Image by Yaya Stempler
Kane and Hera are in love and want to take their relationship to the next stage but marriage will mean confronting the families they’ve been avoiding and the long list of expectations their relationship doesn’t meet. This cross-Tasman collaboration brings together a Māori and an Aboriginal family for a major culture clash.
George Orwell’s dystopian political satire has had a resurgence of popularity since the 2016 US Presidential Election, the revelation of Facebook’s interest in spreading misinformation, and the generalised fascist-y turn global politics has taken recently. This new adaptation looks specifically to the funny side of surveillance and turns the 1949 novel into a comedy and a musical.
Image by Yaya Stempler
Based on the 1979 essay, Joan Didion’s The White Album covers five years in California from 1968-1972 where Didion weaves politics, crime, Hollywood celebrities, and her autobiography into a volatile portrait of paranoia and isolation. Lars Jan and Early Morning Opera introduce bodies, light, sound, and space into the words to deepen the impact and resonance of this already seminal piece.
Image by Seiya Taguchi
In a shared courtyard in the side streets of Verona, an unending rivalry between the Capulets and the Montagues rages. Their long histories and short skirmishes have blinded them to their ineffectual attitudes and it takes the tragic deaths of their beloved Romeo and Juliet to stir the tides of change in Shakespeare’s well-loved tale of star-crossed lovers.
Image by Clare Hawley
For the inaugural production of IGNITE Collective, New Ghosts Theatre brings two new Australian works about disfunctional and unusual Christmas celebrations to the stage. In Good People, the hours spent waiting in an airport stretch into unfathomable eternity while the women of Shandy’s Corner learn to lean on each other in times of grief and joy.
Image by Craig O’Regan
Judas, the original betrayer, the man who sold Jesus out to the Romans for 30 silver pieces, has now reached Purgatory and is awaiting the outcome of his Earthly actions. Stephen Adly Guirgis’s play imagines a courtroom drama where the likes of Mother Theresa and Sigmund Freud are called as witnesses in Judas’s trial. Was the betrayal justified? Can God forgive him?
Image by Stephen Reinhardt
As another year comes to a close, Impro Australia gathers the best of the best theatresports teams from around Sydney to compete for the prized Cranston Cup in four rounds of improvised fun and theatrics. Hosted by Cranston Cup winning duo Mantaur, Harry Milas and Rob Johnson, the competition promised to celebrate the weird, the wonderful, and the entirely made up.
From the musical heritage of The Sound of Music (one border removed) comes a glittering, shimmying spectacle named Hans. Garbed in lederhosen, leotards, and leopard print, the German diva remixes some pop favourites with a polka twist for a night full of laughter and cheer.
Image by Geoff Sirmai
For the final concert of the year, Woollahra Philharmonic Orchestra invites guests Laurie Liskowski and Cindy Sims for a concert all about love. Including three pieces spanning the 19th and early 20th centuries, the program featured unusual solos for French horn, bassoon, flute and clarinet amongst the other beloved symphony members.
Image by Clare Hawley
A boy wants to become a composer but his controlling father forbids it and so he runs away, changing the course of not only his own life but that of his lover and their undetected unborn son. Adapted from the middle grade novel by Jamila Gavin, Coram Boy dives into 17th century England to explore class divides, the Baroque music scene, and the underbelly of the human trafficking industry.
Night Writes 