AustLit

'A moving tale of self-discovery for all the family

'“Cicada tell story. Story good. Story simple. Story even human can understand. Tok! Tok! Tok!”

'Cicada spends his days dutifully working away in a grey office. Overlooked by his superiors and overworked by his colleagues, he is getting very close to the end of his tether. But one day, looking out over the city from the rooftop of his office building, Cicada has an epiphany.

'Winner of the Children’s Book Council Award for Best Picture Book in 2019, this new adaptation brings master-storyteller Shaun Tan’s much-loved CICADA to life in a stunning puppet show, presented by Sydney Theatre Company and created by one of Australia’s premier children’s theatre companies – Barking Gecko Theatre.

'A small story of epic proportions, Cicada is an allegory of difference, resilience and the light we all have inside ourselves. Children and adults will love this enchanting tale about finding one’s place in the world.' (Production summary)

'The remarkable Catherine Văn-Davies (Constellations) stars in this electrifying one-performer show that delves deep into the mess of corporate America and lays bare the brutal truth of what it means to ‘climb the ladder’.

'In the high-powered and super competitive offices of a top-tier management consultancy firm, our unnamed protagonist is struggling to stand out. Unlike many of her colleagues, she doesn’t descend from money, nor does she find the long hours and crushing workload a breeze, like the others seem to. She also happens to be running from a dark past. When an opportunity to prove her mettle and escape the office arrives, in the form of a distractingly handsome (and married) senior partner, she jumps at the chance.

'In American Signs, playwright Anchuli Felicia King (The Poison of Polygamy) delivers a scorching and contemporary work that will have you simultaneously moved and hanging from the edge of your seat. Darkly comic, raw and daring, American Signs is an impeccably written portrait of a complex character and an opportunity to see some of this country’s most exciting young theatre-makers at the top of their game.' (Production summary)

'The full force of nature

'From the monumental playwriting talents of 2020 Patrick White Playwrights Fellow Angus Cerini (The Bleeding Tree, Wonnangatta) comes this epic and poetic story of love, loss and renewal.

'Stage and screen legends Colin Friels and Kerry Armstrong play Ray and Floss, a farming couple who have lived off the land their entire adult lives. Through boom times and bust, they’ve been each other’s support and constant companion. But at the tail end of a once-in-a-generation drought, both are on the precipice of earth-shattering change and transformation.

'Into the Shimmering World will beguile audiences with its gothic and dreamlike take on the Australian landscape, its lush and musical language, and its powerful exploration of the depths of our national psyche.

'STC Director of New Work and Artistic Development Paige Rattray (Do not go gentle...) will premiere this new Australian masterpiece in the glorious expanse of an extended Wharf 1 Theatre, in a production that is set to be a rich evocation of the mysteries of the natural world and a lyrical look at humanity’s changing relationship to it.

'What awaits Ray and Floss when the drought finally breaks?' (Production summary)

'From the deliciously wicked pen of Van Badham, who most recently had you in stitches with Banging Denmark, comes an uproarious night out at the theatre that brilliantly lampoons our contemporary obsession with wealth and status, whilst leaving enough time for a selfie session by the pool!

'Featuring the comedic talents of Melissa Kahraman (Hubris & Humiliation), Contessa Treffone (On the Beach) and Megan Wilding (The Importance of Being Earnest), A Fool in Love is an adaptation of Spanish Golden Age playwright Lope de Vega’s classic comedy La dama boba, refreshed and ingeniously infused with a dose of twenty-first century oomph.

'In the well-heeled seaside town of Illescas, the beautiful Octavio sisters – the smart and social climbing Vanessa (Kahraman) and the lovable and, perhaps, not-so-smart Phynayah (Treffone) – are desperate to save their family from financial ruin. In order to inherit her eccentric uncle’s fortune, Phynayah must get engaged before she turns 30. The catch? These days, suitors don’t just want beauty, they expect brains as well.

'Equal parts delightful rom-com and razor-sharp spoof, this production will retain all the joy and revelry of a seventeenth century farce at the same time as putting contemporary gender and class politics under the microscope. Bold, bawdy and gut-bustingly funny, A Fool in Love is social satire at its very cheekiest.'(Production summary)

'In a country house beside a lake, love triangles, intrigue and thwarted egos run amok. The glamorous, ageing thespian Irina Arkadina has arrived for a romantic getaway with her much younger lover, the novelist Boris. Irina’s son Constantine, a struggling playwright, is besotted with a beautiful ingénue from the next house over, Nina. But when a flirtation blossoms between Nina and Boris, jealousy, ambition and a lack of phone signal throw the whole party into various states of crisis.

'Director Imara Savage last beguiled STC audiences with her revelatory production Saint Joan in 2018. In The Seagull, Savage and a thrilling cast featuring Arka Das, Michael Denkha, Harry Greenwood, Markus Hamilton, Mabel Li, Sean O’Shea, Toby Schmitz, Megan Wilding and Brigid Zengeni, will take Upton’s wry and offbeat sense of humour to new heights in this ambitious investigation of the power of art and the complicated personalities that make it happen.'

Source: STC.

'It’s 1886 and the very first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is being compiled. Four-year-old Esme Nicoll has a front row seat. Well, she’s hiding under the sorting table, anyway. As her father and his male colleagues decide which words stay and which go, Esme collects the discarded (often gendered) scraps to compile her own far more radical, far more magical dictionary.

'A sweeping historical tale in the spirit of The Harp in the South, The Dictionary of Lost Words follows Esme from her childhood in the 1880s, into adulthood at the height of the women’s suffrage movement and the beginning of the First World War.'

Source: Sydney Theatre Company.

'A small group of friends in Melbourne – some local, some survivors from the US Navy – are living out their eerily prosaic lives and loves in the wake of World War III. But when a mysterious distress call rings out across the Pacific Ocean, the characters are called to choose between duty to the ones they love and duty to the human race.'

Source: Sydney Theatre Company.

'Love, betrayal and cross-continental adventure

'Set sail with this epic gold rush drama that sprawls across Qing Dynasty China, to Victoria’s nineteenth century goldfields, and the laneways of Melbourne’s Chinatown. One of Australia’s most exciting, versatile, and provocative playwrights, Anchuli Felicia King returns to STC to uncover this historical story of love, sex, adventure, and two worlds colliding.

'Originally published in 1910, The Poison of Polygamy was Australia’s first ever novel by a Chinese Australian author, Wong Shee Ping. It tells the story of Sleep-sick – an opportunistic young man from Guangdong who has his sights set on amassing a fortune in Australia’s goldfields. He leaves behind his faithful but long-suffering wife Ma (Merlynn Tong) and sets out across the sea to try his luck.

'Along the way, he charms and cheats an eccentric cast of characters until he meets his match: the seductive and cunning Tsiu Hei (Kimie Tsukakoshi). Will Sleep-sick keep his promise to Ma? Or are the temptations of wealth, beautiful women and opium too much to bear?

'Take a look into a slice of Australian history that is rarely seen on stage. Also featuring Ray Chong Nee, The Poison of Polygamy is a frontier story, a morality tale for the ages, and a rollicking, horse-drawn escapade.'

Source: Sydney Theatre Company.

'Not now, not ever

'Jane Austen, eat your heart out

'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a down-on-her-luck mother (who has just lost her home to a shady online suitor) must send her only son to Sydney to find and marry a wealthy man.

'Jane Austen’s drawing rooms and country estates are switched out for the dizzying dancefloors and leafy avenues of post-plebiscite Sydney in Lewis Treston’s outrageously funny Hubris & Humiliation. This laugh-out-loud comedy is a kaleidoscopic pastiche of Jane Austen’s writing and an outrageous satire of life and love in the Emerald City’s pumping gay scene. 

'Elliott, a naive wallflower from the Sunshine State, spends all his time pining for his best friend until he’s unexpectedly packed up and shipped off to his fabulously wealthy uncle’s Kirribilli mansion to pick up a few dating tips, and bag the man of his (mother’s) dreams. A series of increasingly ludicrous and high-stakes events take Elliott and his stowaway sister Paige from the rainbow mile, all the way to Berlin, and back again in a high-camp exploration of love, family and commitment.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A classic mystery, a dazzling transformation

'The award-winning creative team behind the sold-out smash hit The Picture of Dorian Gray returns with another vivid adaptation of a Gothic classic, transformed for the stage through engrossing live video. Written and directed by STC Artistic Director Kip Williams, this spellbinding adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s mystery for the ages is set to be an unmissable production on the cutting edge of theatrical and cinematic design.

'Penned by one of the English language’s greatest writers, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde follows London lawyer Gabriel Utterson as he attempts to unravel the mysteries surrounding his friend Dr Henry Jekyll and the shadowy new presence in his life: Mr Edward Hyde. One of the most gripping and intricate tales ever told, this chilling detective story has captivated artists and audiences alike for generations.

'Two virtuosic actors – Matthew Backer (Cloud Nine, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Chimerica) and Ewen Leslie (Julius Caesar, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The War of the Roses) – will perform all the roles in the thrilling chronicle of the doomed and divided Jekyll, the rapacious Hyde, and the transfixed Utterson, caught in between, in a dazzling production that will blur the lines between good and bad, the self and the other, the public and the private, and the artist and the audience.' (Production summary)

'An epic of love and freedom

'When Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was published in 1848, it became an instant sensation. The stirring and groundbreaking story of Helen Graham and her mysterious arrival in the town of Lindenhope – a young son in tow, no husband in sight and a painful secret in her past – so shocked and galvanised English society with its frank depiction of an abusive relationship that Brontë’s equally famous sister (Jane Eyre’s Charlotte Brontë) sought to prevent its republication.

'Playwright Emme Hoy last shared her spectacular gift for shining new light on classic texts with the original monologues she penned for STC’s 2018 production of Saint Joan. Now, almost two centuries after The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’s scandalous publication, Hoy mines this pioneering classic to produce an entrancing, ingenious, and passionate period drama for the twenty-first Century.

'Taking inspiration from sources as diverse as Fleabag and Pride and Prejudice and starring Tuuli Narkle (Black is the New White tour) and Remy Hii (The Golden Age, Crazy Rich Asians, Netflix's Marco Polo), The Tenant of Wildfell Hall will be directed by STC’s Resident Director Jessica Arthur (Grand Horizons, Wonnangatta) in a whip-smart production that will bring this lush, beautifully-told, and, at times, dark story into the present to share with a brand new generation.' (Production summary)

'What happens when a Chinese-Australian manicurist switches bodies with a white, latte sipping, TV executive? A chaotic and outrageous comedy awaits!

'From the hilarious and politically-charged wit of Michelle Law – one of our most exciting playwrights and the creator of Belvoir’s Single Asian Female and SBS’s Homecoming Queens – comes this irreverently funny new comedy that pulls no punches in exploring race, representation, privilege, and taking woke culture to task.

'Dreaming of one day owning her own salon, the headstrong and determined Winnie (played by Kimie Tsukakoshi) spends her days buffing the manicures of her demanding, oblivious and mostly-white clientele. One such client is Kate (Amber McMahon), a glamorous high-flyer who is very assured of her progressive credentials.

'When a mysterious electrical event at the nail salon means Kate and Winnie wake up in each other’s bodies, all hell breaks loose  and both women are forced to see the world, and their places in it, from entirely new angles.

'Directed by STC’s Directing Associate Courtney Stewart, Top Coat gives the issues of our time a much-needed makeover and mounts a hilarious satire of Australia’s media landscape.' (Production summary)

'This is the story of one woman who changed the face of the American legal system.

'Spanning her life from teenage years to her death in 2020, RBG: Of Many, One brings Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s fascinating life vividly to the stage. The second woman to be appointed to the US Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was both a trailblazer in the American legal system and a fierce advocate for gender equality and reproductive rights. RBG: Of Many, One chronicles her wins and dissents; the steps forward, the steps back. It reveals a woman of intellect, courage, determination and feeling; the personal behind the political.

'Award-winning Australian playwright and lawyer, Suzie Miller, continues her interrogation of complex human stories and injustice with this vibrant theatrical portrait of one of the iconic leaders of our time.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Bullying behaviour, tantrums and tough lessons are all part of a typical day at public-school St Jude’s – and that’s just in the staffroom!

'Creatures of habit, the tired teachers of St Jude’s find themselves jolted awake by the arrival of a young and enthusiastic new teacher, Anna Park, a recent graduate known as “the child whisperer”.

'Pat Novitsky, the school’s brilliant but bitter and longest-serving teacher, thinks Anna’s Masters of Neuroplasticity and new-age thinking has nothing on her 35 years of experience. Anna thinks Pat is stuck in the past. When the principal assigns school terror Hurricane Little to Anna’s class, the two teachers come head-to-head in a brutal smackdown of old versus new guard, exposing everyone’s darkest secrets.'

Source: State Theatre Company of South Australia.

'Newly deposed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam descends the steps of Parliament House to rage against his dismissal by Governor-General Sir John Kerr, who has replaced him with the opposition leader, Malcolm Fraser. A scoop of reporters throng toward him - chief among them Gold Logie-winner, beloved larrikin, and Wollongong’s favourite son: Norman Gunston.

'Half a century later, Norman returns to deliver a rollicking, razor-sharp musical account of Australia’s epic constitutional crisis. “The best Australian musical of the century” (Audrey Journal) will have you revelling through this all-singing, all-dancing, all-mud-slinging retelling of the monumental events that brought our country to its knees.

'In the spirit of Keating!, SIX, and The Wharf Revue comes “Australia’s answer to Hamilton” (Sydney Morning Herald) - a toe-tapping journey through time, a wry commentary on Australian history, and a confronting portrait of our national character.

'With unimpeachable wit, electrifying music, and a big heart, this ambitious World Premiere doubles as both reckoning for the nation’s soul and a sensational night out, stirring audiences across generations and political persuasions.'

Source: Production blurb.

'Abigail (Catherine Văn-Davies), a teenager dealing with her parents’ messy separation, follows the mysterious young girl Beatie Bow (Sofia Nolan) back through time – from the hustle and bustle of Sydney’s The Rocks in the present day to the year 1873, when the suburb was full of struggling immigrant families, gangsters and a whole host of larger-than-life characters. With the help of Beatie, her wise grandmother, and the whole Bow family, Abigail goes on a wild adventure through twisting alleyways of history in a race to find her way home.

'This moving human story is set in and around the real-life suburb that STC calls home and will overflow with history, song and sparkling humour. Grandparents, parents and teenagers will all find something to love in this family story – a combination of Mulvany’s characteristic warmth and vivacity and Williams’ monumental vision.' (Production summary)

'Wonnangatta Station, 1918. Two men arrive at a dark and empty farmhouse looking for the manager, their friend Jim Barclay. No one’s heard from him for more than a month. Something’s amiss. Then a grim discovery sets the men off on a journey across the harsh Australian terrain, looking for answers, maybe for revenge.'

Source: Sydney Theatre Company.