They Will Be Kings - Mardi Gras 2026

They Will Be Kings

The Loading Dock

Werewolf’s remount of They Will Be Kings at The Loading Dock arrives not as a simple reprise of its 2025 premiere, but as a work that has deepened, tightened and found new voltage in front of an audience. There is something potent about a second life in theatre - the chance to refine intention, to sharpen rhythm, to listen to what the work has become. Under the direction of Kaz Therese, this is a production that understands itself more fully and dares to go further.

At its heart, They Will Be Kings is a work about drag kings - artists who inhabit, exaggerate and interrogate masculinity - and through that transformation claim authorship over power, lineage and identity on their own fiercely constructed terms forged in dressing rooms, on dance floors, in queer community, in defiance.

Therese’s direction is, as ever, incisive. They have a remarkable capacity to sculpt performance - to allow contradiction, humour and vulnerability to sit side by side. The quartet - Danica Lani, Chris McAlister, Angel Tan and Becs Blake – here, are a tight ensemble that pulses with collective energy. Each brings a distinct texture to the stage: Lani’s grounded presence and emotional clarity, McAlister’s sharp comic timing edged with steel, Blake’s muscular theatricality, and Tan’s magnetic volatility. Together, they move as both individuals and collective. This isa community negotiating power in real time.

The production’s tonal shifts are handled with confidence. One moment we are in the riotous glow of queer joy; the next, we are confronted with the quieter ache beneath it. The script resists sentimentality. It refuses to package trauma. Instead, it honours the mess: masculinity unravelled and reassembled, performance as survival strategy, as both shield and weapon.

A standout performance comes from Angel Tan as Fine China. Tan commands the stage in a monologue - accompanied by live electric violin - landing as the emotional fulcrum of the evening. It is a meditation on self-construction: on carving beauty from fracture, on claiming visibility when invisibility once felt safer. The violin does not sentimentalise the moment; instead, it heightens its rawness. The effect is quietly shattering.

Design plays a crucial role in this remount’s impact. Lighting designer Frankie Clark delivers a sophisticated, sculptural design that elevates the work in this modest black-box. Light here is not decorative; it crowns, exposes, sanctifies. A wash can feel like a nightclub; a single shaft can evoke a cathedral. All reinforcing the production’s interrogation of spectacle and sanctity.

The sonic world is shaped by composer Gail Priest, whose score threads through the work with both pulse and restraint expanding the emotional register without overwhelming the performers’ voices. The soundscape feels alive, responsive, integral.

What distinguishes this remount most powerfully is its sense of communal offering. The audience is not passive. There is a palpable exchange in the room - laughter that feels earned, silence that feels shared. In a cultural moment where queer narratives are both celebrated and contested, They Will Be Kings feels urgent without becoming didactic. It is celebratory without ignoring precarity.

Importantly, the production understands that queer joy is political. That claiming space, light, narrative - claiming kingship - is itself an act of resistance. But it also understands that such claims are fragile, hard-won and ongoing.

Werewolf have not simply restaged a success; they have allowed the work to mature. Under Kaz Therese’s precise and generous direction, and in the hands of Lani, McAlister, Tan and Blake, They Will Be Kings stands taller in its second iteration - more assured, more layered, more resonant. It is a reminder that theatre can be both rallying cry and refuge. And in this case, it is gloriously, unapologetically both.

Go see this show!!!

Review by Kate Gaul

Image: Tanja Brukner