The American playwright Suzan-Lori Parks started writing plays on the advice of a very famous mentor: the celebrated writer and civil rights activist, James Baldwin. Suzan-Lori won a Pulitzer Prize for her 2001 play Topdog/Underdog, a revival of which also won a Tony Award. It's now on stage in Australia for the first time.

Also, Marina Prior and Michael Cormick, two superstars of Australian musical theatre, hit the highway with their Centrestage tour, and while many artists are sounding alarm bells about artificial intelligence, choreographer Alisdair Macindoe is embracing it. In Plagiary, Macindoe hands the role of choreographer to an algorithm.

Noni Hazlehurst is one of Australia's best-loved and most enduring performers. Loved by generations of children as a presenter on Play School, she leaves the world of teddy bears and storybooks far behind in the brutal play, Mother.

Almost ten years after originating the role of Christie in Daniel Keene's one-person play, Noni is reprising her award-winning performance at Arts Centre Melbourne.

Our series began with comedy and it ends with tragedy. In this episode, we interpret the bitter ends met by some of Shakespeare's most famous characters and ask why tragedies still exercise such force over our imaginations.

Wherefore, Shakespeare? is a series that explores the dilemmas, conflicts, and controversies in Shakespeare's major plays.

In our sixth and final episode, we're joined by Professor David McInnis who teaches Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama at the University of Melbourne, Professor Jane Montgomery Griffiths, an acclaimed actor and the head of the School of Performing Arts at Collarts, and Peter Evans, artistic director of Bell Shakespeare.

The work of William Shakespeare has helped to define — and problematise — notions of English identity. It has also had an impact on the English language itself.

Wherefore, Shakespeare? is a series that explores the dilemmas, conflicts, and controversies in Shakespeare's major plays.

In our fifth episode, we look at the intersections of Shakespeare and nationalism. We're joined by Professor Jane Montgomery Griffiths, an acclaimed actor and the head of the School of Performing Arts at Collarts, Professor David McInnis who teaches Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama at the University of Melbourne, and Peter Evans, artistic director of Bell Shakespeare.

While some critics believe that plays like Othello and The Merchant of Venice are inherently racist, others argue that they simply portray, perhaps even criticise, the racist attitudes of the time.

Wherefore, Shakespeare? is a series that explores the dilemmas, conflicts, and controversies in Shakespeare's major plays.

In our fourth instalment, we interrogate Shakespeare's portrayal of race. We also explore the surprising racial dimensions of one of Shakespeare's final plays: The Tempest. We're joined by Wesley Enoch, a Quandamooka man and an award-winning playwright and theatre director, Professor David McInnis who teaches Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama the University of Melbourne, and Professor Jane Montgomery Griffiths, an acclaimed actor and the head of the School of Performing Arts at Collarts.

William Shakespeare's plays feature witchcraft, murder, ghosts and bloody revenge. Are his displays of blood and gore simply meant to entertain us or do they have more to say about the human condition?

Wherefore, Shakespeare? is a series that explores the dilemmas, conflicts, and controversies in Shakespeare's major plays.

In our third instalment, we enter Shakespeare's house of horror. We're joined by Professor David McInnis, who teaches Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama at the University of Melbourne, Professor Jane Montgomery Griffiths, an acclaimed actor and the head of the School of Performing Arts at Collarts, and Peter Evans, artistic director of Bell Shakespeare.

What does it mean to defy the conventions and test the boundaries of gender? These are questions posed by some of Shakespeare's most famous characters.

Wherefore, Shakespeare? is a series that explores the dilemmas, conflicts, and controversies in Shakespeare's major plays.

In our second instalment, we place gender in the spotlight. We're joined by Professor Jane Montgomery Griffiths, an acclaimed actor and the head of the School of Performing Arts at Collarts, Professor David McInnis, who teaches Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama at the University of Melbourne, and Peter Evans, artistic director of Bell Shakespeare.

Wherefore, Shakespeare? is a new series that explores the dilemmas, conflicts, and controversies in Shakespeare's major plays. In our first instalment, we tackle Shakespeare's comedies. Are they funny? And if they are, how is our sense of humour different from what tickled the fancies of the Elizabethan audience?

We're joined by Peter Evans, artistic director of Bell Shakespeare, Professor Jane Montgomery Griffiths, an acclaimed actor and the head of the School of Performing Arts at Collarts, and Professor David McInnes who teaches Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama at the University of Melbourne.  

Nicci Wilks is a sharp and very physical actor and circus performer who has collaborated with major figures in Australian theatre, including Patricia Cornelius, Angus Cerini and Susie Dee. Her new show traces the life of a rodeo clown. The surprisingly heart-wrenching one-person show, called Rodeo Clown, is at this year's Darwin Festival.

Also, having lost the support of their host university, the National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA) announces a new partnership with Collarts, Nadine Garner reads from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice with two superstar classical musicians, and we meet a couple with no dance experience planning an elaborate duet for their wedding day.

The Welsh playwright Gary Owen writes authentic portrayals of working people living tough lives with wit, passion and dignity. Right now, three of his plays are being staged in Australia. Romeo and Julie and Iphigenia in Splott are both at Red Stitch and his reworking of The Cherry Orchard is at the Old Fitz Theatre in Sydney.

Also, rising Australian playwright Benjamin Nichol delivers two blistering new one-person plays in a double bill at fortyfivedownstairs, Milk and Blood, and we meet John 'Divine G' Whitfield, the man whose story inspired Sing Sing, a new film about prisoners participating in the Rehabilitation Through the Arts theatre program at New York's Sing Sing Correctional Facility.