Off the Ledge Theatre to light the stage on fire with Kerosene this July

Posted on 17 June, 2026

No set and no props – just one woman telling a story about protecting and caring for her best friend in the only way she knows how.

From the local company that brought you Never Closer, comes Kerosene – a blistering and honest portrayal of love, loneliness and obsession in the suburbs.

Off the Ledge Theatre is bringing Benjamin Nichol’s searing monodrama to Canberra Theatre Centre from Thursday 16 until Sunday 19 July, marking the play’s first staging outside of Melbourne.

First debuting in 2021 (produced by Theatre Works) and receiving rave reviews, before transferring to fortyfivedownstairs in 2023 and receiving a similar reception – winning a couple of Green Room Awards at the 2022 ceremony in-between – Kerosene is a homage to the blind loyalty that accompanies lifelong friendships and the realities of what it means to grow up young, quiet and forgotten in modern day Australia.

Kerosene follows well-meaning, teenage misfit Millie, who yearns for love and acceptance, finding instead rejection and humiliation at every turn – except from her sad, soft old grandfather, and her best friend Annie.

So, when Annie turns up bruised and bloodied on the doorstep, Millie sets out to honour her childhood friend in the only way she knows how: revenge.

“This play is about so many different things that it feels impossible to condense into 50-minutes, and yet Ben does such a fantastic job of fleshing out the character of Millie and the world around her, that we feel everything she is feeling and are drawn in by everything she does,” explains director Lachlan Houen.

“The script asks the question of how love can become dangerous, and what happens when it does.”

In the vein of Angus Cerini’s The Bleeding Tree, Kerosene features an act of female-led revenge that reframes how society perceives “these kinds of narratives”.

Starring local breakout emerging actor Winsome Ogilvie, Lachlan says that there’s an expectation that acts of violence – particularly in vengeance – are perpetrated by a man.

But Kerosene asks a powerful question: ‘What if it’s a woman?’

“Within the exploration of this comes an act of domestic violence and coercive control that feels achingly realistic, and what I love about the piece is that it’s not taking these things for granted,” he says.

“I was immediately struck by the intensity of Millie’s voice and how she navigates love and connection when it feels like the world is against her. I can’t wait to start exploring this work and bringing it to life for Canberra audiences,” adds Winsome.

Running for a strictly limited season at the Courtyard Studio, no matter the cost, no matter the consequence, one thing is for sure: Kerosene will set the stage on fire.

Images supplied.