Reviews

Last May graduating students of Sydney’s Actors Centre presented this 1985 Sam Shepard play under the direction of their drama teacher John Walraven. Now they are reviving their production in the space available before the New Theatre’s 2026 season begins next month. Don’t come expecting the New’s all-round standards of role-playing: these are former students at the start of their careers. Come instead for a touch of Shepard quality, for the bruised power of neglected American families living in a world of shared torment.

It’s timely to welcome back Little Shop of Horrors, a cult classic whose black comedy and symbolic bite feel increasingly resonant in an era of social unease. Beneath the doo-wop harmonies and carnivorous plant puppetry lies a story steeped in moral compromise, unchecked ambition, and the seductive pull of power, ideas that land sharply in a world questioning capitalism, geopolitics, social structure and the like with renewed urgency.

The opening of 2026 saw Opera Australia reach back into its vaults to revive the delightful 1997 Moffatt Oxenbould production of Puccini’s classic.

Already this decade the company has staged a modern Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour production (2023) with contemporary suits and jeans.

A year earlier, when AV was all the rage, Graeme Murphy directed a sci-fi looking production with giant screens, futuristic avant guard costumes set on a giant glass circle and acrobats descending off ropes.

Step into a world of opulence, romance and intrigue as Anastasia, the hit Broadway musical, opens at Melbourne’s magnificent Regent Theatre. From the moment you enter this grand venue, it feels as though you’ve been transported into the very heart of the story — the perfect setting for a production overflowing with history, breathtaking spectacle and a little mystery!