OBSERVER: The Manager Is Me
Writer-performer Dayna Fallon, 2025 Victorian State Champion of the Australian Poetry Slam and National Finalist, presents her debut solo theatre work The Manager is Me as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, from October 8-17 at .
Directed by Cathy Hunt, the story tells of Dayna Fallon’s husband having a seizure on the bathroom floor.
In the next room, her three daughters have unzipped a beanbag across the living room.
On her laptop, a 7am Teams meeting wants to know if now is still a good time. So as usual, she manages the emergency, manages everyone else’s feelings, and schedules her own collapse for a more convenient time.
The Manager Is Me is described as ‘A 55-minute solo collision of comedy, spoken word and theatre about the impossible job of holding everything together, and the woman discovering she is, somehow, the only person rostered on.’
“It is a show for anyone who has ever typed ‘Haha all good x’ while their life was coming apart in real time.”
Built from Fallon’s slam poems, the show stages one impossible morning that refuses to stop happening to her. She wrote it after years of running a house at maximum capacity, caring for a husband with complex health needs, and still feeling like she was falling apart, until the absurdity deserved a witness rather than an apology.
Venue: The Motley Wherehaus. The Salon.
Performances: Oct. 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17 at 6pm; Oct. 17 at 3pm
Running time: 55 minutes (no interval)
Bookings: melbournefringe.com.au
Cheryl Threadgold
Pictured: Dayna Fallon presents The Manager is Me.