When I first read Cruise, this was the piece of verse that convinced me I had to bring this play to Sydney:
“That’s the power of music, that’s the power of dance
When you’re stuck inside your head with your trauma on repeat
Take the power from your brain and direct it to your feet,
In the dark and the smoke, as you invent new postures and dig your heels into the ground
You’ll find, for a moment, you’re not crazy, you’re not hurting, you’re not selfish, you’re not ashamed; you’re found.”
I’ve long held an obsession with the club, but I’d never been able to articulate why I needed it so much until Jack gave me the words.
Since I first read them whilst on a holiday in London, they have continued to come to me on every night out, finding myself deep in a crowd of queer bodies and feeling my favourite kind of spirituality. Now I get the gift of once again directing the wonderful Fraser Morrison as he speaks the verse so beautifully.
During the first rehearsal process for Cruise, we invited legend of the Sydney nightlife scene, Jonny Seymour, to come into the room to speak with us about their experience DJing in the 80s and 90s. Jonny told us about one of their first gigs, DJing a wake for someone who had died of AIDS. They told us about how it felt to watch people full of grief express their pain through movement and connection. They talked about their experience of the sacred ground of dancefloors and the capacity for us to move through huge emotions on them, and then come out stronger and more prepared to act on the other side.
All of our Sydney clubs (at least, those still standing today) owe their lineage to the party makers of Jonny’s generation and before. We stand in a long line of queers who knew how to party as hard as they knew how to protest.
In 2025, I was at the Heaps Gay Mardi Gras after party the week after we closed Cruise the first time, and two months before my flight to London where I planned to live for the next 18 months. I was feeling both enamoured with the Sydney scene and terrified for my upcoming adventure. I distinctly recall a moment deep into the night where I was, to quote Jack Holden, “throwing spectacular shapes” in the middle of one of the party’s many dancefloors, having a moment both private and utterly not, when the largeness of what I was feeling was totally captured by the movement of my body. Possibly hours later, or maybe minutes, a large group of my friends appeared next to me and we partied together until the end of the night.
I’m wary of telling our audiences what they should get out of Cruise, because I think, as with any great text, its messages are complex and many. But one of the truly special parts of this play is how it honours our queer dancefloors. It honours the restorative and radical place of club culture in our lineage. And, as I cry watching it every night, Cruise galvanises me to hold my friends and my community close, and then dance all night with them.
I’ve spent the last 18 months partying in a scene that did not raise me. Exploring the warehouse raves of East London and discovering what Soho has become. It’s been wild and fun, but I am so excited to be back in Sydney where, with respect to Jack Holden and to Soho, I think the parties are so much better. But maybe that’s because all my friends are at them.
Cruise plays at the Seymour Centre from 9-31 October 2026. Tickets are available here.
