Inspired by true events, The Sapphires tells the origin story of an Aboriginal girl group on tour to entertain the troops in Vietnam. The four sisters bring their everything to the band and, over the long, hard few weeks away, they learn a lot more about themselves and the shifting dynamics of their childhood relationships.
Image by Chris Lundie
For the last three generations or so children have been reading The Diary of a Young Girl as a firsthand account of life in Europe under Hitler’s rule for a young Jewish girl. In the stage adaptation by Francis Goodrich and Albert Hackett, the audience is brought directly into the Frank’s annex for the two years that they were in hiding to see the long hours of boredom, brief respite in holiday celebration, and a brooding fear of discovery underpinning it all.
Image by Clare Hawley
A young couple are taking some time together to heal after a rough patch in their relationship. They book a stay at a cozy bed and breakfast in historic Gettysburg and that might be all it is. It also might be an entrance to another dimension, or a house haunted by Civil War soldiers, or an elaborate game of make-believe constructed by owner Kitty. Who’s to really say who’s in charge and what it all means?
Like Salem Barrett-Brown says, trans is very trendy at the moment, occupying a disproportionate amount of news and media attention in Australia. But what’s it like to be one of these illusive transpeople, battling the same late capitalist hell-scape as the normies but with the nation’s concentrated hatred to boot? Open Dyke Night invites a few marginalised identities to weigh in.
Image by Daniel Boud
Performance collective Branch Nebula are looking to interrogate the boundaries of “theatre” including opening the form up to interdisciplinary fields of dance and sport and unusual urban modes. High Performance Packing Tape uses everyday materials to construct a homemade aesthetic and redefine theatrical expectations.
Lotte thinks she deserves a holiday and some loving at the same time but she couldn’t have known her singles tour of Troy would drag her through history into the ancient falling city. Mixing history, mythology, and the modern day, Trojan Barbie is a confronting exploration of the trauma of war through the female victims.
Inspired by the surrealism of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Katie Pollock reimagines the well-known novella through young Greta’s eyes as her brother takes a sudden ugly turn towards extremism. In The Becoming, dangerous ideology and its sibling, dangerous indifference, means nobody gets out alive.
Image by Geoff Sirmai
To welcome in the new season, Woollahra Philharmonic Orchestra invited soloist Darcy Dauth for four pieces encapsulating the uplifting and joyful atmosphere of springtime. From the mid-19th to mid-20th century these pieces grow in grandeur like the bursting of spring sunshine on a fine September weekend.
Image by Noni Carroll
Enemy cities, a tragic shipwreck, two sets of twins separated indefinitely: so goes Shakespeare’s farce A Comedy of Errors. In Hilary Bell’s adaptation for the National Theatre of Parramatta, the story retains all the instances of mistaken identity, unfulfilled plans, wrongful arrests, and a near execution while injecting a bit of Western Sydney flair.
Image by Dan Grant
A plane crash, a suicide, an orphan, and a supernatural light that might provide intergenerational electrical powers and telepathic communication capabilities. After runs at Dark Mofo and Home of the Arts in Brisbane, Side Pony Productions and The Last Great Hunt bring their scifi thriller The Irresistible to the Sydney Opera House for UnWrapped.
Night Writes 