Being 17 is hard enough – hormones, homework, the looming question of what comes next. Add caring for your mum to the mix, and Thea’s juggling act is nothing short of Olympic.

Smart, self-sufficient and secretly just holding it together, she’s spent the last two years keeping her life under wraps. No one knows she’s a carer. Not even Syd, her endlessly chatty new running partner who pushes her to pursue a university athletics scholarship and dream of something more. But chasing that future means leaving her mum behind – and the last time Thea tried that, things didn’t quite go to plan.

Starring Leigh Lule (Trophy Boys) and Zoe Boesen (Abigail’s Party), Madelaine Nunn’s moving new play sensitively explores responsibilities to those you love, the untold strength of care work and the courage to know when to lean on others for help. Directed by award-winning theatre maker Olivia Satchell, Shoelace Chaser is a warm and feel-good story for anyone who’s ever been a teenager.

Developed through Melbourne Theatre Company’s Next Stage Writers’ Program, with the support of the Playwrights Giving Circle.