Play

 Unexpected playwrite

The Demigod of Preston Woolies


Melbourne Fringe Festival 2025

MC Showroom. October 15 - 18


Synopsis:Suburban nightshift worker, Seb, is in his mid-thirties, lost and wayward in life. Burnt out, hungover and unsure if it’s Tuesday or Wednesday, he encounters Sheryl, an ex-dedicated-party animal in her late fifties. Sheryl’s knowledge of the cosmos and cathartic lack of care for humanity’s tribulations leaves Seb uncertain if he’s encountered a potently articulate local drunk, an alien in human form, or a fallen deity. Whereas Sheryl – whether hyper-dimensional-being or just shopping for abundant cheap wine – hasn’t any fucks to give.
Credits:
  • Robert J. Healey - Playwrite
  • Darren Thao - Producer, Director, lighting designer
  • Helene Tardif - Lead Actor (Sheryl)
  • Luke Andrews - Lead Actor (Seb)
  • Chloe Munro - Sound design
  • Kaleb  Macdonald - Theatre technician







Video taking on iphone by Robert Healey, playwriter, on closing night (18 October 2025) at MC Showroom Prarhan, Victoria. This performance was 4 of 4. Acknowledgement of country was given by Lead actor Helene Dunlop.  


The Demigod of Preston Woolies was my first foray into playwriting. The producer and director, Darren Thao, asked that I write an original play, we were on follow spots in the upper balconies of the Plenary theatre, Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre, waiting for the lighting director to call us into action.  

‘Hey Rob, ever thought about writing a play?’ Darren asked over comms (or so I paraphrase) from the other side of upper balcony.  

‘I’ve never thought about writing a play,’ I responded.  

Later, during the gig, as I am an anxious robot, I agreed to write a first draft within one month, considering that if I was unable there would be time to find someone else. A month later I had the rough first drafts for two plays.   

One was a sci-fi tale of two people in a balloon spaceship mining a gas giant, they would slowly sink to the deaths, it was a comedy, and we’d get to use a lot of haze and magenta lights. 

The other was an existential crisis based on a lady I’d seen smoking out the front of Northlands shopping centre in 2020. She was wearing a fedora in the winter sun; her skin was perfectly creased like paper. I was hungover and thought, if I was to meet god it would be her (Note here I am an atheist). So, after walking around with that image in my head for several years The Demigod of Preston Woolies was born.