Sunday Arts Magazine

Victorian Opera brings Benjamin Britten’s haunting chamber opera The Turn of the Screw to the Palais Theatre in St Kilda, with Kanen Breen performing the role of Peter Quint. Running from 29 September to 1 October, the production deepens the eerie tension of Henry James’s novella through Stuart Maunder’s direction and Roger Kirk’s atmospheric design. Audiences can expect a taut, unsettling experience shaped by Britten’s score and a cast led by Rachelle Durkin and Breen.

The post Kanen Breen – September 27th, 2026 appeared first on Sunday Arts Magazine.

Playwright Tom Holloway’s new work Eliza receives its world premiere with Melbourne Theatre Company at Southbank Theatre, The Sumner, 140 Southbank Boulevard, Southbank. Running from 28 September to 31 October 2026, this psychological thriller is inspired by real events surrounding MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum and his pioneering talk-therapy computer program ELIZA. Directed by Paige Rattray, the production follows Weizenbaum as he tests a program that simulates therapy using details from his secretary Becky’s private life, blurring the lines between code and human connection. As interest in the breakthrough intensifies, Eliza probes the ethical consequences of outsourcing our humanity to artificial intelligence, offering an urgent and unnerving depiction of the birth of AI.

Eliza

The post Tom Holloway – September 20th, 2026 appeared first on Sunday Arts Magazine.

Director and concept creator Penny Baron, with assistant director Carolyn Hanna, premiere Prime Time, an intergenerational work by Born in a Taxi at The Substation, 1 Market Street, Newport. Running from 14 to 17 October 2026 as part of Melbourne Fringe, Prime Time brings a cast of 14 performers aged between 4 and 93 into the spotlight to challenge assumptions about age and ageing. Combining theatre, dance, live and recorded text, sound composition and visual design, the work interrogates age, power, visibility and value, drawing on extensive community interviews and workshops across the western suburbs to forge new dialogues across generations.

The post Penny Baron and Carolyn Hanna – September 20th, 2026 appeared first on Sunday Arts Magazine.

Singer and pianist Jason Dean steps into the spotlight with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for The Music of Elton – 40 Years of MSO x Elton John. Across four Australian-exclusive concerts at Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne, 100 St Kilda Road, Southbank, from Thursday 1 October to Sunday 4 October 2026, Jason leads Superband and the MSO through some of Elton John’s most memorable songs. Under the musical direction of Chong Lim AM, this tribute revisits the historic 1986 collaboration between Elton John and the MSO, blending orchestral richness with rock energy in a celebration of a defining moment in Australian music history.

The post Jason Dean – September 20th, 2026 appeared first on Sunday Arts Magazine.

Award-winning director and designer Steven Mitchell Wright brings a visceral new staging of Lord of the Flies to Theatre Works in St Kilda. Adapted for the stage by Nigel Williams from William Golding’s classic novel, this highly physical production runs at Theatre Works, 14 Acland Street, from 18 September to 2 October 2026. Sound designer Jack Burmeister shapes a sonic world that amplifies the story’s descent from youthful optimism into fear, rivalry and power struggles, making this a gripping contemporary encounter with a timeless text.

https://www.theatreworks.org.au/2026/lord-of-the-flieshttps://melbournetheatrecalendar.com.au/event/lord-of-the-flies-2/2026-09-24/

The post Steven Mitchell Wright and Jack Burmeister – September 20th, 2026 appeared first on Sunday Arts Magazine.

Playwright Angus Cameron and director Iain Sinclair join the show to discuss LUKE, a world premiere developed through Red Stitch’s INK program at Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre on Chapel Street, St Kilda East. With previews from 12 to 17 September and the main season running 18 September to 11 October 2026, LUKE is described as “a dark, winding examination of truth and regret.” Set across decades, the play begins on a night in 2007 when Chris, fresh out of high school, drinks, argues and philosophises with his older teacher friends Damon and Olena, until a buried secret surfaces and rewrites their lives. Angus and Iain talk about crafting a proudly queer Australian story, the intimate scale of Red Stitch’s space, and how the production’s form‑bending structure invites audiences into a provocative, unflinching look at memory, responsibility and the stories we tell ourselves.

The post Angus Cameron and Iain Sinclair – September 13th, 2026 appeared first on Sunday Arts Magazine.

Visual artist Robert Lee Davis appears ahead of the opening of Between the lands of now and then at Latrobe Regional Gallery in Morwell. The exhibition, running from 19 September to 29 November 2026, presents an imaginative Myriorama – a myriad of pictures and artworks rooted in storytelling, reflection and community‑driven anecdotes. Through mixed‑media collage and found objects gathered across Victoria, Gippsland and his own history, Davis explores how the lands we inhabit retain memory and bear witness to what we have achieved, removed and inhabited. In conversation, he reflects on “material memory,” and how upcycled materials can reframe our understanding of everyday objects as extensions of the landscapes that hold us.

Robert Lee Davis: Between the lands of now and then

The post Robert Lee Davis – September 13th, 2026 appeared first on Sunday Arts Magazine.

At La Mama Courthouse, EXHIBIT brings a shape‑shifting theatre event to the 2026 Melbourne Fringe Festival, and creators/performers Emma J Hawkins and Leisa Prowd join Sunday Arts Mag to unpack its beautifully strange world. Running from 30 September to 4 October 2026, EXHIBIT is billed as “a shape‑shifting theatre event – a collection of absurdities. Humans on display. Strange. Funny.” Presented by La Mama and Melbourne Fringe, the work sits between performance and installation, turning humans into the display and implicating the audience in the act of looking. Emma and Leisa, often mistaken for one another, lean into being seen and mis‑seen, using physical theatre, dance and comedy to question who decides what is normal, what gets looked at and what is hidden.

The post Emma J Hawkins and Leisa Prowd – September 13th, 2026 appeared first on Sunday Arts Magazine.

Second‑year NICA students Elise Poulton and Jaran Latona‑Phasuk step out from the rehearsal room to talk about Behind the Veil, the 2026 ensemble show at the National Circus Centre in Prahran. Running from 15 to 19 September at NICA’s theatre on 39-59 Green Street, Behind the Veil plunges audiences into a world where perfection is manufactured, productivity is worshipped and individuality is treated as a defect. Under director Kate Fryer, the ensemble uses Chinese pole, swinging trapeze, flying silks, Cyr wheel, handstands, contortion and acrobatics to collide breathtaking physical feats with dark satire. Elise and Jaran share how the show interrogates hierarchy, trust and conformity, and what it means to reclaim choice and freedom inside a meticulously engineered circus world.

The post Elise Poulton and Jaran Latona‑Phasuk – September 13th, 2026 appeared first on Sunday Arts Magazine.

Senior Curator, Department of Contemporary Design and Architecture at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) Ewan McEoin joins the program to discuss the NGV’s world‑premiere exhibition Plant Life: The Nature of Design.

The post Ewan McEoin – September 13th, 2026 appeared first on Sunday Arts Magazine.