Casey & Diana (Qtopia) ★★★½

Written by Nick Green. Australian Premiere. Mi Todo Productions. Qtopia. 22 Jul – 8 Aug, 2026.

Princess Diana’s place as a noted AIDS activist sets the scene for Casey & Diana, a predictable but moving drama that serves as a showcase for five great performances from actors who are now all on my “I’ll keep an eye out for them” list.

It’s 1991 and we’re in Casey House, an AIDS hospice in Toronto, Canada, when a new patient, Andre (Gabriel Alvarado), is admitted. He’s placed in a shared room with one of the longer-term residents, Thomas (Chad Traupmann) — a camp, talkative man with a biting wit. Under the watchful care of the no-nonsense Vera (Isabel Burton) and new volunteer Marjorie (Linda Nicholls-Gidley), the two men await their fate. But the hospice is abuzz with news… they’re about to get a visitor of royal standing. As the thought of meeting Princess Diana (Lib Campbell) gives the men a rush of excitement, Thomas’ joy is threatened by the reappearance of his estranged sister Pauline (Lucy Miller). He just has to keep it together for seven days till the Princess arrives…

Against my best efforts, I found myself getting teary at the end. I walked in knowing this was an AIDS drama set in the early 90s, and let’s be honest, it was never going to end cheerfully. But over the course of the play’s two hours and thirty minutes, the characters managed to get under my skin. Playwright Nick Green wins you over in the play’s closing moments with a sweetly circular beat that got past my cynical guard. It landed so beautifully thanks to the combined effort of a cast who balance the script’s humour with its serious heart.

Princess Diana’s activism during the AIDS crisis was hugely influential, and along with unlikely allies like Tammy Faye Bakker in the US, her empathy for those suffering helped break a lot of the stigma of the time. When Diana shook the hand of an AIDS patient at London’s Middlesex Hospital in 1987, it marked a turning point in public awareness that AIDS was not transferable by touch. She would make headlines again in 1989 by hugging a child with AIDS at a Harlem hospital. And on her final visit to Canada in 1991, she would visit Casey House. The specificity of the location isn’t particularly relevant to the story beyond its Canadian origins, and focusing on a less historic visit lets the attention fall on the people rather than the events.

Director Nancy Denis is a force of nature (if you saw Juicy Riot you know exactly what I mean), but here she disappears into the material, guiding the cast to emotionally raw performances that feel fully embodied. Reactions felt organic; characters felt whole. While the script had some clearly “stagey” scenes, they were grounded in real humanity. It’s the kind of seamless emotional experience you get when a strong cast is in sync with its director.

The cast is uniformly strong, but Chad Traupmann’s lead performance as Thomas deserves mention. Camp always hides a core of pain, which Traupmann understands, and his 80s-pop-culture-obsessed Thomas has the kind of sharp, cutting humour that reveals his inner turmoil. The role requires a mix of competing motivations on top of portraying an illness, and Traupmann (who I’m more familiar with as a producer rather than a performer) has created a nicely layered character.

Despite its length and production limitations, Casey & Diana puts its focus on character, and it pays off big time.