In The News

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Writer–director–performer Eloise Aiken, this year’s Katie Lees Fellowship recipient, delivers the fruits of that award in Crotchless. It’s a feminist story that examines the radicalisation of young men. 

In the foyer after the show, Eloise and I spoke of the all-too-familiar conversations where men frame their misogyny as ‘payback’ for being called out by feminism. Crotchless skewers men’s cry to uphold anti-feminist propaganda.

10 November 2025 | sydneytheatrereviews.com

Written by Eloise Aiken, this year’s winner of the Katie Lees Fellowship. The Fellowship is designed to support young female/female identifying theatre makers, and here it has once again shown itself to be a vital contribution to the Sydney theatre scene.

5 November 2025 | theatrereds.com

Gen Z might be the most self-aware and sexually fluent generation yet, but they’re still fumbling through the same fog of identity that’s haunted every teenager since time began. 

Crotchless captures that confusion with all the clamour of five-minute TikToks, self-help podcasts, and a perpetual scroll of people telling you who to be and what to believe.

5 November 2025 | faithintheatres.com.au

First-year Dramatic Writing student Eloise Aiken is an emerging artist making her mark on the Sydney theatre scene. Her new play, Crotchless, has been supported by the Katie Lees Foundation, taking it from part of her submission for her NIDA application to a full production at Flight Path Theatre.

22 October 2025 | nida.edu.au

In The Strong Charmion there is admirable effort not only to demonstrate the naturalness with which a person’s sexual proclivities can transform, but also that each person’s relationship with their own body image is unique, and can therefore never really adhere to traditional modes of categorisation, including the gender binary. 

24 January 2024 | suzygoessee.com

Central to The Strong Charmion is the strength with which it portrays the diversity of women’s suffering and resilience. Higson and Ramsey effectively expose the multiplicity and brutality of punishments doled out against those whose performances of gender are unorthodox.

23 January 2024 | theatretravels.org

Female strength, sexuality and identity takes centre stage in Chloe Lethlean Higson’s groundbreaking new work, The Strong Charmion. 

20 January 2024 | sydneytheatrereviews.com

The Strong Charmion, a woman of unconventional strength. She refuses to be small, she refuses to be physically vulnerable. She is one of several characters who challenge traditional visions of femininity. Her family and friends question chastity, marriage and reductive visions of gender. Their tales are told with both humour and poignancy.

20 January 2024 | theatrereds.com