Presented by Ryan Maxwell. Conducted by Long Guohong and guest conductor Luke Spicer Guest Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre, 31 Sturt St Southbank. 9 July 2025.
This performance is a striking fusion of western and Chinese musical traditions. Colorful Guizhou Troupe is a cultural and performing Arts industry group that promotes and cultivates Chinese cultural practices globally. On this occasion the Guizhou Chinese Orchestra has been combined with The Australia Orchestra (an emerging ensemble based in Sydney). This results in a highly dramatic and epic concert performance of traditional and contemporary Chinese music.
By Christopher Samuel Carroll. Bare Witness Theatre Co. fortyfivedownstairs. 8 – 13 July 2025
Christopher Samuel Carrol’s play is set in 1977, but it is just as much – if not more so – about now. As we pay close attention as Carroll’s tight, articulate, verbally dextrous dialogue, we may feel an increasingly chilling dismay. Smokescreen is about survival in business, about clever manipulation, blatant lying and a compliant, blinkered public.
By Nathan Calvert, Eliza Smith, William Gammel and Clea Purkis. Directed by Nathan Calvert. Kaos Room, The Blue Room Theatre, Perth Cultural Centre, WA. Jul 1-5, 2025
Love Stories was a warm, intimate devised production presented by The Blue Room Theatre and stop drop and roll in the cosy confines of The Blue Room’s Kaos Room.
Love Stories is a series of interconnected vignettes that explore the thousands of parallel sensory worlds that exist beyond our capability of hearing, and examines what we can learn by listening to and entering the various sensory worlds around us.
By Barry Wyner. Hyde Entertainment and Civic Theatre Newcastle. Civic Theatre Playhouse, July 4 – 12, 2025.
One of the greatest love stories of all time is Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac – a complex look at amour versus enchantment, identity, and vanity. It tells the story of Cyrano, a tragically disfigured yet brilliant wordsmith, and his love for Roxanne. Cyrano, feeling unworthy of love, helps another seduce her. Upon being caught, Roxanne and Cyrano share one tender moment together… before everyone dies – because it’s French and we can’t have nice things.
Book by Joe Tracz, music and lyrics by Rob Rokicki, based on the novel by Rick Riordan. Director: Sam Luxford. Musical Director: Marianne Powles. Choreographers: Erin Hobden and Hannah Kelly. Gosford Musical Society (GMS). July 8 – 12, 2025
The Lightning Thief - The Percy Jackson Musical is a rock-infused stage adaptation of Rick Riordan’s bestselling novel The Lightning Thief, the first book in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. The musical brings Greek mythology crashing into the modern world with humour, heart, and heroic adventure, tailored for both fans of the books and newcomers (like me).
By Nathan Joe. Produced by The Reaction Theory. Co-directed and produced by Chelsea August and Egan Sun-Bin. Cremorne Theatre, QPAC. 3rd to 12th of July 2025
Image: Daphne Chen stands centre stage. Photo by Nathaniel Knight.
By Suzie Miller. Black Swan Theatre Company production presented by Carriageworks, Sydney. Directed by Kate Champion. 2 – 12 July, 2025
At first sight, or as a lawyer might say ‘prima facie’, Sydney’s Carriageworks theatre is too big for a one-person play. Constructed in 2007 from the giant Eveleigh Railway Workshops, the theatre is vast, seating over 600, and you’re asking for trouble if you want to put on a play that features just the one woman. But that’s exactly what Carriageworks have done, inviting Western Australia’s Black Swan Theatre to bring their one-woman production of Prima Facie here. And it works.
By Martin McDonagh. Free-Rain Theatre. Directed by Cate Clelland. A.C.T. Hub, 25 June – 2 July 2025.
With its central relationship a mix of “Steptoe & Son” and Baby Jane, Martin McDonagh’s 1996 play pits 70-year-old hypochondriac Irish widow Mag against the daughter who has looked after her for the past 20 years, Maureen, as Maureen finally finds love in her lonely existence.
Music and Lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin. Book by Heather Hach. Based on the novel by Amanda Brown and movie. MustseeShows. Ascham Packer Theatre, Edgecliff, NSW. July 2-6, 2025
There hasn’t been an active community theatre company in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs for a decade and based on the number of talented female dancers on stage, it’s been long overdue.
Only founded this year, the company chose an apt musical for a theatre inside a private girl’s school - the very well-equipped Ascham Packer Theatre.
Adapted by Isaac Drandic and John Harvey Based on the book by Thomas Mayo. Directed by Isaac Drandic. Presented by Queensland Theatre. Bille Brown Theatre, 28 June – 19 July 2025
There’s a particular kind of silence that falls over an audience when something true is being spoken on stage. Queensland Theatre’s Dear Son is full of those moments. In this world premiere adaptation of Thomas Mayo’s celebrated book of letters, co-adaptors Isaac Drandic and John Harvey have not only preserved the emotional potency of the source material, but elevated it, crafting a visually rich, sonically stirring, and emotionally generous piece of theatre that sings with both ancestral reverence and contemporary urgency.
