Born on a Thursday arrives at the Old Fitz Theatre as New Ghosts Theatre Company’s 2025 season finale, introducing a new Australian drama that digs straight into the tensions, loyalties and quiet fractures of a Western Sydney family.
Written by Jack Kearney, the play steps straight into the rhythms of a Western Sydney household where the past sits heavily in the room, even when no one names it.
Read more: 2025 Ultimate Christmas Gift Guide
The story centres on April, who returns after years away to a family that no longer fits the shape she left behind. Her brother, Isaac, carries the weight of experiences she wasn’t around to witness, and her mother clings to familiar habits as if steadiness might hold the world together. What begins as an awkward homecoming quietly unravels into something deeper, touching on the ways silence can tether a family as much as it fractures it.
Kearney’s writing leans into the everyday details that define a family’s dynamic. He’s interested in how the routine parts of life such as casual conversations, small habits, even what’s for dinner, sit right beside the heavier things people struggle to name. In Born on a Thursday, those two worlds rub up against each other, revealing how much emotion can sit beneath the surface when a family is trying to hold itself together.
Director Lucy Clements, known for her instinctive, fine-grained approach, shapes the production with intimacy in mind. The Old Fitz’s close quarters suit a work built on glances, hesitations and the sort of conversations that feel like they could crack open at any moment. The cast, that includes Deborah Galanos, James Lugton, Owen Hasluck, Sharon Millerchip and Sofia Nolan, bring an impressive range, creating a family dynamic that feels lived-in rather than performed.
The production is also shaped by its partnership with the Australian Sports Brain Bank, whose expertise around chronic traumatic encephalopathy and the long shadows cast by repeated head injury directly informs Isaac’s arc in the play. The collaboration adds an extra layer of resonance, grounding the story in real-world experiences that stretch beyond the theatre doors.
For New Ghosts, this continues their commitment to work that doesn’t end at curtain call, supporting organisations whose missions echo the themes on stage.
- Born on a Thursday runs from 28 November - 14 December, 2025 at the Old Fitz Theatre located at 129 Dowling St, Woolloomooloo.
- Purchase tickets here.