On the Sunday sliver of space between the end of Brisbane Festival and the Tony Awards celebration of Broadway being back, Queensland Theatre’s Artistic Director Lee Lewis launched its 2022 season with promise of continued celebration of the resilience of the arts and cultural sector, and the power of great stories told by talented artists….
A Midnight Visit is an award-winning immersive live theatre show that, having previously been unleashed in Sydney, Perth and Melbourne, has recently resurrected in Brisbane. Inspired by the life and works of Edgar Allen Poe, the magnificently macabre multi-room experience, invites its guests to explore a dark dream world of gothic thrills, obsession, decadence and…
For the uninitiated, The Good Room’s productions can be difficult to define. The celebrated, independent company founded by Daniel Evans and Amy Ingram creates unique theatre experiences, often from community, crowd-sourced content. Continuing on from its previous Brisbane Festival successes, Let’s be Friends Furever follows a familiar format to pull together a celebration and commemoration…
Dead Puppet Society is an Australian theatre company highly regarded for its creation of puppet-based visual theatre works of spectacle and wonder. Its shows have always been inventive. Its latest production is Ishmael. The puppetry comes courtesy of dozens of models and dioramas, which are projected in rotation on a massive scale through a live…
For those unfamiliar with John Steinbeck’s classic 1937 novella Of Mice and Men, a strumming pre-show soundtrack accompanying the rustic bunkhouse staging (Bill Haycock, designer) plants Ad Astra audiences firmly in its Depression-era California setting. Lighting also warms us to the tender take at the heart of the story as we meet is main characters,…
It’s taken the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble until its 20th birthday year to finally mount a full production of arguably Shakespeare’s best-known play – Romeo & Juliet – and the outcome is most definitely worth the wait. Some would say that it’s hard to put a new twist on the oft-performed play, however the window dressing…
“Welcome Julius Caesar” we see posted on a side-of-stage whiteboard before La Boite’s world premiere contemporary reimagining of Shakespeare’s political thriller Julius Caesar fills the space. As the show starts, notices are added, a rack of costumes wheeled in and hand props put in their place. Soon, the actors being arriving for their first rehearsal. Chenoa…
With book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and choreography by Jerome Robbins, West Side Story is one of the most celebrated musicals of all time. Opera Australia and GWB Entertainment’s production of the classic is vibrant and textured, balancing the contrasts in its story of gangs and love. The plot, which…
Opening night performances often end with a standing ovation, sometimes as a slowly staggered act of obligation. In the case of the conclusion of Suzie Miller’s brilliant Prima Facie, however, Queensland Theatre audience members are immediately on their feet in an acclaim of thunderous applause that lasts through three curtain calls. It is an especially…
Australian actress, director and former head of the Queensland Theatre Company and the Sydney Theatre Company, Robyn Nevin, AO, is the type of figure who deserves applause upon her every stage entrance. That is what deservedly happens at the start of Christopher Hampton’s powerful play A German Life. Nevin plays Brunhilde Pomsel and shares the…
