Everything I Don’t Know and More: Liam Lowth and the launch of Lucky with Queensland Theatre Company
On November 13, Queensland playwright Liam Lowth’s Lucky will premiere at Queensland Theatre Company’s Diane Cilento Studio. A pressure-cooker dinner-table drama, the play follows four friends after an incident that violently shattered their long-standing friendship. Think a contemporary Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by way of Australian author Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap.
Lucky is being staged as part of DOOR 3, Queensland Theatre Company’s program supporting independent Queensland theatre-makers to develop and stage work. Now in its third year, the program gives collectives development time alongside dramaturgical, technical and marketing support.
It comes at the end of a busy year for Lowth. His new play Freedom was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award, Lucky secured its place in DOOR 3, and other projects are moving through development. By most reasonable definitions, Lowth is a writer. Increasingly, the industry is treating him like one too.
But according to Lowth, it still feels strange to say so.
“It feels like such a silly thing to say. I do it every day, and I’m still not comfortable saying it. I think it’s because ‘writer’ feels so sure of itself, and I don’t yet.”
Lowth’s path to theatre hasn’t been direct. Before plays, he moved between forms and countries. There were short stories in Australian and international publications, copywriting, film reviews and essays, and work with a student newspaper while living in the United States. Back in Brisbane, one of those early writerly stops was an internship writing for The West End Magazine!
Lowth says it took him time to appreciate the most fundamental part of the job: being alone with it. “It took me a while to love how insular it is, sitting down to write. But it’s such an integral part of my life now. You get better at asking questions and being interested in life outside yourself.”
Across those different forms, his fascination with what words can actually do to another person remained constant. That fascination with language, and the moment someone discovers its power for themselves, eventually led Lowth into the classroom. He spent years teaching high school English and storytelling to young people.
“I think some of the best moments I had as a teacher were watching students discover their own power. Language is this wild, renewable resource where the more you use it the more you seem to have. I think that matters at a time when so much can make us feel so powerless.”
Uncertainty sits at the heart of Lucky too. Lowth began writing the play in 2023, approaching thirty and increasingly preoccupied with the different versions of adulthood taking shape around him: careers, mortgages, children, politics, money, and the habit of measuring one life against another. Three years later, uncertainty followed him further. Earlier this year, Lowth left the security of teaching to focus more seriously on his writing.
“There was definitely a moment where I thought, is a really bad idea? Teaching was lovely because it gave me very clear answer when someone asked what I did. Writing is a much more abstract answer.”
Lucky’s next step came through Yeah Nah Theatre, an independent company founded by regional Queensland artists and committed to developing new local work. The relationship began through the company’s Scripted Shenanigans program, before Lowth and the team carried the play into their successful DOOR 3 application. Now, the Yeah Nah team are bringing the play from development room to stage.
Three years after he first sat down with Lucky, audiences will finally get to join the conversation. For Lowth, there still aren’t many definitive answers. “I just hope the play gets people more comfortable with not having all the answers, and gives them a push to interrogate those who think they do.”
You can see Lucky at Queensland Theatre Company’s Diane Cilento Studio from 13–28 November 2026. Tickets are available through the Queensland Theatre Company website.
https://queenslandtheatre.com.au/plays/lucky
