My Hair is Thinning

My Hair is Thinning is a new documentary theatre work currently in development by playwright Anthony Nocera in collaboration with director Clara Solly Slade through the Kinetik Collective. We will be developing the work throughout 2024 / 2025 across two residencies- with The Mill Adelaide and within Brand X's Flying Nun Season.

In late 2022, Anthony’s fiancé, Jamie, passed away unexpectedly. He was 24 years older than Anthony. The deal was that he would, most likely, pass away first. But he wasn’t meant to go just yet. Anthony and Jamie’s relationship was coloured by incongruity; Jamie was an extrovert, Anthony an introvert. Jamie, despite being much older, was interested in tech, and Anthony more dubious of it. But, perhaps most incongruously, despite being twice Anthony’s age, having cancer and having undergone chemotherapy, Jamie had a much better head of hair than Anthony.

Now Anthony finds himself at cross-roads: he’s 29, a widow and balding. He can’t help his age, and he can’t help but wade through his grief. He can, however, grow his hair back.

My Hair is Thinning is a darkly funny story about hair regrowth, navigating grief and learning to making peace with things that feel irreconcilable: genetics, death, who we fall in love with and the manner with which It happens.

Part essay, part play, part performance lecture, My Hair is Thinning braids together three narrative strands’ verbatim scenes from Anthony and Jamie’s relationship, conversations between Anthony and his hair regrowth doctor, and scenes from Anthony’s sexual history, creating a thorny portrait of what it means to piece a life back together and carry on when there is a vital part missing.

Team:

Playwright/ Performer: Anthony Nocera
Director/ Kinetik Co-Founder: Clara Solly-Slade
Designer/ Kinetik Co-Founder: Bianka Kennedy
Performer: Elizabeth Hay, Rob Wells and Zoe Dunwoodie.
Composer: Mat Morison
Multi-Media Artist: Max Brading