Ballkids (or, scenes from a friendship)
SHOW DETAILS:
Wednesday 16 – Sunday 27 September 2026
preview: Wednesday 16 September
opening night: Thursday 17 September
duration: 70 minutes
times:
Wednesday to Saturday 7:30pm
Sunday 5pm
ticket price: $35 – $45
bookings: 03 9662 9966
warnings: TBC
Holly and Sam share a dream – to join the most elite squad in competitive summer sport: ballkids at the Australian Open. It’s their first day of training and they don’t know yet that they’re not going to get picked, or that they’re going to meet their best friend for the first time ever.
Ballkids (or, scenes from a friendship) takes this chance encounter and chucks it in a blender, jump-cutting through the next two decades of Holly and Sam’s shared life together. Funny and moving, excruciatingly human, it’s an ode to lonely kids and what happens when they find each other.
Green Room Award winner for Outstanding Writing and co-winner of the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award, leading indie theatre company VIMH (The Grief Trilogy) are bringing back their Melbourne Fringe smash hit in a season not to be missed.
★★★★★ “…uplifting, mature theatre, guaranteed to leave you smiling” Cameron Woodhead, The Age
Ballkids is supported by the City of Melbourne Arts Grants
Cast: Izabella Yena, Michelle McCowage
Writer: Liv Satchell
Director: Julian Dibley-Hall
Stage Manager: Liz Bird
Lighting Designer: John Collopy
Sound Designer: Tom Backhaus
Set and Costume Designer: Filipe Filihia
Movement Director: Xanthe Beesley
Producer: VIMH
Hero image: Jack Dixon-Gunn
Ticket Prices:
Preview: $35
Full: $45
Concession: $40
Group 6+: $40
Mob tickets (discount for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island mob): $30
Concessions:
Pensioners/Full-time students/MEAA members
Ticket sales are subject to a booking fee of $5.00 per ticket plus any merchant charges for payments by American Express
Ticket fees are charged reluctantly. As an unfunded CBD located venue, our expenses continue to rise. If fortyfivedownstairs is to survive, we are obliged to increase our revenue without inflicting costs on already struggling artists. Without support, we risk losing artists or having to close our doors. We do hope for your understanding!