News

RISING 2025

Image: LEGENDS (of the Golden Arches), J Wyld

RISING, Melbourne’s winter festival of new art, music and performance, has unveiled its 2025 program featuring; 65 events, 327artists, 15 new commissions, 9 world premieres, 5 Australian and 10 Victorian, returning to showcase the city over two epic weekends from Wednesday 4th to Sunday 15th June.

Nominees Announced for the 2025 Green Room Awards

Image: The Cast of Candide. Photographer: Charlie Kinross

The Green Room Awards Association has announced the nominees for the 42nd Annual Green Room Awards.  

The most nominated productions this year include GROUNDHOG DAY (11 nominations), CANDIDE (9 nominations), 37 (8 nominations), MY BRILLIANT CAREER (8 nominations) and COUNTING & CRACKING (7 nominations).

Matilda Awards 2024: A Theatrical Triumph of Diversity and Creativity

Image: Host Sean Choolburra

Kitty Goodall Reports

Full Cast of Beetlejuice The Musical Summoned

Dust off your Ouija boards and polish your gravestones Melbourne, because Michael Cassel Group, Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures, and Langley Park Productions have just summoned the full line-up for the Australian premiere of Beetlejuice The Musical, hitting Melbourne’s Regent Theatre this May.

Hadestown – One Helluva Show.

Image: Abigail Adriano, Christine Anu and Noah Mullins in Hadestown. Photographer: Lisa Tomasetti

Seymour Centre Celebrates 50 Years With 2025 Season

Image: Cowbois, photo by Pollyanna Nowicki

Sydney’s Seymour Centre’s 50th year begins with the launch of the annual Seymour Season, a set of five events including three international plays and two locally produced works, presented in partnership with independent Australian theatre companies.

Musicals in 2025

Image: Michael Paynter and Ensemble in Jesus Christ Superstar. Photographer: Jeff Busby

A swag of hit Broadway and West End musicals never before seen in Australia will wend their way around the country in 2025, alongside some old favourites to tap the nostalgia buttons.

The post Covid era, along with high interest rates, combined to encourage conservative choices by musical theatre producers. The year ahead is the most innovative in a long time.

 

Karis Oka To Play Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice The Musical

Michael Cassel Group, Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures, and Langley Park Productions have announced that the role of Lydia Deetz, the peculiar and quick-witted teenager with a penchant for the afterlife, in BEETLEJUICE will be played by Karis Oka

Pick of the Plays 2025

In 2025 The Bard is back, along with some blockbuster Australian plays, world premieres, classics updated and Indigenous works. David Spicer picks some of the highlights. 

 

All the world’s a stage for Shakespeare in Australia in the year ahead.

 

Cats Returns To Its Original Australian Home After 40 Years

UPDATE: Producer John Frost for Crossroads Live has announced that following the previously annouced season at Theatre Royal Sydney from 17 June, CATS would also be playing at Her Majesty’s Theatre Adelaide from September and at Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne from December. Waitlist now to be first in line to buy tickets in Adelaide and Melbourne at www.catsthemusical.com.au

Subscribe to our E-Newsletter, buy our latest print edition or find a Performing Arts book at Book Nook.