Seasons 2024
Theatre companies around Australia are now announcing their 2024 seasons. Read on for brief season introductions, and links to our more detailed coverage of each indiividual season.
Sydney Theatre Company
Image: Hugo Weaving and Olwen Fouéré in The President. Photographer: Rich Gilligan ©
The Sydney Theatre Company's 15-production strong season (pictured at top), which includes 11 works written or adapted by Australian playwrights, will also feature the Australian premiere of Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen, co-produced with Michael Cassel Group; the return to the STC stage for Hugo Weaving in a first-time collaboration with Dublin’s Gate Theatre for Thomas Bernhard’s The President; premieres of new Australian works from Van Badham and previous Patrick White Fellows Angus Cerini and Anchuli Felicia King; as well as encore seasons and national tour dates for RBG: Of Many, One by Suzie Miller and Joanna Murray-Smith’s Julia. STC Artistic Director Kip Williams will direct a new cine-theatre production, an adaptation of the Bram Stoker’s Dracula, starring solo performer Zahra Newman.
Malthouse Theatre
From the stage premiere of an award-winning Australian memoir about growing up the child of Black migrants in white middle-class Australia, to a world premiere new work from Back to Back Theatre; from Shakespeare’s Scottish Play reimagined from Lady Macbeth’s perspective to a technically challenging sci-fi adventure; from a new work from the bold and candid Nicola Gunn, to the return season of a much-lauded stage adaptation of a Nobel Prize laureate’s work; from an exploration of secret queer identity within the confines of a 1990s Pentecostal Church, to closing the year with a holiday experience that truly sleighs, Malthouse has announced a season of eight productions in 2024.
The Hate Race. Image by Tiffany Garvie
Melbourne Theatre Company
Melbourne Theatre Company's Season 2024, the second under Artistic Director & Co-CEO Anne-Louise Sarks artistic leadership, features 12 productions that offer works and performances reflecting the Company’s vision of presenting stories that inspire conversations about who we are, how far we’ve come and where we’re going.
Melbourne Theatre Company’s Season 2024 builds on the successes of 2023, offering audiences classic dramas, in-demand international plays, new Australian writing and everything in between.
Ensemble Theatre
Ensemble Theatre has announced its ten-play 2024 season, featuring comedy, dramas, musical influences and re-imagined classics.
Ensemble Artistic Director, Mark Kilmurry says, “In 2024, we’re thrilled to present ten exceptional plays and one very special event. Fresh out the box we have four world premieres from Ensemble heavyweights: David Williamson couldn’t resist picking up his pen again to give us The Great Divide, Melanie Tait unpacks one of the first modern day royal scandals in The Queen’s Nanny, the pressures of politics rip apart a friendship in Sam O’Sullivan’s McGuffin Park and Joanna Murray-Smith brings a fresh perspective to Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. I hope to see you at the theatre in 2024 for another year of inspiring stories.”
Belvoir Street Theatre
2024 at Belvoir will see ten plays with something for everyone – from best-selling book adaptations, return seasons, a 25A show being brought to the mainstage for the first time, a remount of Counting and Cracking, and more.
“Our season this year is about honing in on what’s best about theatre - feats of artistic brilliance, a widening view of the world, the play of seriousness and joyful discovery, its unique ability to connect people... The shows take us all over the world - ten plays with stories from 18 different countries,” says Eamon Flack, Artistic Director.
Image: Tiddas at Belvoir Street
Griffin Theatre Company
The Lewis Trilogy - Cosi
Griffin Theatre Company has unveiled its 2024 Season — including the monumental production of Louis Nowra’s The Lewis Trilogy, marking the final production to be staged at the SBW Stables Theatre before it undergoes major redevelopment works.
Spanning across five decades in changing Australia, Griffin’s sentimental production of The Lewis Trilogy chronicles the arc of Lewis’ life as he ages from a teenaged boy to a young man to a local veteran of Kings Cross. As the sun sets on Lewis’ journey, audiences will leave the cosy historic home of Griffin for the last time—seeing Kings Cross in a different light.
The remainder of the 2024 season includes an exclusive season of the delicate performance poem swim presented at Carriageworks, a Queer pop spectacular in collaboration with Hayes Theatre Co, and two special return seasons.
Image: Swim
State Theatre Company South Australia
Candide (pictured Hans, Caroline O'Connor, Annie Aitken, Alex Lewis, Mitchell Butel)
A line-up comprising new Australian works, a big Broadway hit and a world premiere book adaptation will form State Theatre Company South Australia’s 2024 season.
Announced on Thursday October 12 at Adelaide Convention Centre by State Theatre Company South Australia’s Artistic Director Mitchell Butel, the season promises to “inspire, delight and challenge audiences”.
“We have a stunning lineup of new South Australian and Australian plays and musicals, beloved classics borne anew and the best of contemporary international theatre, all of which will be brought to life by a sea of new and familiar faces,” State Theatre Company South Australia’s Artistic Director Mitchell Butel says.
The Puzzle (Pictured Erik Thomson, Ahunim Abebe, Chris Asimos)
Red Stitch
The ensemble-led Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre in Melbourne has revealed its 2024 season, featuring six plays including four Australian premieres and two returning productions back by popular demand.
Emily Sheehan’s Monument by the 2022 Max Afford Playwrights Award Finalist Emily Sheehan, returns for a limited season. The Australian Premiere of A Case For The Existence Of God by Samuel D. Hunter follows in April. June will bring the Australian premiere season Joe White’s play, Blackout Songs. July and September will host plays from Welsh playwright Gary Owen. First up, a funny and modern love story loosely inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Romeo and Julie will premiere, followed by a return season of the sell-out production Iphigenia In Splott. A fourth Australian premiere, Your Name Means Dream by Oscar nominee and Obie-winning Jose Rivera (The Motorcycle Diaries) will take the stage in October.
Click here to read more about the Red Stitch season
Queensland Theatre
Image: Gaslight.
Queensland Theatre’s 2024 features seven plays taking centre stage, including the world premiere of Round The Twist The Musical. The season opens with Patrick Hamilton’s Gaslight, the 1938 thriller adapted by Johnna Wright and Patty Jamieson. The World Premiere of Nathan Maynard’s 37 follows in April. May will see Medea, the Greek tragedy with a modern twist, by Kate Mulvany and Anne-Louise Sarks. Pulitzer Prize winning drama Cost of Living by Martyna Majok hits the Bille Brown Theatre stage in June, in an Australian premiere. The Australian premiere, Selina Fillinger’s POTUS, Or Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying To Keep Him Alive follows in July. The world premiere of Dear Brother by Lenny Donahue and Tibian Wyles, presented with BlakDance and in association with Brisbane Festival follows in September.
Theatre Works
Image: The Volition Project. Photographer: Morgan Roberts
Theatre Works in Melbourne has announced its 2024 season, an extensive line-up featuring over 40 productions, a testament to Theatre Works' commitment to championing independent artists, diverse perspectives and unique forms.
Highlights include Andrew Bovell's Things I Know to be True, Ariette Taylor’s This Room Holds Her Memory, La Belle Epoque by Future D Fidel, Jodi Gallagher's fresh take on Ibsen's Ghosts and Francis Greenslade’s Platypus.
Theatre Works' 2024 celebrates partnerships independent companies and artists, including Frenzy Theatre Co, The Danger Ensemble, Rawcus, Lab Kelpie, Rodrigo Calderón and Lyric Opera to name a few.
Cick to read more about Theatre Works 2024 season
Hayes Theatre Co
The Hayes Theatre Company, under the artistic direction of Richard Carroll and Victoria Falconer, is celebrating its 10th Birthday in 2024, with its first full year subscription season since 2019.
The season encompasses Zombie! The Musical, the new show from Laura Murphy (The Lovers, The Dismissal); the Australian premiere of the subversive, hilarious and surprisingly moving Ride The Cyclone; and a co-production with Griffin, Flat Earthers: The Musical, featuring the queer electro-pop stylings of theatre-comedy provocateurs Lou Wall, Jean Tong and James Gales.
These Hayes productions will be complemented by several other musicals presented by independent producers - The Hello Girls (Heartstring Productions), Tell Me On a Sunday (Michelle Guthrie), Little Women (Joshua Robson Productions) and Irving Berlin's Holiday Inn, along with Neglected Musicals seasons of Promises, Promises and They're Playing Our Song.
Click here to read more about the Hayes Theatre Co season.
Click here to read more about The Hello Girls
Opera Australia Sydney Summer Season
Image: Stacey Alleaume, Ben Mingay and Kate Gaul - The Magic Flute. Photographer: Rhiannon Hopley.
Opera Australia’s 2024 Sydney Summer Season, with guest Creative Director Lindy Hume, will feature five Sydney Opera House premieres.
Kate Gaul will make her directorial debut with OA, bringing together Stacey Alleaume and Ben Mingay in an eclectic new production of The Magic Flute; award-winning Australian soprano Samantha Clarke will reprise her role of Violetta in Sarah Giles’ production of La Traviata, a co-production between Opera Queensland, State Opera of South Australia and West Australian Opera, which comes to Sydney following successful seasons in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth in 2022; OA has joined forces with Circa to present Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice, a co-production with Opera Queensland, as part of Sydney Festival 2024; in partnership with Victorian Opera, Idomeneo, will be directed by Lindy Hume, with the celebrated Canadian-German tenor Michael Schade in the title role, and featuring projections by award-winning video designer David Bergman, which draw on landscape imagery captured by Tasmanian filmmakers Rummin Productions; and OA will present baroque specialists Pinchgut Opera in their debut at the Joan Sutherland Theatre performing Handel’s Theodora in Concert.
Also announced by Opera Australia for 2024
West Side Story returns to Sydney Harbour in 2024 - Read more
Epic Arena Production of Tosca for Melbourne in 2024 - Read more
Image: Orpheus.
Opera Australia Sydney Winter Season
Image: Opera Australia Artistic Director Jo Davies and CEO Fiona Allan. Photographer: Daniel Boud
Opera Australia’s new Artistic Director Jo Davies has announced her initial 2024 Season.
Highlights of Ms Davies’ 2024 Sydney Winter Season include Australian composer Brett Dean’s internationally acclaimed Hamlet starring British tenor Allan Clayton, Neil Armfield’s production of Watershed, and Sydney Theatre Company’s Artistic Director Kip Williams’ new production of Gilgamesh, along with new productions of Tosca and Il Trittico.
In Victoria the company will extend its footprint, staging performances at venues across Melbourne, including Tosca at Margaret Court Arena, Eucalyptus at the Palais Theatre and Breaking the Waves at Hamer Hall, as well as performing The Magic Flute and Chorus! in the recently refurbished Geelong Arts Centre.
Victorian Opera
Image: Stuart Maunder AM.
Victorian Opera has launched its 2024 season, set to traverse maestros, masterpieces, gothic horror, First Nations creation myths and an Australian literary classic reimagined, under the new leadership of incoming Artistic Director Stuart Maunder AM.
It features Candide, Parrwang Lifts the Sky, English Eccentrics, Puccini's La Rondine, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Eucalyptus.
Image: Sweeney Todd. Photographer: Daniel Boud
Opera Queensland
Opera Queensland Artistic Director Patrick Nolan has announced a 2024 season featuring three major productions in Brisbane that pitch classics alongside new works.
Jessica Pratt headlines Brisbane Bel Canto, a new festival that focuses on the art of singing, Circa join forces with Opera Queensland for Dido and Aeneas, and Straight from the Strait, a brand new musical by artists from the Torres Strait Islands, will be launched at the Brisbane Festival.
Photographer: Paul Blackmore
Bell Shakespeare 2024 Season
Image: Robert Menzies as King Lear. Photo by Pierre Toussaint
Bell Shakespeare has announced its 2024 Season. For the first time in over a decade, the company presents a new production of King Lear, staging the epic work in an intimate setting. A Midsummer Night’s Dream will tour to over 23 venues throughout the country that it didn’t reach in 2021 after disruptions due to COVID lockdowns and border closures. Rounding out the Season, Artistic Director Peter Evans explores Shakespeare’s depictions of violence with In A Nutshell: The Poetry of Violence.
Image: A Midsummer Night's Dream
Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta 2024 Season
Image: Things Hidden Since The Foundation Of The World. Chris Payne
Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta (NTofP) has announced a program of premiere work for 2024, promising a “commitment to presenting inspiring work that uplifts fresh voices is at the heart of the 2024 season, with NTofP taking great pleasure in curating a vibrant lineup of exclusively culturally diverse artists, celebrating their rich contributions to Sydney’s arts scene through new Australian works, alongside acclaimed international productions.”
2024 kicks off with the Australian premiere of Things Hidden Since The Foundation Of The World, co-written by Javaad Alipoor and Chris Thorpe. The season continues with the world premiere of James Elazzi’s Karim in July. September sees a return season of Rajiv Joseph’s Guards at the Taj, before embarking on a national tour. Then in October comes the Australian premiere of Yoga Play by Dipika Guha.
Seymour Centre 2024 Season
Image: Trophy Boys
The Seymour Centre’s 2024 season features five productions presented in partnership with some of Sydney’s most ambitious independent theatre companies: the Australian premiere of A Case for the Existence of God by Samuel D. Hunter,; new Australian play by Soft Tread, Trophy Boys; Enda Walsh’s new dystopian drama Arlington; the first major Sydney revival of Seventeen by Matthew Whittet, and Matthew Lopez’s epic play, The Inheritance.
Queensland Ballet
Image: Queensland Ballet 2024. Coco Chanel - Yanela Piñera. Photographer: David Kelly
Queensland Ballet has unveiled its 2024 Season, the last season curated by outgoing Artistic Director Li Cunxin. In a fusion of new and loved works told through traditional classical and contemporary repertoire, Queensland Ballet will explore dreamscapes, realism, and fairytales – some with an unexpected twist.
The season features Coco Chanel: the Life of a Fashion Icon, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Coppélia, My First Ballet for young audiences – this year’s offering being Cinderella, Bespoke, returning for a seventh season of new works, the Queensland Ballet Academy Gala, The Nutcracker, Queensland Ballet on Tour includes a Brisbane season Queensland Ballet at Home, featuring Three Preludes,Tchaikovsky Mash, Le Corsaire Pas De Deux and A Rhapsody in Motion.
Queensland Ballet also presents Derek Deane’s The Lady of the Camellias performed by Shanghai Ballet, in a season exclusive to Brisbane.
Image: Queensland Ballet on Tour 2024. Rhapsody in Motion - Laura Tosar and Patricio Reve. Photographer: David Kelly.