Reviews

WAAPA’s Final Year Acting Students, with WAAPA Production and Design Students, presented this classic play, in a vibrant and innovative production, adapted, directed and designed by Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod, artistic directors of UK Theatre Company Cheek by Jowl. Playing at the State Theatre Centre, opposite WAAPA’s home from 2026, this production was a standing production, with the audience standing and moving around a central structure, and actors moving throughout the space. The audience become the Theban citizens, and actors speak to them directly.

What a perfect and uplifting way to start my Brisbane Festival adventure this week. Community Choir: The Musical is a homegrown musical by Brisbane choir leader, Emma Dean, and her community singing group Cheep Trill. The performance started with a beautiful Acknowledgement of Country song by Michelle Roberts. Simply stunning – and setting the scene for the fun show with an important message to follow. That is, this choir comes together to banish society’s negativity (and Donald Trump!) and find a space where people can be themselves and find their community.

Australia’s own King of the Keys, Liam Cooper, made a triumphant Melbourne debut on September 5, 2025, at The Palms at Crown, Melbourne. Cooper delivered a high-octane, heartfelt, and often hilarious musical celebration of history’s greatest male piano-playing performers.

Daniel Keene has penned an extraordinarily poignant story. He employs poetic and evocative language that also sounds naturalistic and authentic. Noni Hazlehurst portrays Rose Grey, a woman who seems to be occupying a spectral and somewhat liminal space, which was once a thriving pub, called The Lark. Here she reminisces on the time she and her father spent in this workplace which was also her home and an inviting venue for the local community to simply come together.