Sister Act to Julia to Gilgamesh: Your mid-year guide to Sydney shows

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ydney stages are bursting with live shows. Opera, plays, musicals, dance, ballet, cabaret. There are epics, toe-tappers, classics and fresh imaginings of every size and flavour. It’s still challenging times in theatre, whether making it or paying for a ticket, and fingers remain crossed for Darlinghurst Theatre’s return.

But, new stages have risen, notably Qtopia’s three new Darlinghurst venues, and exciting redevelopments at Griffin Theatre’s SBW Stables venue and Riverside Theatres in Parramatta bode well. Barangaroo metro station’s August opening (more fingers crossed) means Walsh Bay’s arts precinct of nine performing arts companies offers accessibility for arts lovers across the city.

Give your screen-frazzled mind a break and go see a show. Yes, it’s icy outside. Yes, parking’s a nightmare. Yes, it means putting on proper shoes and brushing your hair.

OPERA

If you fanged out on Dracula, the blood-sucking, wig-soaked final production in director Kip Williams’s Sydney Theatre Company Gothic trilogy of The Picture of Dorian Gray in 2020, and 2022’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, then rest easy. Williams is back, collaborating with Opera Australia for Gilgamesh (Carriageworks, Sept 26–Oct 5), a new epic opera about a lustful and tyrannical king whose love for a half-man, half-beast, and quest for immortality give him enlightenment. Equally self-aware but with more corsets and earnest lovers disguised as Albanians, David McVicar’s acclaimed production of Cosi fan tutte (Sydney Opera House, August 1–17) guarantees seduction, high farce and tested fidelity. For something completely different, there’s Brett Dean’s Hamlet (Sydney Opera House, Jul 20–Aug 9), directed by Neil Armfield, soprano Sarah Brightman as delusional silent film star Norma Desmond in her former husband Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard (Sydney Opera House, from August 28), and Benjamin Britten’s haunting The Turn of the Screw (Hayes Theatre, August 16-Sept 16). You can still catch Opera Australia’s Tosca (Sydney Opera House, until Aug 16), Puccini’s psychological thriller, described as “not-to-be-missed” in a four-and-a-half star review by SMH reviewer Chantal Nguyen.

MUSICAL THEATRE

Sydney is as drenched with musical theatre productions as it is with new transport options we can’t wait to not understand. Tony and Oscar award-winning composer Alan Menken’s theatrical adaptation of Sister Act (Capitol Theatre, from Aug 7) is a few weeks off, but who can resist Casey Donovan as wise-cracking lounge-singer Deloris Van Cartier (played by Whoopi Goldberg in the 1992 movie) forced to hide out in a convent led by Genevieve Lemon as Mother Superior and Rhonda Burchmore as Sister Mary Lazarus? Go full wimple for the gags, gospel music and feel-good rosary twirling. Chicago (Capitol Theatre, until July 28), a hotbed of jazz and vaudevillian murderesses razzle-dazzles, most particularly with Anthony Warlow, whose Billy Flynn “oozes debonair charm like a man who’s had great sex for breakfast”, in the words of SMH reviewer John Shand. Little Women (Hayes Theatre, until Aug 11) continues the magic of choreographer and director Amy Campbell, known for her fabulous ways with Smashed – The Night Cap, A Chorus Line and Once. Campbell has also choreographed In the Heights (Sydney Opera House, until Aug 25), Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip hop, salsa and Latin rhythm-driven debut musical. With Ryan Gonzalez (Moulin Rouge! The Musical) as Usnavi and Victoria Falconer as music director, this show is a sure bet. Get ready for Well-behaved Women (Belvoir St Theatre, Sep 28–Nov 3), a powerful song cycle directed by Blazey Best, imagining songs of figures such as Virginia Woolf, Frida Kahlo, Billie Jean King, Cleopatra, Mary Magdalene, Cathy Freeman and more, with a cast including Ursula Yovich, Elenoa Rokobaro, Stefanie Caccamo and a de-fanged Zahra Newman. And that’s before Anna O’Byrne and Marina Prior lead a concert presentation of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1945 classic musical Carousel (State Theatre, Sept 3–4), the Olivier Award-winning revival of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar (Capitol Theatre, Nov 6–Dec 29) and Dear Evan Hansen (Oct 12-Nov 24, Roslyn Packer Theatre), directed by Dean Bryant, whose La Boheme for Opera Australia can be seen at Riverside Theatres on August 24.

MAIN STAGE THEATRE

Home on the couch is no match for the truly chilling jump-in-your-seat frights of the horror story The Woman in Black (Theatre Royal, July 30-Aug 17), starring John Waters and Daniel McPherson in an adaption of Susan Hill’s novel. Lovers of author Mark Haddon can see the hit adaption of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Belvoir St Theatre, Aug 17– Sept 22), directed by Belvoir resident director Hannah Goodwin. Psychological mind games abound in Gaslight (Roslyn Packer Theatre), starring Geraldine Hakewill (Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries), Toby Schmitz (Boy Swallows Universe) and the legendary Kate Fitzpatrick; the glorious Julia (Sept 5–Oct 12, Drama Theatre, SOH) returns with Justine Clarke’s acclaimed rendering of Julia Gillard via Joanna Murray-Smith’s words; closely followed by another do-not-miss season of gifted actor and writer Merlynn Tong’s coming-of-age drama Golden Blood (Sept 13–Oct 13, Wharf 1 Theatre). A guaranteed must-see is the National Theatre of Parramatta’s production of Karim (Riverside Theatres, July 25–Aug 4) by three-time NSW Premier’s Literary Award-nominated playwright James Elazzi, writer of Sydney Festival hits Lady Tabouli and Queen Fatima. There’s still time to see S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack’s magnificent, award-winning Belvoir production Counting and Cracking (Carriageworks, until July 21), Bell Shakespeare’s King Lear (The Neilson Nutshell, until July 20) and STC’s productions of Dracula (Roslyn Packer Theatre, until Aug 4) and Cost of Living (until Aug 18, Wharf 1 Theatre).

BALLET & DANCE

Bangarra’s luminous collaborative dance work Horizon has moved on to Brisbane and Melbourne, and the Australian Ballet is immersed in creating the much-anticipated Oscar (Nov 8-23, Sydney Opera House), a newly commissioned work based on the life and words of Oscar Wilde, choreographed by dance master Christopher Wheeldon and featuring music by Wonka film composer Joby Talbot.

But dance fans can still get their fill at INDance (Neilson Studio, Aug 15-24) Sydney Dance Company’s yearly program of curated independent contemporary dance, before Twofold (Sep 18-28), a double-bill featuring SDC’s artistic director Rafael Bonachela’s beloved Impermanence and choreographer Melanie Lane reimagined folk dance, Love Lock.

CABARET & CIRCUS

Sydney circus and cabaret needs more venues, but there are shows flying the nightclub song and acrobatics flag. Feather-tipped, Weimar-punk cabaret performer Bernie Dieter’s Club Kabarett (Entertainment Quarter, until July 28) is a gender-bending circus-burlesque heating up the Spiegeltent. And there’s Limbo – the Return (The Grand Electric, until August 18) delivering fire-breathing, trapeze-swinging, rope-balancing circus feats on vast-heeled shiny boots. Pioneering Australian circus show La Clique (Oct 10–Nov 17, Sydney Opera House) celebrates its 20th birthday with legendary theatre performer Ursula Martinez (will she perform her famous disappearing handkerchief act?) and straps artist Tuedon Ariri paying homage to water-sliding Bath Boy. Circa’s Carnival of the Animals (Carriageworks, Oct 1–5), inspired by Camille Saint-Saëns’s classical musical suite, fuses zebras, kangaroos, birds, elephants, snakes and more with fearless flips, flight, circus and acrobatics. For all ages, too. Less-kid friendly, Broad Encounters’ When Night Comes, the company’s third immersive, multidisciplinary and saucily subterranean theatre experience, is coming to Sydney, but when is a secret. There’s a waitlist while it seduces the wits out of Melbourne.

INDIE THEATRE

Five weeks after it was placed into voluntary administration, theatre fans and the theatre industry remain hopeful for the future of Darlinghurst Theatre. The Hayes Theatre’s pumping program continues (see opera and musical theatre above), as does the Old Fitz Theatre where Gary Owen radically transports Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard to early ’80s Thatcher-ruled Wales (Aug 9–24), Sydney playwright Michael Louis Kennedy’s feel-good All the Fraudulent Horse Girls, a hit at the Melbourne Fringe Festival, whinnies heartfelt and surreal equine obsessions (Old Fitz Theatre, Aug 30-Sept 14), and writer-director duo Madelaine Nunn and Lucy Clements ready to unleash a searing portrait of adolescence in Sitting, Screaming. There’s more Chekhov-tweaking, this time at Ensemble Theatre, with Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith’s fresh revamp of Uncle Vanya (July 26–Aug 31) followed by The Queen’s Nanny (Sept 6–12), a new blackly funny play from Melanie Tait, star writer of stage and TV work The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race.

Anyone in withdrawal after Olivier Award-winning Australian playwright Suzie Miller’s RBG: Of Many, One, and Prima Facie can catch Sunset Strip, a family tale set in a small outback town (New Theatre, until August 3) and, as it readies for its new Rozelle theatre home, Sydney’s oldest community theatre, Genesian Theatre, farewells its historic Sydney CBD venue with Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Nile (Aug 10–Sept 21). And don’t miss Matthew Whittet’s age-swapping play Seventeen, (Seymour Centre, Sep 27– Oct 19) featuring Di Smith, Colin Moody, Katrina Foster and more.

Experimental art and performance in Sydney seem squashed, perhaps by conservative times, socially and fiscally. Pact Theatre had a packed year, particularly with the boundary-pushing Bacchants in July, and lovers of the unexpected and laboratorial work of Performance Space’s Liveworks Festival (Carriageworks, October) can celebrate its 10th anniversary with a huge program of artists and fresh work.

And! Sydney Fringe Festival (Sept 1– 30), the fostering ground of so many independent artists, is back with 450 shows in 70-plus venues, with new acts, ideas, writing, choreography, performance and theatrical design. And race, or freestyle, to see Griffin’s Swim (Carriageworks, until July 27), Mununjali poet Ellen van Neerven’s debut play, conjured while they did daily laps at the local pool.

AND ANOTHER THING …

The Substation, Qtopia’s newest venue at Taylor Square, is a gem of a performance space. Part exhibition space, part underground arts venue, its evolution from an electrical substation to a subterranean stage for comedy, cabaret, poetry, storytelling and drag will foster new work from the LGBTQ+ and beyond.

It joins Qtopia’s other venues, the Bandstand and the Loading Dock Theatre, all to be filled with Sydney Fringe Festival acts during September, and establishing the festival’s first Queer Hub. You can still catch Siren Theatre’s production of playwright Noëlle Janaczewska’s The Past is a Wild Party (Loading Dock Theatre, until July 27) directed by Kate Gaul, followed by Occasional Combustible Disaster (Loading Dock Theatre, Jul 31–Aug 10), developed with Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta.