Reviews

& Juliet

Music and Lyrics: Max Martin & Friends. Book: David West Read. PACA Productions. Directors Rodrigo Medina Noël & William Pulley. Riverside Theatre Parramatta. 3 – 19 Oct, 2025

PACA’s announcement within months of the closing of the professional production of &Juliet that it had obtained the amateur rights caused a ripple of delight among performers young and old. A musical with popular songs, a story that re-writes the ending of the “star-crossed lovers” with a feminist twist and includes characters like William Shakespeare and his wife Anne Hathaway – no wonder there was some excitement!

& Juliet

Music and lyrics by Max Martin and friends, book by David West Read. Presented by Northern Light Theatre Company. Shedley Theatre, Elizabeth SA. 3-18 October 2025

What if Juliet chose not to kill herself, deciding instead to live life in her own way? This is the premise of this jukebox musical that turns the original story of Romeo and Juliet on its head.

Back to the Future: The Musical

Book by Bob Gale. Music and lyrics by Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard. Produced in Australia by John Frost for Crossroads Live Australia and Colin Ingram for Colin Ingram Ltd. Sydney Lyric Theatre. Opening Night: October 2, 2025

When the DeLorean revved up at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre, audiences were in for an electrifying ride. Back to the Future: The Musical, adapted from the beloved 1985 film, takes viewers on a nostalgic journey intertwined with innovative theatrical elements. This production stands out thanks to its electrifying performances, catchy songs, and mind-blowing special effects.

Blue

By Claire Yorston. Presented by Sun and Wine Arts Company. PIP Theatre Studio, Brisbane. 26 September to 4 October 2025

Joni Mitchell explored an intense breakup and new relationship through the colour ‘blue’, and Bob Dylan certainly paid some dues getting tangled up in ‘blue’, but Brisbane-based writer/director/lighting designer, Claire Yorston, uses her interpretation of ‘blue’ to tinge a rom-com scenario with a whole shade of anxious doubt.

Instructions

Written & directed by Nathan Ellis. SUBJECT OBJECT. Produced in Australia for SUBJECT OBJECT by Harry Dowling. Melbourne Fringe Festival, Common Rooms, Trades Hall. 30 September – 12 October 2025

Each night of this show’s run, a different performer arrives on stage alone.  On my night, we got Tomas (my computer won’t supply the appropriate accents on his name) Kantor.  He was brilliant.  I say ‘was’ because he’s not doing this again.

The performer/actor, in this case Tomas, knows only that they will be called upon (‘instructed’) to perform a script they’ve never seen - the text of which is on a teleprompter. 

I Met an Angel Named Jacques

By Gideon D Wilonja. Jewel Box Performances & Footscray Community Arts. Footscray Community Performance Space. 1 – 4 October 2025

I Met an Angel Named Jacques is a passionate play, filled with strong, naked emotions at high pitch and with traumatic, destructive secrets.  The playwright himself uses the term ‘operatic’ in his statement, and we can see what he means.

The Ship

Melbourne Fringe. Do Theatre. The Meat Market – Stables 2. Sep 30 – Oct 4, 2025

Imprisonment, isolation and a cruise ship are the ideas behind the new dance performance and theatre production by Do Theatre. Formed in 2021, they have since travelled around Australia winning audiences and accolades for their enthralling theatrical shows.

Their new show The Ship is based on a thriller novella titled The Royal Game written in 1941 by Stefan Zweig, set during the occupation of Austria by Nazi Germany. This spine-chilling reinterpretation is set in 1943 aboard an ocean liner sailing from Shanghai to the Southern Hemisphere.

A Chorus Line

Conceived by Michael Bennett. Music by Marvin Hamlisch, Lyrics by Edward Kleban. Book by James Kirkwood Jr and Nicholas Dante. Produced by Free-Rain Theatre Company. Directed and choreographed by Michelle Heine. The Q: Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. 30 September – 19 October 2025

Chosen to celebrate the 50th anniversary of this classic first hitting Broadway, Free-Rain’s latest production A Chorus Line is bursting with enthusiasm and aching with pathos. Though it’s not by any measure perfect, it’s wonderful to see these young people’s love of performance. More importantly, they capture all the ambition, snark, disappointment, resilience, pragmatism and compromises of the characters.

Something New: Rehearsed Readings

Tracks by Alex MacDonald & Todd MacDonald, and Pretty F***ing Autistic by Oliver Hetherington-Page. Diane Cilento Studio, Queensland Theatre, Undercover Artist Festival, Brisbane Festival. 27 September 2025

This sold-out event for Undercover Artist Festival showcased the complexities of the creative process while offering insights into the lived neurodiverse experience.

Not Without Right: Shakespeare's Secrets

By Colin Cox. Will & Company. Melbourne Fringe. Bard’s Apothecary. Sep 30 to Oct 18, 2025

William Shakespeare, the English playwright, poet and actor, was born in Stratford-upon-Avon. The son of a glove maker shunned his hereditary rights. Despite his lack of formal education and much to his parents’ dismay, he pursued his thespian dreams and moved to London to tread the boards and pen his musings into one hundred and forty sonnets and thirty-seven plays. He died at the age of fifty-two. One month prior he made a will, claiming he was in ‘im perfect health & memorie, god be prayed’.

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