime cinema including The Godfather, Goodfellas, The Last King Of New York, Scarface, Reservoir Dogs, and Miller’s Crossing.
Due to a dizzyingly high sugar content, Clouds are strictly prohibited in the junior school of St Marcia’s. Francesca sees an opportunity, and with her friend and business partner Lucas, she enlists the help of a wayward senior to buy the lollies in bulk and secretly sell them to the rest of the juniors at black market rates.
In a matter of weeks the scheme has grown into a multi-pronged racket with runners, lobbyists, salespeople and enforcers. But as more students are drawn into the mix, and they face the scrutiny of detractors and suspicious staff, their empire of sugar threatens to dissolve. The Racket is a mischievous playground-noir satire about the line between enterprise and exploitation, the pressures of moral compromise, and the true cost of confectionery.
Originally commissioned by Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) under the 2023 Foundation Commission (10-13 Category)
All The Fraudulent Horse Girls
“An equine odyssey of surreal proportions”
Audrey is 11 years old and telepathically linked to all the other horse girls in the world. She devours all things horses; the saddle club, spirit, national velvet, black beauty, even ventolin from her Shetland pony asthma inhaler. Shunned by her school's only other horse girls she hatches an ill-fated scheme to prove her worth, kicking off a chain reaction that sends her from suburban Sydney deep into the vast expanse of the Central American desert in a surreal and life-threatening journey for meaning.
All The Fraudulent Horse Girls is a raucous, queer one-act-comedy in three acts. It’s a love letter to weird kids; their alienating and all-consuming passions; and the dangerous lengths they'll go to pursue them.
★★★★ 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 (Caro Partigiano | Old Fitz, Sydney, 2024)
★★★★ “Satisfying, unexpected and hilarious” - Fest (All The Fraudulent Horse Girls | Pleasance, Edinburgh, 2024)
★★★★ “All the Fraudulent Horse Girls did what it promised – it simultaneously brought joy and tugs at the heartstrings. It emerged as not only a queer coming-of-age story, but also an exploration of friendship and the natural, but painful, evolution of our once all-consuming obsessions.” - Arts Hub (Lazy Yarns | Melbourne Fringe, 2023)
PRESENTATION HISTORY
Caro Partigiano
Directed by Jessica Arthur
Old Fitz, Sydney - August - September 2024
Brooklyn Rep
Directed by Charles Quittner
The Glory, London - October 2022, January 2023, October 2023
National Theatre Riverstage, London - July 2024
Seven Dials Playhouse, London - July 2024
Pleasance, Edinburgh Fringe - August 2024
Lazy Yarns
Directed by Mitch Whelan
The Blue Room, Perth - January 2023
Trades Hall, Melbourne Fringe - October 2023
All The Fraudulent Horse Girls directed by Jessica Arthur (Caro Partigiano | Old Fitz Theatre, Sydney, 2024). Photos by Robert Catto.
All The Fraudulent Horse Girls directed by Charles Quittner (Brooklyn Rep | The Glory, London, 2022). Photos by Max Kennedy.
All The Fraudulent Horse Girls directed by Mitch Whelan (Lazy Yarns | The Blue Room, Perth, 2023). Photos by Sophie Minissale.
All That Glitters Is Not Mould
Co-written by Monikka Eliah, Michael Louis Kennedy, Kirsty Marillier and Dylan Van Den Berg.
Originally commissioned by the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) through Sydney Theatre Company’s Emerging Writers Group.
When Jo Jo Johnson falls to her death while cleaning the windows in Mark Holden’s Zen garden, her story is appropriated by online conspiracy theorists, businesses and the media. What should be an open and shut case of death-by-ladder becomes fodder for speculation that Jo Jo was killed by toxic mould – the same mould that killed Britany Murphy.
Part inspired by real celebrity conspiracy theories and part pure fantasy, All That Glitters is Not Mould is a dark, satirical comedy that looks at the bleeding of public and private life; of celebrity obsession; and an increasingly porous collective understanding of truth itself.
PRESENTATION HISTORY
National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA)
Directed by Ian Michael
The Studio, NIDA, Sydney - October 2022
All That Glitters Is Not Mould directed by Ian Michael (NIDA, Sydney, 2022).
The Clam Before The Storm
The Clam Before The Storm by Michael Louis Kennedy is a site specific radio-play originally commissioned as part of a trilogy titled Acqua Profonda, for Bondi Festival 2022, produced by Caro Partigiano.
It is a neurotic, oceanic narrative odyssey through three distinct relationships, punctuated by queer heartbreak, malevolent sea creatures, feminine roadside pies, biohazardous dinner parties and forbidden love. Designed to be experienced on the beach (or any other such body of water/bathtub), audiences should bring their headphones, a mobile device, and for the adventurously inclined, a towel.
PRESENTATION HISTORY
Caro Partigiano
Presented as part of Acqua Profonda
Bondi Festival, Sydney - July 2022
The Clam Before The Storm (Bondi Festival, Sydney, 2022). Campaign photos by Claire Hawley. Location photos by Narrative Post.
I am frequently working on new projects and ideas of wildly variable quality. To learn more about what’s on the burner, or to enquire further into the scripts or rights of existing works, please send an enquiry to caropartigiano.productions@gmail.com