News

Hadestown – One Helluva Show.

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

PRETTY WOMAN: The Musical to Premiere in Brisbane

Image: Bryan Adams at Pretty Woman announcement. Photo RDW Photography

Singer-songwriter Bryan Adams, who wrote the music and lyrics for PRETTY WOMAN: The Musical, alongside Jim Vallance, was in Brisbane today (Friday 14 February) to make the official announcement that the Broadway and West End musical, based on the popular Rom-Com starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, will have its Australian premiere at QPAC in Brisbane in October 2025.

Casting Announced for The Producers at Hayes Theatre

Image: Jordan Shea, Alexandra Cashmere, Anton Berezin and Des Flanagan in The Producers (c) James Reiser

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

The Silent Stages

Unpublished

Image: Mark Cleary with Vange Tapia (founder of LatinX Hollywood)

SNAKEFACE

Jeffrey Khoo explores how Fruit Box Theatre’s production, SNAKEFACE, at Belvoir Street kickstarts a long-overdue conversation about the commodification of trauma.

Most indie playwrights would shy away from cramming live sculpting, poetry and visual projections into a queer retelling of Greek mythology. But for Aliyah Knight, their play SNAKEFACE - a sweeping story about romance, rage and revenge through the eyes of a queer Black woman in white Australia - is meant to be a rebellion against the expectations of what theatre can be.

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