The Stage Show

Isaac Bashevis Singer's Yentl was most famously adapted into a musical film by Barbra Streisand. Now a new adaptation breathes new life into the story. It's directed by Gary Abrahams, who is also at the helm of Admissions at the Melbourne Theatre Company. Also, playwright and Blak & Bright Festival Director Jane Harrison curates a session of monologues by First Nations writers and Voice and Te...

The Last Great Hunt are a collective of Western Australian theatre makers who delight in bringing the unexpected to the stage. Now a documentary, Stage Changers, offers candid insight into their process as it follows the company creating their most ambitious work. Also, we visit a hip hop dance school breaking down barriers for young people who want to dance, and we meet Carla Stickler, a performe...

In 1972, a lecturer at the University of Adelaide was attacked at a gay beat, thrown into the River Torrens and drowned. 50 years on, Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan shines a light into this appalling story and how his death changed Australia. Also, voice and dialect coach Leith McPherson shares more insights into the power of voice and we attend the rehearsal of a reimagined version of Alice's...

Bob Dylan's music feels inseparable from the man himself, so how could it be adapted for musical theatre? Playwright Conor McPherson explains how his dark and dreamy Girl from the North Country convinced Bob that he was the man for the job. Also, Dean Bryant, the director of Fun Home, shares the Best Advice he was ever given and Judith Lucy and Denise Scott are Still Here and heading out on the ro...

Zindzi Okenyo has a lot on her plate. The actor, musician and Play School host is now a theatre director. Her first plays, Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner and Orange Thrower, are bitingly honest portrayals of growing up black in predominantly white communities. Also, when Kim Crotty couldn't be with his sons, he wrote them stories instead — 47 of them. These stories are shared in a new play...

Antony Hamilton is the artistic director of Melbourne's fierce and feisty contemporary dance company, Chunky Move. His new work Yung Lung plunges audiences into a restless and menacing dance party held in the midst of a world in crisis. Also, WA musician and playwright David Milroy shares what's on his Top Shelf and we meet Jules Allen, a youth support and mental health care worker (and former Mas...

The all-singing, all-dancing wives of Henry VIII reclaim history in the global smash Six the Musical. We meet Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss who wrote the show for the Edinburgh Fringe as students and have since opened the show on Broadway and the West End. Also, we discover the close connection between William Shakespeare and two terrorists whose names you're sure to know: Guy Fawkes and Osama Bin Lad...

Nathan Maynard is one of Australia's funniest and most clear-sighted playwrights. The Palawa writer had a hit with The Season and now he's back with At What Cost? A play that explores the thorny issue of who decides who can claim Aboriginal heritage. Also, how are theatres coping with surging COVID cases? We check in with Belvoir, Opera Australia and Global Creatures (Moulin Rouge), and we hear a...

The former artistic director of The Australian Ballet, David McAllister, steals the spotlight to interview his partner, Noonuccal Nuugi playwright and director Wesley Enoch. Also, Yorta Yorta composer and singer Deborah Cheetham talks about the making of her opera Parrwang Lifts the Sky, based on the Wadawurrung story of the magpie who brought light to the land.

Tom Stoppard and William Shakespeare loom large in the canon of English drama. Two new books explore their lives, their work, their driving forces and their impact on theatre.

David Williamson is far and away Australia's most produced playwright. Now that David has retired, he looks back on his luminous career in a very candid memoir called Home Truths (HarperCollins), in which he throws open the doors to his writing room and takes us inside.

What can a 60-year-old play about drunk and sometimes spiteful American academics tell us about culture and race relations in Australia? Director Margaret Harvey shares her bold vision for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Also, we hear a performance from Black Brass, inspired by stories of resilience from Perth's African communities and we meet some of the real-life people whose generosity inspired...

Meet Thomas Kail, the Tony Award-winning director of the hit musical Hamilton, whose friendship and collaboration with Lin-Manuel Miranda stretches back twenty years. And Justin Levine, the man behind the music of the big winner at this year's Tonys: Moulin Rouge! The Musical — now on stage in Melbourne and heading to Sydney in May.

Live on stage at Melbourne's iconic La Mama Theatre, newly rebuilt following a devastating fire, we look at the history of independent Australian theatre and its impact on our culture, and we discuss the path ahead for small theatres in the wake of the pandemic.

Elaine Crombie is a powerhouse of an actor and singer on stage and screen. Her new role sees her performing with Bangarra Dance Theatre in Wudjang: Not the Past — a co-production with the Sydney Theatre Company at the Sydney Festival. Also, we're joined by Bangarra's artistic director Stephen Page and his recently announced successor Frances Rings and we visit Australian artists from Circa current...

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 about an American family coming apart at the seams? We ask the show's Oscar and Tony-winning writer, Diablo Cody. Also, we meet American playwright Will Arbery. His play Heroes of the Fourth Turning, lauded across the political spectrum, portrays cons...

When a devastating diagnosis halted Michelle Ryan's dance career, she spent ten years away from the stage, but then some giants of dance brought her back into the spotlight. She's now artistic director of Adelaide's Restless Dance Theatre, which turns 30 this year. Also, award-winning playwright Kendall Feaver confronts sexual assault on campus in Wherever She Wanders at Griffin and we take a look...

When the writer of Rent died on the day of the show's first preview, he also left behind a little-known autobiographical musical called Tick, Tick… Boom! Now Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton) and Steven Levenson (Dear Evan Hansen) have brought it to the screen. Also, voice and text coach at the Sydney Theatre Company, Leith McPherson, shares more of her insights into the power of voice and Circa's vis...

The musical Sunday in the Park with George has been the subject of speculation ever since it opened in 1984. Some say its story reflects the life and struggles of its composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim, and others celebrate how the unknown writer and director James Lapine steered Sondheim's work towards new vitality. James Lapine has now written a detailed and candid account of the show's fabled j...

A common thread runs through much of Australian theatre's boldest and most influential new work: director Paige Rattray. From humble beginnings in Tasmania, she now helps our most exciting new playwrights to realise their vision. Also, Stage Show regular Leith McPherson introduces her new role as Voice and Text Coach at the Sydney Theatre Company and dancer Raghav Handa and musician Maharshi Raval...

Dr Lara Stevens' introduces us to Hartmut Veit, whose performances with coal in Victoria's Latrobe Valley spurred timely conversations with residents whose lives and livelihoods were intertwined with climate change.

Teddy Tahu Rhodes is a stalwart of the opera and musical theatre stage, but there was a time when he thought that accountancy was his true calling. So, what brought this powerful singer out of the office and into the spotlight? Also, playwright Michèle Saint-Yves reflects on her father's dementia and her own acquired brain injury in A Clock for No Time and choreographer Sue Healey compiles eight y...

Tasmania's renowned contemporary dance company Tasdance is celebrating 40 years. The company's artistic director Adam Wheeler grew up in Launceston, but there was a time when he could not get off the island quick enough. So, what changed? Also, we visit the Queenstown shed hosting the new Tasdance work Collision at this year's The Unconformity and with the Melbourne Fringe Festival going digital f...

David Williamson is far and away Australia's most produced playwright. For the past 50 years he's been writing plays at an average of one every 10 months — not counting all the screenplays he has written. Now at the age of 79, David Williamson has retired, and he looks back on his luminous career in a very candid memoir called Home Truths (HarperCollins), in which he throws open the doors to his w...

Van Badham is a courageous and funny Australian playwright who, since searching for the humanity of trolls in Banging Denmark at the Sydney Theatre Company, has now adapted George Orwell's Animal Farm for Black Swan in Perth. Also, historian Michelle Arrow introduces us to two other left-leaning Australian playwrights who raised the ire of the political establishment, Oriel Gray and Mona Brand, an...