The Stage Show

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 opera for 1000 singers performed over a one-mile stretch and in The Little Match Girl Passion he substitutes the suffering of Jesus with the suffering of the young girl dying in the cold in Hans Christian Andersen's famous fairy tale. Also, choreographer...

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, television and novels ever since. But her path has not always been easy and her story is laid bare in her one-woman show Is There Something Wrong with That Lady? Also, we hear a scene from the new play at Queensland Theatre, Don't Ask What the Bird Lo...

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 the Melbourne Theatre Company production of Caryl Churchill's play Escaped Alone, Helen reflects on her five decades in Australian theatre. Also, we hear a scene from Cactus, an acclaimed new Australian play about two teenage girls facing challenges tha...

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 who discovers late in life that he is entirely expendable. A new production in Australia has enticed Anthony LaPaglia back to the stage for the first time in over a decade. Also, the 1913 murder of a 13-year-old girl in the American South and the anti-Se...

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 unpack the politics and theatrical risk-taking of Caryl Churchill, we're joined by experts, creatives and performers immersed in her work. Also, the sumptuous American musical Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 was a sensation in New York, where...

Ash Flanders made his reputation with wildly funny, often surreal queer theatre made under the name Sisters Grimm with his creative partner Declan Greene. Now, Ash has put the glitter and wigs aside and written a new, naturalistic play called This Is Living. Also, multidisciplinary artist and "radical mischief-maker" Candy Bowers shares the works of art that have most inspired her journey on Top S...

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-Australian pageants in which young women compete to be the one who most embodies Chinese values. But who decides what those values are? Also, we meet the organisers of Club Broadway, a pop-up party that features nothing but show tunes, and we discuss 'mad sc...

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 saw an audition flyer for a play based on the poetry of Oodgeroo Noonuccal. She has since graced some of Australia's biggest stages. Also, we meet Noongar elder Richard Walley, who has made enormous contributions to Australian performing arts, from direc...

The English writer Michael Frayn has produced a staggering amount of journalism, novels, philosophy, non-fiction and plays. The Tony and Olivier Award-winning writer of Benefactors, Noises Off and Copenhagen celebrates his 90th birthday this year. Also, in the regional Victorian town of Camperdown, a local theatre company has endured for 75 years. We drop by the town's historic Theatre Royal to at...

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 never shake free of the shadow of her famous father, Richard Rodgers. She tells her life story in Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers, co-written by Jesse Green. Also, after four years on stage, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will s...

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 ways its spiritual home is Western Australia where Andrew grew up. It was the place he was drawn back to when writing the script. Also, playwright Joanna Murray-Smith shares the works of art that have most inspired her creative journey on Top Shelf a...

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 event that brings us into that process. Eddie joins us with Gillian Cosgriff whose new musical The Fig Tree will have a work-in-progress showing at the festival. Also, in Patricia Cornelius's play Do Not Go Gentle, now on at the Sydney Theatre Company, we...

Jacky is the Melbourne Theatre Company debut of Arrente writer Declan Furber Gillick, a razor-sharp new voice in Australian playwriting. It tells the story of Jacky, an enterprising Aboriginal man forced to confront the true cost of his labour. Also, the Adelaide Festival Centre turns 50 this year. In 1973, it was Australia's first multi-purpose arts centre and a symbol of the city and the country...

David Finnigan outraged the right-wing commentariat with his breakthrough play, Kill Climate Deniers. Now he's back with another play that confronts audiences with the urgent challenge of climate change: Scenes from the Climate Era. But why does climate action remain a niche topic on our mainstages? Also, The Lucky Country is a new Australian musical at the Hayes Theatre which digs into the rich a...

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 Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. It features Tina's hits with a book written by the Pulitzer and Olivier Award-winner Katori Hall — a renowned chronicler of the black experience in the American South. Also, The Darlinghurst Theatre Company's sell-out prod...

The Poison of Polygamy is an action-packed Australian novel that was serialised in 1909 in a Chinese-language newspaper — the heroes and villains are all Chinese migrants making a new start in Australia. So how does this novel challenge or enrich our sense of our own colonial past? Also, Opera Australia are bringing Philip Glass's Satyagraha to the stage for the first time in the company's history...

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-woman show at the Sydney Theatre Company. Now, Heather has written a very tender memoir called Everything and Nothing. Also, we hear the opening scene of Pony, a frank and funny play about the wild ride of pregnancy and childbirth, and we mark the passi...

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 Frank Woodley join us to reflect on 30 years of their famous partnership. Also, Tina Arena is one of our most successful musical exports. Last year she flexed new creative muscles as the artistic director of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, and in 2023 she...

Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage is renowned for her incisive, moving and witty plays about the intersections of race and class in America. Her Tony-nominated Clyde's was the most-produced play in the United States last year and its Australian premiere is now coming to the Ensemble Theatre.  Also, Driftwood the Musical tells a true Australian story of a family's escape from Nazi-occupied Europe,...

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 world. She's taken her universally acclaimed satire One Woman Show to the West End, it's now on at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, and her next stop is New York. Also, Berlin art rocker siblings Otto and Astrid from Die Roten Punkte go solo together in ...

The Australian Ballet have brought their iconic production of Don Quixote, choreographed by and originally starring Rudolf Nureyev, back to the stage. Nureyev's production became a film in 1973 which has inspired new designs by one of our most venerable stage designers, Richard Roberts. Also, Richard Wagner's epic four-opera Ring Cycle comes to regional Australia for the very first time and includ...

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 Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) will host NEWRETRO — a massive durational performance installation. Also, we examine the well-established trend of choreographers presenting contemporary dance in galleries and museums and ask: How does our relationship...

Great performers, writers and directors emerge from the smallest of theatres — venues where new talent is nurtured and writers and performers are free to learn the ropes and take risks. Liz Jones AO has been making that kind of theatre happen at La Mama for over 50 years. Now she is passing the torch. Also, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Tony Award-winning masterpiece Into the Woods returns t...

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 been lost to history. To mark its anniversary, Bell Shakespeare is presenting three plays from the First Folio in their 2023 season, starting with a new production of Macbeth directed by the company's artistic director, Peter Evans.  For further insight...

After several years of delays, the Ballett Zürich production of Giuseppe Verdi's Messa da Requiem will feature at this year's Adelaide Festival. Brought to life by 36 dancers and over 170 singers performing with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, we meet the show's award-winning choreographer Christian Spuck. Also, the oldest theatre on mainland Australia hosts a thoroughly modern makeover of Hansel...