Democracy Repair Services

A climate thriller that explodes into poetry, asking: how do we live through the end of the world?

In the middle of a scorching summer election campaign, four teenagers get together to rewrite democracy. It's also about the endangered Bogong Moth.

Called among “the best writing of 2025” by Guy Webster, Democracy Repair Services is the story of four teenagers forming an activist collective during a catastrophic bushfire season and election campaign. Led by the passionate Youth Parliament leader Viv, tensions quickly boil over as the group questions whether the normal democratic processes are working. Tactics escalate until a member of the group secretly plots to turn their next attempt at minor vandalism into a genuine attack on fossil fuel infrastructure. The resultant explosion shifts everything as the audience is launched through time and space.

Travelling from the near-extinction of the Bogong Moth in Canberra to the creation of the earth’s oil fields and finally the nebulous and uncertain future, the audience is invited to imagine what the next 100 years will look like. Drawing from writer Noémie Huttner-Koros's decade of youth climate activism, Democracy Repair Services fuses urgent political questions with poetic storytelling and a cyclical structure.

Intended as a gentle kiss, a hearty soup, a handkerchief and a punching bag for all your feelings about the world right now, this is a show for anyone who has ever felt powerless in the face of something enormous and a reminder that movements are just people deciding to show up and try anyway.

"Democracy Repair Services flies toward the light of truth and makes us feel hopeful even in distressing times."

Keith Gow, Theatre First

"A marvel of construction, the most symbolically rich show that I saw during [Melbourne Fringe]. A very impressive neural network, full of moths, community organising, queer politics and environmental science."

Dom Blyth, Show Pony Zine

Cast and Crew

Images by K JamesTakamoto