Part of the September season of UnWrapped at the Sydney Opera House, Class Act is an exploration of class and social standing through the deconstruction of the classic 1964 film My Fair Lady, combined with personal anecdotes. Created by Melbourne-based, experimental art organisation, APHIDS, and staring Mish Grigor in the lead role, the performance opens…
Joanna Murray-Smith has crafted a sympathetic and thorough expose of the life of Australia’s first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. Justine Clarke plays the part of Julia and takes us from the time of her birth in Wales up to the famous misogyny speech delivered in parliament. Director Sarah Goodes has taken her story and placed…
The University of Adelaide Theatre Guild have tackled quite a challenge in presenting one of Shakespeare’s last plays, King Lear. Imagining the play set in the future, it challenges the notions of modern civilisation. In fact, Shakespeare’s commentary on power, lust and betrayal is as relevant today as when the play was scribed in the…
Pride and Prejudice, arguably Jane Austen’s most famous novel, has been the subject of countless adaptations. There is the 2005 film with Keira Knightley, the modern-day retelling in Bridget Jones’ Diary, the cultural reinterpretation with Bride and Prejudice, and who could forget the incredible masterpiece that was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. However, there is…
Choreographed by Aakash Odedra and Lewis Major, Little Murmur at the Sydney Opera House is a sensory feast of projections, dance and sound. Aimed at younger audiences, the performance reflects on Odedra’s life growing up with dyslexia. Having been diagnosed at a young age, he struggled in school and misspelled his own name until he…
Melbourne’s East End Theatre District glowed purple on Wednesday, August 7th, to celebrate the premiere of the smash-hit musical SIX. Since its debut in 2017, SIX has taken the musical theatre world by storm, and this run marks the show’s highly-anticipated second time in Australia (or the third run if you consider the COVID interruption!)….
The true story behind Chicago is so fascinating that it still resonates a hundred years after the action. In 1924, Chicago was overrun by gangsters, with prohibition-era criminality infused with a smoky jazz background. On “murderess row” in Cook County, over a dozen women were waiting sentencing. One woman, Kitty Malm, dubbed by the newspapers…
As the sun rises on what is set to be another blistering summers day in Washington Heights, bodega owner Usnavi (Ryan Gonzalez -they/them) is getting ready to start work. Chasing away petty vandal Graffiti Pete (Jervis Livelo – he/him), he begins to talk about his life, his world and this little corner of Manhattan he…
Prepare for the most spine-chilling ghost encounter of the year. Susan Hill’s acclaimed gothic horror tale hasn’t gone dull with age, surviving through Stephen Mallatratt’s remarkable adaptation, which has lived on London’s West End for over 30 years. Bringing its ghostly horrors to Melbourne, The Woman in Black is a thrilling exploration of terror that…
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, an ill-fated tale of star-crossed lovers, has been re-imagined time and time again. I honestly thought there was no ground left to cover when it came to adaptations of the beloved classic. I have never been more delighted to be wrong. Set to Prokofiev’s iconic score, Romeo and Juliet Suite at…
Melbourne’s oldest and grandest venue, the Princess Theatre was transformed into Hollywood Glamour on Wednesday night as the city welcomed the return of the Australian production of Sunset Boulevard presented by Opera Australia & GWB Entertainment by arrangement with The Really Useful Group. With a dazzling red carpet, free-flowing champagne on a glamorous bar that…
The 1949 play, Death of a Salesman, was written by lauded American playwright, Arthur Miller. Miller wrote plays including All My Sons (1947) and The Crucible (1953), and dabbled in screenwriting and radio plays, winning a Pulitzer Prize for Drama for this very play. Death of a Salesman first premiered in 1949 and ran for…
Spaghetti and ketchup. Pineapple and pizza. Felix and Oscar. They say opposites attract, but sometimes they’re better left alone. The Odd Couple follows two divorced friends who decide to live together… only there’s one problem… Oscar thrives in a messy, laid-back environment, while Felix prefers his quarters spick, span and neatly polished. Can this mismatched…
Playwright and actor Hew Parham has created a unique one-man show with Symphonie of the Bicycle. Stepping on stage in the intimate Space Theatre, adorned in a white tracksuit with a green stripe, Parham immediately demonstrates his skill at using his body gestures and voice. Acclaimed director Chris Drummond has kept the focus on Parham’s…
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is an ambitious two-part play by American Playwright Tony Kushner. Written in 1991, the story explores personal motivations, hopes and desires of characters in New York during the 1980’s AIDS crisis. It has had previous success as a six-part television mini-series and a West End production….
Heralded as one of his most beloved plays, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is no stranger to adaptation. The delightful tale of love, fairy’s and mischief, despite its troublesome undertones around consent, continues to mesmerise audiences. Performed at Sydney’s Centennial Park, the Australian Shakespeare Company have created a beautiful and incredibly humorous depiction of the…
Sydney Theatre Company’s latest production, No Pay? No Way! may have celebrated its golden anniversary but it feels as relevant as ever. This farce about cost-of-living pressures and a healthy distrust of corporate greed could be about modern Australia- except that it took its inspiration from real-life events that occurred in Milan in the 1970s….
With a little over a year since the first Sydney run of the 50th Anniversary Production, Rocky Horror Show is back at the Theatre Royal in Sydney. Featuring mostly the same cast and staging (check out last year’s recap here), this production has kept the momentum going after five decades of this outrageously naughty sci-fi…
Full of murder, greed and that oh so seductive razzle dazzle, Broadway’s longest-running musical has found its way back to Australia for a limited season. Chicago tells the story of Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly, two strong individuals with big aspirations who find themselves locked up and on trial for murder. When they learn of…
British playwright Henry Naylor presented his personal journey, a one-man monologue entitled, “Afghanistan is Not Funny” at Holden Street Theatre for the Adelaide Fringe. The original show was directed by Holden Street’s Artistic Director Martha Lott, and then was further developed by New York’s Soho Playhouse’s Artistic Director, Darren Lee Cole. The title is the…
Lydia Lunch and Joseph Keckler are both one-of-a-kind New York performers. The Garage International theatre is a converted church behind the Adelaide Town Hall and is an appropriate venue for the evening’s spoken word entertainment. Chandeliers incongruously light up the seating area in what was the hall, while ushers frantically add chairs to accommodate the…
Melbourne’s esteemed Regent Theatre was draped in pink and green on Thursday night as the city welcomed, for the second time, the Australian production of Wicked presented by John Frost for Crossroads Live. With a green carpet, Ozmopolitan cocktails, the Ozdust Boutique and, of course- lots of bubbles, the foyer of the grand theatre was…
Well, dip my eyeballs in glitter. The brand-new musical, & Juliet, is now in Sydney, and it’s a high-energy mash-up of Shakespearean storytelling, 90s pop music, and gender-bending progressiveness. Re-working the story of Romeo & Juliet (1597), the story starts with William Shakespeare (Rob Mills) and his wife Anne Hathaway (Amy Lehpamer) (yes, you read that…
The Lehman Trilogy opens in 1844, where a young man from Bavaria, Hayum ‘Henry’ Lehman (1844 – 1855), arrives in New York with a dream to work his way up in a bold new world. Lehman is joined by his two brothers, Mendel ‘Emanuel’ Lehman (1847 – 1907) and Mayer ‘Potato’ Lehman (1850 – 1897),…
A sparse looking bedroom; a bed, wardrobe and a mirrorless mirror stand are the only props on stage. A nun drags the bed by a rope slung over her shoulder. Gazing out to sea, she casts a rod, landing herself a wayward traveller, apparently lost at sea. He lands on the bed, dazed and confused,…
Dancenorth is a collective based in Townsville (Gurambilbarra) and is described as a centre for dance making, collaboration and artistic exchange, based on the lands of the Wulgurukaba of Gurambilbarra and Yunbenun, and the Bindal of Thul Garrie Waja. Led by Artistic Director, Kyle Page, Executive Director Hillary Coyne and Associate Artistic Director Amber Haines,…
The streets of New York’s East Village are bustling with love, art, culture and spirit. Despite oppressive powers threatening to break friendships and crush dreams, this resilient group of friends celebrate the power of the human spirit, bringing people together to stand up for what they love. This is Rent. Jonathan Larson’s hit musical has…
After the success of Lady Sings the Blues at the Adelaide Fringe in 2022, Prinnie Stevens is back this year with the second instalment of her show. With such an incredible array of blues artists that have shaped today’s musical world, it’s only fitting that the music deserves a second chance. This year the show…
One thing that the Adelaide fringe is known for, is bringing strange and unusual events to the city. One of those is The Inflatable Church, which has come all the way from the European Fringe circuit. It’s like a giant inflatable jumping castle, but all the fun happens on the inside. It’s unholy matrimony, where…
British playwright Lucy Kirkwood has crafted a delightful tale of social consciousness with a serious message. The Children tells the story of the aftermath of a nuclear power station meltdown, focussing on three former nuclear engineers. Set in a cottage in an unnamed coastal area of England, the play opens with Rose (played by veteran performer…
