The Stage Show

Some theatre people constantly surprise you, and their names alone can spur you to buy a ticket. Sheridan Harbridge is one such artist. She blew audiences away in Suzie Miller's Prima Facie, and she's now a writer or director on four upcoming productions: My Brilliant Career, Life in Plastic, A Model Murder and Phar Lap: The Musical.

Also, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs pay tribute to Rodgers and Hammerstein in Showstoppers, and more than 40 years after the devastating Ash Wednesday bushfires, a community revisits the ordeal on stage in a play called Ash Wednesday. It will be read by Shane Jacobson, Pia Miranda and community members at this year's Mountain Festival.

In the 40 years since their history-making perfect score that earned them a gold medal at the 1984 Winter Olympic Games, figure skaters Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean have toured the globe presenting ice dancing spectaculars. Now, the pair plan to hang up their skates for good, following a farewell tour they are calling Torvill & Dean: Our Last Dance.

This year, one of the greatest shows on earth has been the US presidential race. The theatrics employed to shift allegiances, manipulate audiences and inspire voters call into question the line between politics and performance. The influential social and cultural thinker Richard Sennett turns his mind to these and other topics in his book, The Performer: Art, Life, Politics.

Death is not a very funny subject. Yet, comedian, writer and musician Eric Idle has spent 60 years showing us the funny side of our all-too-fleeting lives. The Monty Python member is now touring Australia with his show Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, Live! He's also written a new book about the creation of his musical, Spamalot.

Also, as we, as a society, adjust to the ways in which artificial intelligence will affect our everyday lives, playwright José Rivera brings us a clever new play called Your Name Means Dream, and Opera Australia is celebrating the essential role of the opera chorus in a show called Chorus!

Mina Morita is on a mission to inspire a new crop of Australian theatre directors and to open our stages to a wider range of audiences and artists. She's in Australia to lead a program called Staging the World, and she's directing the Australian premiere season of Yoga Play at the National Theatre of Parramatta and La Boite Theatre.

Also, theatre maker Wang Chong's acclaimed one-man show Made in China 2.0 returns to Australia. We find out what's on his Top Shelf. And we explore the origins of Bollywood dance with Professor Pallabi Chakravorty, and Ashley Lobo, a choreographer of more than 20 Bollywood films and the director of A Passage to Bollywood at the OzAsia Festival.

The very first Australian production of the smash-hit coming-of-age musical Dear Evan Hansen has just opened in Sydney. The Broadway production won six Tony Awards, including one for the show's book writer, Steven Levenson. Steven also wrote the screenplay for Tick, Tick… Boom! — a musical film inspired by the life of Jonathan Larson (Rent). 

Also, Mary Coustas is the creator of the big-haired, outspoken Greek Australian Effie who first took on the world in a stage show called Wogs Out of Work in 1987. She recently revealed a new persona on stage: her own, in her one-woman show This Is Personal. Her new show as Effie, now on tour, is called Upyourselfness.

In the 1980s a young jazz pianist named David Bates ran away with a cabaret band to the other side of the world. A chance encounter with the now-iconic Spiegeltent gave him an idea — if he bought this unloved structure it had the potential to breathe new life into cabaret and variety acts for the 21st century. Bates is the creator of the legendary La Clique, which has been thrilling audiences worldwide for over 20 years. 

Also Harley Mann, founder of Na Djinang Circus, reveals the power of the circus to shape the way we see the world in In Place, and ABC reporter Emily Bissland swaps the newsroom for the stage — as a cast member in her town's production of Mary Poppins — to find out what makes community theatre so special.

Step into a hidden vault where the secrets of professional magicians are kept under lock and key. Your guide, magician Nicholas J Johnson, reveals the mysteries of the WG Alma Conjuring Collection, exploring why we’re so captivated by illusions—even when we know it’s all a trick.

Also, we explore how Patrick White's suburban satire A Cheery Soul resonates in 2024, and what would the music of rule-breakers such as Cleopatra, Frida Kahlo and Cathy Freeman sound like?

Do you remember your last day of high school? It's a key moment for many of us, as we step out of our teenage lives and into the world of adulthood. Matthew Whittet's play Seventeen explores this transition in a unique way that has transfixed audiences around the globe.

Roz Hervey has enjoyed a 30-plus-year career as a dancer, choreographer, director and producer. So, how does she respond when life throws her a challenge which will certainly bring those adventures to a halt? In the face of a recent diagnosis of Motor Neurone Disease (MND), Roz has continue throwing all of her energies into the arts.

Also, we ask the multi-award-winning English director and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, choreographer of a new ballet inspired by Oscar Wilde, which works of art most inspire him, and we celebrate 60 years of the Australian Ballet School with the school's new director Megan Connelly and one of the school's most famous graduates, Graeme Murphy. 

Over the past 200 years, theatre has often been a lightning rod for social and political upheaval in the United States. Even the plays of William Shakespeare have been the subject of violent debate. This surprising history is examined in two recent books by James Shapiro: Shakespeare in a Divided America and The Playbook.

Also, Trent Dalton's Love Stories, based on conversations with strangers on a Brisbane street corner, comes to the stage at this year's Brisbane Festival, and we pay tribute to the Australian playwright Jack Hibberd (Dimboola; A Stretch of the Imagination) who has died at the age of 84.