THIS MOTHERLESS EARTH
By Kate Vozella
Directed by Colm Summers
Hotel New Work Residency
Theaterlab · New York
July 6–12, 2026
2024 AUSTRALIAN THEATRE FESTIVAL NEW PLAY AWARD FINALIST
ABOUT
Set in a small desert town in a future where women can no longer carry children and parenthood is regulated through state-issued synthetic infants, Kate Vozella’s This Motherless Earth follows a couple whose eligibility to become parents is assessed by a visiting Auditor. As the present fractures into memories of a childhood shaped by mass illness, the play examines reproduction, state control, climate, memory and what happens to our understanding of family when the biological and political conditions that once defined it have radically changed.
CREATIVE TEAM
CAST
Playwright
Kate Vozella
Director
Colm Summers
Dramaturg
Rachael Balcanoff
Photography
Joey Damore
Sofie Divall
Julian Guerrieri
Rachael Balcanoff
THEATERLAB — HOTEL NEW WORK
I directed the first New York development of This Motherless Earth through Theaterlab’s Hotel New Work residency in July 2026.
Hotel New Work supports collaboratively driven companies developing ambitious new work, culminating in a work-in-progress presentation and audience feedback session. Theaterlab describes the program as an opportunity for work to “breathe, grow, and engage with outside eyes at an early stage.”
This Motherless Earth was one of three projects selected for Hotel New Work in Theaterlab’s 20th-anniversary season, alongside Fit For Love: A Mixtape Ritual by Neil Totton and The White Whale Journal by Arturo Luíz Soria and Dustyn Kurt Gobler.
The residency ran from July 6–12, 2026, culminating in a public work-in-progress showing on July 12.
KATE VOZELLA
Kate Vozella is an Australian playwright and multidisciplinary artist based in New York whose work spans theater, film and movement.
Her work has been presented at the National Portrait Gallery of Australia and the Seymour Centre in Sydney, as well as through Google Arts & Culture and Marquee TV.
Her play Burning Falling Rising Monster was shortlisted by Platform Presents and subsequently adapted into a short film starring Kyle Soller and Phoebe Fox. Her short film MIA, featuring Jason Butler Harner, won Best Original Story at the Cannes World Film Festival, and her movement film A Series of Incomplete Gestures was exhibited at Wild Geese Gallery in New York.
This Motherless Earth was a finalist for the Australian Theatre Festival’s 2024 New Play Award before its 2026 Theaterlab development.
COLLABORATION
This Motherless Earth is part of my continuing collaboration with Kate Vozella.
Our work together has centered on new plays interested in speculative fiction, the future of technology, and the human body in that context.
The Theaterlab residency preceded our 2026 New York production of Kate’s Machine Learning, which I also directed. Theaterlab’s own artist biography announced the two projects together: the development of This Motherless Earth at Theaterlab followed by the premiere of Machine Learning in New York.
DEVELOPMENT HISTORY
JULY 6–12, 2026
Hotel New Work Residency
Theaterlab
New York
JULY 12, 2026
Work-in-Progress Showing + Audience Feedback
Theaterlab
New York
5 PM