Image by Dahlia Katz
The guests have gathered and are awaiting her arrival but before she can appear, there is a story to be told about how the past snags on the present and the silly business of love tangles itself through time. Forget Me Not is a layered, interactive magic world almost too elaborate to fully picture or put into words.
Image by Brett Boardman
Mental illness has been a fringe conversation for many years now whether in discussion of the government reducing or stagnating essential services for mental health care, or as a sticky glob hurled at politicians who don’t perform appropriately, or as the mysterious explanation for violent tragedy. The truth is that mental illnesses like depression and consequences like suicide are painful, complicated, and very common.
Image by Robert Catto
Life doesn’t stop for anyone. For this Lebanese-Australian family, they want to focus on their son and nephew’s christening but uncomfortable truths, family secrets, and the tension between love and belief threaten to unravel the carefully orchestrated day. It wasn’t what Danny planned for, but he may have found the limit of his family’s unconditional love.
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.
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 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.
Image by Phyllis Wong
For the second instalment of DEADHOUSE: Tales of Sydney Morgue’s second season, Actors Anonymous and Blancmange Productions bring to light a classic story of the Australian bloke. Kevin Simmonds and Leslie Newcombe were underdogs whose petty crimes and dangerous mistakes set them on the run.
Night Writes 