2021 was a big year for Kamilaroi man Thomas Weatherall. Firstly, he began filming for Netflix’s reboot of popular Australian ‘90s TV series Heartbreak High, playing teen heartthrob Malakai, a lead character navigating the challenges of identity, race, gender and sexuality.

Then, in December that year, he was announced as Belvoir’s Balnaves Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Fellow. The fellowship would support the development of Blue, a monologue he began writing in real life high school as a self-motivated means to work through a deep depression.

Though he didn’t know it then, he’d be doing final stage rehearsals right in the wake of massive screen success. Heartbreak High became a viral hit in the English-speaking binge-watching world in 2022, with Weatherall declared the series’ ‘breakout star’ by major media outlets like GQ. These days, he’s regularly stopped on the street.

His magnetism, fluency of expressive language and earnest if fast-maturing appeal is as visible on stage as on screen. Blue confirms Weatherall as one of Australia’s early-career actors to watch, as he inhabits the self-written role of Mark, a young, sweet-natured man beset by grief, and an innate and inescapable darkness inside.