Occasional Combustible Disaster to run at Civic Playhouse Newcastle in March 2026

newy.com.au – Occasional Combustible Disaster, a new play by Medowie-born playwright and producer Daniel Cottier, will be staged at Newcastle’s Civic Playhouse from Thursday 12 March to Saturday 21 March 2026.

Presented by UpStage at the Playhouse in association with Daniel Cottier Productions, the work centres on a small-town family and themes of mental health and gender diversity, with the production described as “a love letter to the community”.

The play follows Freddy Ambit in the final days of school, with the script placing him two days from finishing the Higher School Certificate (HSC) and turning 18 while weighing whether to “turn himself over to the police to be tried as a minor” or live with “the guilt of a deadly secret for the rest of his life”, the release said.

Cottier said the work was written for people “who feel out of place in the spaces that they grew up in”, and framed it as “about returning to a place that formed you and attempting to do your part to make it a little better”.

Actor Nicholas Cradock will play Freddy, with the production noting his recent screen work on the ABC series Hardball, alongside theatre credits including Les Miserables and Dream Lover.

Nyx Calder will make their Newcastle debut as Liv, Freddy’s non-binary sibling, after appearing as Scorpius Malfoy in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, according to the release. Novocastrian performers Richard Hilliar and Hester van der Vyver will play Freddy’s parents, Jim and Beth.

The show marks the directorial debut of BROCKMAN, described in the media release as a Sydney Theatre Award winner leading “an exciting creative team of queer and non-binary artists and technicians”.

In a playwright’s note, Cottier said the play grew from returning home and recognising “the joy of the Newcastle / Port Stephens community and lifestyle”, and later thinking about “the vulnerabilities regional communities face, both mental and environmental” while spending time in Karuah during COVID.

Occasional Combustible Disaster was developed with assistance from Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta and was first presented at QTOPIA in Sydney as part of its inaugural season, the release said, with media enquiries directed to Lyn Thurnham at Thurnham Teece.