The Stage Show

Best of The Stage Show

12 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Stage Show with Michael Cathcart has wound up after eight years on air. In this highlights of 2025 episode:Playwright Andrea James researched a s...

Best of The Stage Show: Pamela Rabe + a kid's point of view on stage

05 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

It’s one of those roles which great actors have on their to-do list: Winnie in the play Happy Days by Samuel Beckett.  Winnie starts the play buri...

Best of The Stage Show: How Anais Mitchell wrote Hadestown

29 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is retold in the hit folk musical  Hadestown. It's won Tonys, Grammys and is now in Australia. We speak to the sing...

Best of The Stage Show: Stephen Rea + the soul of Butoh

22 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

More highlights from The Stage Show. We meet Irish screen and theatre actor Stephen Rea, who talks about meeting Samuel Beckett early in his career. ...

Best of The Stage Show: Robyn Nevin and Patricia Cornelius

15 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 2025 Australian theatre legend Robyn Nevin directed And Then There Were None, a classic murder mystery by Agatha Christie. She talks to Michael ab...

Farewell friends: Denise Scott, Bernadette Robinson and Love Actually? the musical

08 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Cathcart and the team farewell you from The Stage Show. In front of a studio audience, Michael interviews the remarkable Denise Scott, who's ...

A look back at Michael Cathcart's 25 years on air

01 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For 25 years Michael Cathcart has been presenting arts and culture shows on Radio National, bringing listeners stories and conversations with writers...

West End's Alfie Boe + Meow Meow puts on The Red Shoes

24 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Cabaret star Meow Meow interprets Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales in inimitable style. Returning with her brilliant show The Red Shoes, about a...

Three moods of William Shakespeare hit our stages

17 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode it’s all about Shakespeare. A comedy. A tragedy. And a tale of utter savagery. The many moods of William Shakespeare – starting i...

Danielle de Niese's journey to the heart of Carmen

10 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Danielle de Niese started life in suburban Melbourne, appearing on Young Talent Time at the age of nine before pursuing singing in the US. She is now...

The couple performing theatre's worst marriage + Lamine Sonko

03 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why would two actors,  who are married in real life, pretend to eviscerate each other night after night in the emotionally brutal play Who's Afraid ...

Why Eddie Perfect wrote a musical for his alma mater

27 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The new musical Tivoli Lovely is Eddie Perfect’s return to the grand days of what was known across Australia as the Tivoli Theatre circuit. He's w...

Broadway star Bernadette Peters + reviving The Shiralee

20 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Bernadette Peters is the Tony award winning actress who has reigned on Broadway for decades. She is famous for originating roles in Stephen Sondheim...

Shining a new light on 'Rebecca', a gothic tale of infatuation

13 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Rebecca is a 1938 gothic suspense story by Daphne Du Maurier that's never been out of print. It's also a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock. Now it's ...

A Filipino-Australian story in the shadow of a revolution

06 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1986, Filipinos launched a peaceful revolution to overthrow their president, Ferdinand Marcos. In the new play Malacañang Made Us, these events ...

Suzie Miller's new play 'Inter Alia' delves into uncomfortable truths

30 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Stage Show is back from sabbatical! On this episode, star playwright Suzie Miller speaks to Michael about Inter Alia, her gripping new play that ...

The Stage Show

12 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Your guide to what's happening on stages across the country and beyond.

Jazz Legends: Keith Jarrett

05 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Pianist Keith Jarrett is one of the most captivating and controversial musicians of the last 50 years. He's a rare breed - a musician who has mastere...

Jazz Legends: Charles Mingus

29 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Much like Duke Ellington before him, Charles Mingus' output was prolific. Over his near four-decade career, Mingus was behind a number of jazz firsts...

Jazz Legends: Billie Holiday

22 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week we're honouring the late, great Billie Holiday. From her early ascendancy as a weaver of song in the 30s to her outspoken truth telling wit...

Jazz Legends: Quincy Jones

15 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

If you were to put together a list of jazz’s most influential names, then it’d be hard to look past Quincy Jones’s contributions. He was a gian...

Jazz Legends: Joni Mitchell

08 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the '70s, Joni Mitchell looked to jazz to inform her creative style. She would collaborate with many of the genre's leaders, but as we'll discover...

Jazz Legends: Sonny Rollins

01 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

With over 70 years of playing jazz under his belt, Sonny Rollins has seen a thing or two. He was present at so many turning points in the music: from...

Jazz Legends: Nina Simone

24 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The name Nina Simone can mean many things to many people. Casual fans of her music will no doubt remember her hits like 'I Loves You Porgy', or 'My B...

Stephen Sondheim — taking a razor to conventions (Part II)

17 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We continue our journey into the life and work of Stephen Sondheim, the composer and lyricist of some of the most well-regarded musical theatre ever ...

Stephen Sondheim — taking a razor to conventions (Part I)

10 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Stephen Sondheim is the composer and lyricist of some of the most well-regarded musical theatre ever made. We delve into his life, work and impact on...

Dancing with life and death + the spooky joy of Beetlejuice

02 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Choreographer Stephanie Lake and composer Robin Fox are partners in work and life, though they come from 'different worlds' artistically.  Their l...

Pamela Rabe tackles an iconic role + a kid's point of view on stage

26 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It’s one of those roles which great actors have on their to-do list: Winnie in the play Happy Days by Samuel Beckett.  Winnie starts the play buri...

How to make it on Broadway, plus a twisted tale challenges these actors

20 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What does it take to write a Tony-winning musical? Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty are the friends and songwriting team behind big Broadway musica...

Getting under the skin of Edith Piaf with Nathalie Lermitte

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Legendary French singer Edith Piaf was a firecracker of emotion. Gutsy and seductive, while underneath -- an intense fragility. That’s the legend...

Meet Margo Kane, a legend of Canadian theatre + a hit Spanish movie on stage

05 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Cree-Salteaux theatre-maker Margo Kane started trying out for theatre gigs in Canada in the 1970s, there were so few roles for Indigenous actor...

The Black Woman of Gippsland flips the script on a Victorian mystery

29 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Playwright Andrea James has researched a story from the 1840s, in which colonial newspapers suggested that a 'white woman' – maybe the survivor of ...

The Wrong Gods weighs the cost of 'progress' on a mother and daughter

21 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

S. Shakthidharan's last play Counting and Cracking was a massive hit, an epic tale of one Sri Lankan Tamil family and their involvement in world-chan...

100 years of La Boite: a little theatre with big ambitions

14 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We mark the 100th Birthday of Australia's oldest continuously run theatre — Brisbane's iconic La Boite. A little theatre that's had a huge influe...

'We're very scared when we're on stage': comedy sisters Flo & Joan

07 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival has taken over the city. Comedians from across Australia and around the world are here including the UK's...

In 'Lazarus', a playwright resurrects a living legend

31 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

John Harding, a founder of Ilbijerri Theatre Company and veteran playwright, recorded 20 hours of Taungurung elder Uncle Larry Walsh recounting his ...

Ruby Wax dives deep (with whales) in her comedy + Eliza Scanlen on Oscar Wilde

24 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Comedian and writer Ruby Wax tells Michael about how she recently found herself in a mental health clinic, after searching for transformative experi...

How Anaïs Mitchell wrote the hit musical Hadestown

17 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This episode of The Stage Show is about love that doesn't end well!The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is retold in a hit folk musical called Hadestown....

The story that brought Leah Purcell back to the stage

10 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Actor, director and writer Leah Purcell has been telling us her own stories and the stories of people close to her since the 1990s. Now Leah’s ba...

Actor Stephen Rea in Krapp's Last Tape + the soul of Butoh

03 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We meet Irish screen and theatre actor Stephen Rea, who talks about meeting Samuel Beckett early in his career. Rea so wanted to perform Beckett's pl...

Turning the late Ryuichi Sakamoto into mixed reality

24 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Shortly before he died, Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto performed a piano concert called Kagami – which was filmed and recorded with mixed real...

Dancing in the street with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui

17 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As a teenager in Belgium, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui  grew up dancing with his friends in the street. He’s now a renowned choreographer with his own com...

Robyn Nevin on Agatha Christie's 'dark side' + a play about Julian Assange

10 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Australian theatre legend Robyn Nevin is directing And Then There Were None, a classic murder mystery by Agatha Christie. She talks to Michael about ...

Emma Rice's dark, rollicking Wuthering Heights

03 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

UK director Emma Rice thinks the classic novel Wuthering Heights has many contemporary resonances, particularly around the origins of the character H...

How do you tell the world's longest tale 'Mahabharata', in five hours?

27 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Hindu epic Mahabharata is the longest poem in the world, a tale where gods and mortals dance around each other in stories about creation, sex, ...

'I think the rock swallowed them up': Ian Michael takes on an Australian classic

20 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When director and actor Ian Michael first saw the stage play of Picnic at Hanging Rock, adapted by playwright Tom Wright, it was as a theatre atten...

The surprising history of Shakespeare in a divided America

13 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past 200 years, theatre has often been a lightning rod for social and political upheaval in the United States. Even the plays of William Sha...

Why Eric Idle always looks on the bright side of life

06 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Death is not a very funny subject. Yet, comedian, writer and musician Eric Idle has spent 60 years showing us the funny side of our all-too-fleeting ...

The story of the groundbreaking Warumpi Band

30 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the desert town of Papunya in 1981, four blackfellas and a whitefella bonded over rock 'n' roll and became the history-making Warumpi Band. The Wa...

Giacomo Puccini 100 years on

23 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's been 100 years since the death of the Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini. From La Bohème to Turandot, Puccini's operas remain some of the m...

'I know what I'm doing' — Why Miriam Margolyes courts controversy

16 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In her memoir Oh Miriam!, the British-Australian actress, writer and comedian Miriam Margolyes shares hugely entertaining stories from her life with ...

William Yang — A life in a slide show

09 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Legendary photographer William Yang has spent decades transforming his photography into captivating live theatre via the medium of the slide show. In...

How an accident redefined the possibilities of dance

02 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1997, Australian dancer Marc Brew's life was changed forever by a devastating car accident that left him paralysed from the chest down. He tells h...

Can Kiss Me, Kate be tamed?

25 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The nine-time Tony Award nominee Bartlett Sher has this year directed Robert Downey Jr's Broadway debut and a London revival of Cole Porter's 1948 mu...

Broadway writer Rick Elice, the theatre boy who wouldn't grow up

18 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Peter and the Starcatcher, by the American writer Rick Elice (Jersey Boys, Water for Elephants), is a Tony Award-winning play inspired by J.M. Barrie...

The star of Prima Facie plots the next stage of her brilliant career

11 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Some theatre people constantly surprise you, and their names alone can spur you to buy a ticket. Sheridan Harbridge is one such artist. She blew audi...

Olympic gold medallists Torvill & Dean take one last dance

04 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the 40 years since their history-making perfect score that earned them a gold medal at the 1984 Winter Olympic Games, figure skaters Jayne Torvill...

Why Monty Python's Eric Idle laughs at death

28 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Death is not a very funny subject. Yet, comedian, writer and musician Eric Idle has spent 60 years showing us the funny side of our all-too-fleeting ...

A director's career-long effort to empower everyone in the room

21 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Mina Morita is on a mission to inspire a new crop of Australian theatre directors and to open our stages to a wider range of audiences and artists. S...

Dear Evan Hansen comes to Australia

14 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The very first Australian production of the smash-hit coming-of-age musical Dear Evan Hansen has just opened in Sydney. The Broadway production won s...

A cabaret lover's journey from sheep farm to Spiegeltent mastermind

07 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1980s a young jazz pianist named David Bates ran away with a cabaret band to the other side of the world. A chance encounter with the now-icon...

The secrets and stagecraft of magic

01 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Step into a hidden vault where the secrets of professional magicians are kept under lock and key. Your guide, magician Nicholas J Johnson, reveals th...

School's out — Matthew Whittet explores the dreams of our youth

24 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Do you remember your last day of high school? It's a key moment for many of us, as we step out of our teenage lives and into the world of adulthood. ...

A creative life undimmed by a devastating diagnosis

17 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Roz Hervey has enjoyed a 30-plus-year career as a dancer, choreographer, director and producer. So, how does she respond when life throws her a chall...

Shakespeare in a divided America

10 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past 200 years, theatre has often been a lightning rod for social and political upheaval in the United States. Even the plays of William Sha...

How a writing class with James Baldwin inspired this Tony and Pulitzer winner

03 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The American playwright Suzan-Lori Parks started writing plays on the advice of a very famous mentor: the celebrated writer and civil rights activist...

Noni Hazlehurst trades teddy bears for torment in Mother

27 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Noni Hazlehurst is one of Australia's best-loved and most enduring performers. Loved by generations of children as a presenter on Play School, she le...

Wherefore, Shakespeare? 06 | Tragedy

25 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Our series began with comedy and it ends with tragedy. In this episode, we interpret the bitter ends met by some of Shakespeare's most famous charact...

Wherefore, Shakespeare? 05 | Nationalism

25 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The work of William Shakespeare has helped to define — and problematise — notions of English identity. It has also had an impact on the English l...

Wherefore, Shakespeare? 04 | Race

25 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

While some critics believe that plays like Othello and The Merchant of Venice are inherently racist, others argue that they simply portray, perhaps e...

Wherefore, Shakespeare? 03 | Horror

25 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

William Shakespeare's plays feature witchcraft, murder, ghosts and bloody revenge. Are his displays of blood and gore simply meant to entertain us o...

Wherefore, Shakespeare? 02 | Gender

25 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to defy the conventions and test the boundaries of gender? These are questions posed by some of Shakespeare's most famous character...

Wherefore, Shakespeare? 01 | Comedy

25 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Wherefore, Shakespeare? is a new series that explores the dilemmas, conflicts, and controversies in Shakespeare's major plays. In our first instalmen...

A circus performer's journey from Albury to the Arsenale

20 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Nicci Wilks is a sharp and very physical actor and circus performer who has collaborated with major figures in Australian theatre, including Patricia...

'Welcome to Splott' — A Welsh playwright's local stories go global

13 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Welsh playwright Gary Owen writes authentic portrayals of working people living tough lives with wit, passion and dignity. Right now, three of hi...

Ray Lawler and 'The Doll' forever changed Australian theatre

06 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Australian playwright Ray Lawler has died at the age of 103. Lawler wrote Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, which spurred a growing movement of art...

Australia's Hamilton has been in the role longer than Lin-Manuel Miranda

30 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Since Hamilton debuted in Australia in 2021, the American founding father has been played by the South African-born, Perth-raised performer Jason Arr...

A Western Sydney playwright revisits his regional roots

23 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Australian writer James Elazzi has garnered acclaim for his frank and funny plays that dramatise the lives of Lebanese Australians. He has been nomin...

Bohème, Butterfly and beyond — Giacomo Puccini, 100 years on

16 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's been 100 years since the death of the Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini. From La bohème to Turandot, Puccini's operas remain some of the m...

Charting the legacy of the First Nations theatrical canon

09 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For NAIDOC Week, guest host Wesley Enoch is joined by First Nations performers, playwrights and programmers who "Keep the Fire Burning" on stages rig...

A playwright reconceives the undoing of Lady Macbeth

02 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare's most popular plays, so why would anyone write a new version? Zinnie Harris is the writer of Macbeth (An Undoi...

A Pulitzer Prize-winning play counts the Cost of Living

25 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dan Daw rose to prominence as a dancer who makes his distinctive body the centre of his work. Now, he takes to the stage as an actor, in a bold and w...

Come hear the music play at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival

18 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Pull up a chair to your lamp-lit table and enjoy cabaret performances from some of Australia's finest musical talent.Gathered around the piano at the...

'We are here, we belong' — The unifying impact of Counting and Cracking

11 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

S. Shakthidharan's award-winning epic, Counting and Cracking, won seven Helpmann Awards and drew a huge audience to a story that many of them knew li...

Jonathan Biggins is closing the book on Keating and The Wharf Revue

04 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Former prime minister Paul Keating was one of the great parliamentary performers. His ruthless wit and self-confidence takes centre stage in Jonathan...

Bangarra looks to the horizon for its first cross-cultural collaboration

28 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Perhaps no dance company has done more to expand the horizons of Australian audiences than Bangarra Dance Theatre. Now they expand those horizons fur...

'I've had this career against all odds' — Bonachela's twisted path to Sydney Dance

21 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A childhood love of dance and a challenging homelife drove Rafael Bonachela to leave his native Spain at just 17 years old and seek his fortune in th...

From Europe to the USA, this Australian theatre company keeps on winning

14 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For decades, Australia's Back to Back Theatre has been delighting audiences with shows performed and devised by an ensemble of artists who are neurod...

Audra McDonald & Jason Robert Brown — Tony-winning Broadway icons

07 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's Tony season on Broadway and this week we have two major figures of American theatre who have won nine Tony Awards between them: Audra McDonald a...

Simon Burke's wonderful (and Wicked) 50 years in the footlights

30 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Simon Burke is one of Australia's most cherished entertainers. 2024 marks his 50th year performing on stage.He made his professional stage debut at j...

After a celebrated Ring Cycle, a director ventures to Lammermoor

23 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Suzanne Chaundy is one of Australia's most in-demand directors of opera. Last year, she had the triumph of a lifetime with her direction of opera's m...

'I didn't want sangría and bulls' — A timeless and brutal Carmen

16 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Choreographer Johan Inger's first narrative work is a radically contemporary take on Carmen, which employs Bizet's famous score but draws on the conf...

Angus Cerini delivers an Australian gothic trilogy

09 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Angus Cerini has been writing plays for 25 years, but his recent experiences as a farmer have inspired his latest play, Into the Shimmering World. T...

West Side Story comes to Sydney Harbour

01 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Opera Australia's annual production on Sydney Harbour is a highlight of the performing arts calendar. This year, the floating stage hosts West Side S...

The writer of The Whale makes a case for the existence of God

25 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A Case for the Existence of God is by the American playwright Samuel D. Hunter. It is a two-hander that explores the unlikely connections between two...

Why Miriam Margolyes courts controversy — 'I know what I'm doing'

18 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In her memoir Oh Miriam!, the British-Australian actress, writer and comedian Miriam Margolyes shares hugely entertaining stories from her life with ...

Andrew Scott's one-man Uncle Vanya

11 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The acclaimed Irish actor Andrew Scott tackles his most challenging stage role yet in a one-man retelling of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. The product...

Extreme action, dreaming stories and theatrical theft in Adelaide

04 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

At the 2024 Adelaide Festival, we visit theatre foyers, dressing rooms and the city's famous gardens to meet the artists bringing theatregoers to the...

Need help getting opera singers to soar? Add puppets

26 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

One of the headline events at this year's Adelaide Festival is an enchanting production of Stravinsky's opera The Nightingale. It comes from the play...

Sam Mendes's five precepts for The Lehman Trilogy still inspire Es Devlin

19 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

British visual artist Es Devlin has designed spectacular sets for some of the largest stages on earth. As well as designing for the theatre, Es has c...