The Stage Show

At the Perth Festival, stories from home inspire new work

12 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Live on stage at the 2024 Perth Festival, we encounter an opera, a play and a dance work that each explores how the places where we live shape who we...

Griffin marks the end of an era with a Louis Nowra triple bill

05 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The last production to grace the stage of Griffin's historic SBW Stables Theatre before a major redevelopment will be The Lewis Trilogy from Austral...

'We have to learn to listen again' — Akram Khan's reimagined Jungle Book

29 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Jungle Book Reimagined, the celebrated choreographer Akram Khan brings Rudyard Kipling's classic and contested Jungle Book stories into a near-fut...

Why Groundhog Day's Australian debut is healing for Tim Minchin

22 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Tim Minchin has written the music and lyrics for Groundhog Day the Musical, which is coming to Australia following runs on Broadway and the West End....

Sunday — The woman who shaped Australian art

15 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when we see real events and meet well-known people on stage? How can the theatre shape our sense of our own history? Those questions are...

Joanna Murray-Smith — a playwright in demand

08 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Joanna Murray-Smith is an acclaimed Australian playwright and one of the few to have enjoyed success on Broadway and the West End. She joins us to re...

The Tina Turner story on stage

01 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Tina Turner's phenomenal success in the 1960s and 70s masked the destructive tempest of her personal life. Now, her powerful story is laid open in Ti...

Theatre healed Heather Mitchell

25 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Heather Mitchell's mainstage debut was more than 40 years ago and she continues to delight audiences, last year performing to full houses at the Sydn...

How Eddie Perfect and Gillian Cosgriff make musical theatre

18 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever wondered how a musical is written? At this year's Adelaide Cabaret Festival, the Tony-nominated composer and lyricist Eddie Perfect hos...

If your show needs a lift, 'Send for Nellie!'

11 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Nellie Small was a mainstay of the Tivoli circuit in Australia from the 1920s until her final performance in 1964. There was a catchcry on the variet...

The Warumpi Band story comes to the Sydney Festival

04 Dec 2023

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...

A Ring Cycle for our part of the world

27 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Richard Wagner's massive Ring Cycle consists of four heroic operas that tell stories from ancient Nordic sagas. But what would happen if you shifted ...

A Game of Thrones villain finds redemption in A Christmas Carol

20 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A Tony-award winning production of A Christmas Carol has returned to Australia, this time with the Welsh actor Owen Teale as Scrooge. A Tony winner h...

From a caravan in WA to the mainstage — The McElhinneys venture out

13 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sisters Hayley and Mandy McElhinney are two of Australia's finest stage and screen performers. Having built their careers as individuals, they now jo...

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

06 Nov 2023

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)

30 Oct 2023

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...

How Chicago became a hit musical — 'We wrote fast and tore up fast'

23 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb's creative partnership lasted forty years and produced hit shows like Cabaret, Chicago and Kiss of the Spi...

Bridal laments and vanishing vultures inspire new work at OzAsia

16 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In traditional Weitou culture (the first people of Hong Kong), brides defiantly sing of grief and bitterness towards their arranged marriages. Drawin...

Hamilton maestro reworks the music of Sting

09 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Whether he's playing, conducting, orchestrating or composing, Alex Lacamoire is a musician in demand. He has won three Tony Awards for his orchestrat...

Taylor Mac's queer rock opera adds to 'the library of the deviant theme'

02 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The new work, Bark of Millions, features 55 original songs that explore queer life and culture.

When asked to adapt a classic, Nakkiah Lui chose Showgirls

26 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Nakkiah Lui (Kamilaroi/Torres Strait Islander) is one of Australia's most incisive, provocative, and funniest writers. Never one to follow convention...

Broome's complex history and culture inspire an award winner

19 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Choreographer and dancer Dalisa Pigram is a Yawuru/Bardi woman and the co-artistic director of the acclaimed dance company Marrugeku. Dalisa is the w...

How the stage needs to change

12 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Cessalee Stovall is an in-demand performer and the founder of the organisation Stage a Change. When Cessalee is not on stage herself, she is driving ...

Kate Miller-Heidke's new musical, and Wicked returns

05 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As new parents, Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall found themselves immersed in an uncanny world of children's entertainment. The impossible chirpin...

Bangarra Dance Theatre enters a new era

29 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On the eastern edge of the Nullarbor Plain is a deeply spiritual place called Yuldi Kapi, or Ooldea Soak. It's the electrifying starting point for th...

'I didn't know any better' — How David Lang redefined opera

22 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

To break the mould of traditional opera, composer David Lang takes us to unexpected places. He has written an opera that is too quiet to hear, an ope...

Is there something wrong with Debra Oswald?

15 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Debra Oswald was just 17 years old when her first play was professionally workshopped. That was in 1977 and she's been a prodigious writer of plays, ...

Helen Morse never sought the spotlight

08 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Helen Morse has performed in some of the most radical and feted Australian theatre productions of the past 50 years. As she prepares to feature in th...

After 10 years, Anthony LaPaglia returns to the stage

01 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Death of a Salesman by the American writer Arthur Miller is one of the 20th century's most famous plays. It's about an ageing travelling salesman wh...

The radical innovations of Caryl Churchill

25 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Caryl Churchill is one of the most enduring and radical playwrights of our time. Several of her plays are now in production around Australia. To unpa...

A high-camp provocateur treads unfamiliar territory: real life

18 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ash Flanders made his reputation with wildly funny, often surreal queer theatre made under the name Sisters Grimm with his creative partner Declan Gr...

Michelle Law's latest play contests Chinese values

11 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Australian writer Michelle Law has an ear for the humour found when cultures meet. Her new play Miss Peony takes us into the world of Chinese-Austral...

Wesley Enoch honours the elders of First Nations performing arts

04 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Guest host Wesley Enoch meets three icons of First Nations performing arts. Roxanne McDonald's stage career began more than 30 years ago when she s...

In his 90th year, Michael Frayn's plays still make noise

27 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The English writer Michael Frayn has produced a staggering amount of journalism, novels, philosophy, non-fiction and plays. The Tony and Olivier Awar...

Once Upon a Mattress composer Mary Rodgers was anything but shy

20 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The American composer Mary Rodgers was a funny, frank and intelligent woman who grew up in a world of showbiz royalty. But as an artist, she could n...

Andrew Bovell comes home

13 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Andrew Bovell is one of Australia's most esteemed playwrights. His recent play Things I Know to Be True has been staged around the world, but in many...

Eddie Perfect and Gillian Cosgriff show us how to make a musical

06 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever wondered how a musical is written? At this year's Adelaide Cabaret Festival, the composer and lyricist Eddie Perfect is hosting an even...

'It's been a slog' — Jacky debuts at the Melbourne Theatre Company

30 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Jacky is the Melbourne Theatre Company debut of Arrente writer Declan Furber Gillick, a razor-sharp new voice in Australian playwriting. It tells the...

Is the stage the right place to talk about climate change?

23 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

David Finnigan outraged the right-wing commentariat with his breakthrough play, Kill Climate Deniers. Now he's back with another play that confronts ...

Why Tina Turner was 'adamant' that the violence of her past be put on stage

16 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Tina Turner's phenomenal success in the 1960s and 70s masked the destructive tempest of her personal life. Now, her powerful story is laid open in T...

A 114-year-old Australian novel in Chinese becomes a play for today

09 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Poison of Polygamy is an action-packed Australian novel that was serialised in 1909 in a Chinese-language newspaper — the heroes and villains a...

'It was such a balm' — How theatre healed Heather Mitchell

02 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Heather Mitchell's mainstage debut was more than 40 years ago and she continues to delight audiences, last year performing to full houses in a one-wo...

Lano and Woodley set sail in search of Moby Dick

25 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

With comedy festivals around the country at full sail, Lano and Woodley are having a whale of a time in their new show, Moby Dick. Colin Lane and Fra...

A Pulitzer winner serves social justice and sandwiches in Clyde's

18 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage is renowned for her incisive, moving and witty plays about the intersections of race and class in America. Her Ton...

A satirical One Woman Show skewers the Fleabag generation

11 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Not long ago, Liz Kingsman was doing improv and sketch comedy with her friends in England. Now, this Sydney-born comedian is the talk of the comedy w...

Nureyev's Don Quixote recreated on stage

04 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Australian Ballet have brought their iconic production of Don Quixote, choreographed by and originally starring Rudolf Nureyev, back to the stage...

Why dance in a museum?

27 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lucy Guerin is one of the most awarded choreographers working in Australia today. To mark 21 years of her company Lucy Guerin Inc, the Australian Cen...

After 50 years at La Mama, a legend passes the torch

20 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Great performers, writers and directors emerge from the smallest of theatres — venues where new talent is nurtured and writers and performers are f...

The book that brought us Macbeth

13 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine a world with no Macbeth, no Tempest and no Twelfth Night. Without the First Folio, published 400 years ago this year, those plays may have b...

Verdi's Messa da Requiem pulses with life in Adelaide

06 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

After several years of delays, the Ballett Zürich production of Giuseppe Verdi's Messa da Requiem will feature at this year's Adelaide Festival. Bro...

A Little Life on stage — Ivo van Hove adapts the 'cruel' bestseller

27 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ivo van Hove is renowned as one of the most innovative — and divisive — theatre directors working today. The Belgian's enthralling stage adaptati...

'Cabaret is the original punk' — Reuben Kaye at WorldPride

20 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We celebrate Sydney WorldPride with cabaret performer and drag artist Reuben Kaye. In his breathlessly entertaining shows, Kaye shares his family's e...

New works take flight at a cosmic Perth Festival

13 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This year's Perth Festival takes us to the stars, with many events in the program inspired by stories of the cosmos. The West Australian Symphony Orc...

Tim Minchin takes comedy seriously

06 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Roald Dahl's beloved novel Matilda was brought to glorious life as a stage musical in 2010 and now it is on screen, once again buoyed by the clever,...

The woman who shaped modern Australian art

30 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when we see real events and meet well-known people on stage? Can the theatre shape our sense of our own history? Those questions are rai...

'The future is Blak' — How fatherhood changed Bangarra's head designer

23 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

If you've seen a performance by Bangarra Dance Theatre in the last 12 years, then you've seen the work of Jacob Nash. Jacob is Bangarra's head of des...

Dorian Gray's visionary director revitalises another classic

16 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sydney Theatre Company artistic director Kip Williams' production of The Picture of Dorian Gray starred Eryn-Jean Norvill in all 26 roles and incorp...

An Australian play on Broadway

09 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Suzie Miller was a lawyer before she became a playwright. Now, Prima Facie, a play that takes her back to the courtroom, has launched her career on t...

'It was time they had a blackfella at the top' — A new era for ADT

02 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Our oldest modern dance company, the Australian Dance Theatre, has been delighting and challenging audiences for nearly 60 years. Now Wiradjuri dance...

90 years of performing arts on your ABC

26 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As the ABC celebrates its 90th birthday, we delve into our archives to revisit key moments in Australian performing arts history. Highlights include ...

Finding true love at the barre

19 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dancers Ako Kondo and Chengwu Guo travelled great distances at a very young age to join The Australian Ballet. Here in Australia, they’ve risen to ...

Michael Sheen returns to Amadeus as a different man

12 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Welsh stage and screen star Michael Sheen is in Australia to perform in a new production of Peter Shaffer's classic play Amadeus and the Sydney Opera...

'Sharing a mad moment together' — Chaplin's grandson's ode to theatre

05 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Performer James Thiérrée takes audiences into surreal worlds that leave us pondering some big questions about life on Earth. As the son of two pion...

The forgotten ballets of Australia

28 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Classical repertoire dominates Australian ballet seasons, but in the mid-20th century, new work was a key priority for Australian ballet companies. W...

Andrew Lloyd Webber's go-to director

21 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

British director Laurence Connor has a knack for knowing what audiences want. He has directed or revived some of the most successful musicals ever pr...

Sandi Toksvig has reasons to be cheerful

14 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Danish-British writer and comedian Sandi Toksvig has written books, plays, musicals, and she's the host of the ever-popular British quiz show QI. She...

'We are here, we belong' — Uniting communities through the arts

07 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

S. Shakthidharan's new play for Belvoir St Theatre, The Jungle and Sea, adds dimension to his award-winning epic, Counting and Cracking. The Jungle a...

Matilda and A Christmas Carol director keeps The Old Vic young

31 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

To ring in the holiday season, an award-winning production of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is in Australia from London's famous Old Vic Theatr...

A manifesto for dance of a different kind

24 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Choreographer Stephanie Lake gets dancers to perform with a kind of joy and discipline which would hold the attention and the wonder of anyone. She c...

From chook farmer to change maker

17 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1980s, Annette Shun Wah was at the cutting edge of Australian radio and television and was one of the first Asian Australians to host her own ...

A comedian's debut play inspired by the on-field drama of footy

10 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

For nail-biting drama and spectacular performances, many Australians head to a different kind of theatre: the footy field. Andrea Gibbs' debut play, ...

Finding true love at the barre

03 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dancers Ako Kondo and Chengwu Guo travelled great distances at a very young age to join The Australian Ballet. Here in Australia, they’ve risen to ...

Les Misérables and Miss Saigon creators take centre stage

27 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Les Misérables opened on the West End in 1985 and is still running, making it London's longest-running musical. It's by Claude-Michel Schönberg and...

Remembering Uncle Jack Charles

20 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We pay tribute to Boon Wurrung, Dja Dja Wurrung, Woiwurrung and Yorta Yorta actor, writer and activist and elder Jack Charles who has died at the age...

Straight lines and stillness — New work from two theatre giants

13 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In his 50-year career, English writer David Hare has written more than 30 plays. His latest, Straight Line Crazy, features a powerhouse performance b...

New plays light up the Brisbane Festival

06 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

If the border closures of the last two years have a silver lining for Australian artists and audiences, it must be the renewed focus on Australian wo...

Brett Dean's Hamlet triumphs at The Met

30 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

An operatic adaptation of Hamlet by the celebrated Australian composer Brett Dean this year made its North American debut at the famous Metropolitan ...

Dorian Gray's visionary director revitalises another classic

23 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Sydney Theatre Company artistic director Kip Williams' production of The Picture of Dorian Gray starred Eryn-Jean Norvill in all 26 roles and incorp...

Hairspray brings back a Broadway legend

16 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2002, John Waters' brash and big-hearted musical comedy Hairspray was adapted for the Broadway stage. It won eight Tony Awards, including one for ...

Being an opera singer saved her life

09 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

After wowing audiences at the Royal Albert Hall and The Metropolitan Opera in New York, Australian soprano Helena Dix is back on home soil to sing th...

Diablo Cody found her dream collaborator in Alanis Morissette

02 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill is now a jukebox musical. But how has this achingly personal collection of songs been transformed into a show ...

Catherine McClements is looking for a challenge

26 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Catherine McClements has transformed into a vast range of characters during her celebrated career on stage and screen. So, with each role, where does...

First London, next Broadway — An Australian playwright on the rise

19 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Suzie Miller was a lawyer before she became a playwright. Now, Prima Facie, a play that takes her back to the courtroom, has launched her career on t...

'It became very woke' — An Asian Australian director embraces 'elder' status

12 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Darren Yap has been a part of some huge moments in Australian performing arts history, from acting in Miss Saigon to being on the directorial team fo...

'It was time they had a blackfella at the top' — A new era for ADT

05 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Our oldest modern dance company, the Australian Dance Theatre, has been delighting and challenging audiences for nearly 60 years. Now Wiradjuri dance...

90 years of performing arts on your ABC

28 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As the ABC celebrates its 90th birthday, we delve into our archives to revisit key moments in Australian performing arts history. Highlights include ...

The Tony-winning creator of Broadway's 'big, black and queer' Best Musical

21 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A Strange Loop has won Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical at the 75th Tony Awards. This funny and challenging metafictional musical is inspired ...

Tina Arena on the intimacy and vulnerability of cabaret

14 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Since starting her career on Young Talent Time, Tina Arena has become one of our most successful musical exports, having sold over 10 million records...

At RISING, the arts take the chill off winter

07 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

After being cancelled in 2020 and 2021, Melbourne's RISING festival is finally here. It's the first major arts festival the city has hosted since 201...

Lea Salonga — a trailblazing star of the stage

31 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Tony and Olivier Award-winning musical theatre star — and two-time Disney Princess — Lea Salonga rose to international fame for originating the r...

Mr Producer — How Cameron Mackintosh rebuilt an industry

24 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Les Misérables, Phantom of the Opera and Cats were all produced by the same man: Cameron Mackintosh. In Australia for the opening of a new productio...

Truth-telling in the theatre — Why Andrea James ditched law for the arts

17 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When Yorta Yorta/Gunaikurnai theatre-maker Andrea James quit her job as a legal secretary to pursue a career in the arts, it was because she saw the ...

Theatre icon Geraldine Turner reveals her off-stage struggles

10 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Geraldine Turner has been a mainstay of the stage since the 1970s, featuring in the Australian premieres of Chicago, A Little Night Music, Into the W...

'Wagner belongs to humanity's treasure' — Confronting a contentious classic

03 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Richard Wagner's epic fantasy opera Lohengrin is a fairy-tale romance, but a disconcerting German nationalism lurks beneath its surface. French direc...

Big plays in a tiny room — Red Stitch turns 21

26 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Red Stitch Actors' Theatre has just 80 seats, but the company is acclaimed for their bold programming of the buzziest new work from abroad and for de...

Power and ethics in playwriting

19 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

At this year's Australian Playwrights' Festival, writers gathered to interrogate some of the most challenging questions facing theatre-makers today. ...

Imagination will help young people 'sort out the mess' left by grown-ups

12 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dan Giovannoni is a prolific writer of plays for young people and adults. His work as a playwright and as a teaching artist demonstrate his belief in...

Blind and vision-impaired artists rewrite Tchaikovsky's final opera

05 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Tchaikovsky's opera about a blind princess, Iolanta, raises challenging questions about the nature of disability — questions the West Australian Op...

Lano and Woodley set sail in search of Moby Dick

28 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Colin Lane and Frank Woodley are having a whale of a time in their new show, Moby Dick. The pair join us to reflect on forming their famous duo, forg...

An Englishman in New York takes on An American in Paris

21 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

George Gershwin's An American in Paris has been associated with dance ever since it inspired the 1951 Gene Kelly film, so who better to bring it to t...