The Stage Show

Darren Yap has been a part of some huge moments in Australian performing arts history, from acting in Miss Saigon to being on the directorial team for the Sydney 2000 closing ceremony. Now he's using his talents to bringing new Asian Australian work to the stage.

Also, we meet artists behind a surge of Asian Australian plays on our mainstages right now and Neil Armfield joins us to pay tribute to the English theatre director Peter Brook, famous for his reinvention of contemporary theatre.

Our oldest modern dance company, the Australian Dance Theatre, has been delighting and challenging audiences for nearly 60 years. Now Wiradjuri dancer and choreographer Daniel Riley is at the helm, becoming the first Indigenous man to lead the company.

Also, we meet the winner of this year's Keir Choreographic Award, Tra Mi Dinh, and Wesley Enoch's joyous musical The Sunshine Club returns to the Queensland Theatre stage after 23 years.

As the ABC celebrates its 90th birthday, we delve into our archives to revisit key moments in Australian performing arts history, including Laurence Olivier on tour, Nureyev and Fonteyn dancing into Australian hearts and Indigenous theatre taking centre stage.

Also, Ian McKellen makes his Australian debut, Dorothy Hewett revolutionises Australian playwriting, Philip Glass writes a piece for organ and didgeridoo and Joan Sutherland records a stupendous La Traviata in a 17th-century Italian theatre.

A Strange Loop has won Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical at the 75th Tony Awards. This funny and challenging metafictional musical is inspired by the experiences of its writer, Michael R. Jackson, who joins us from New York.

Also, we're joined by the chief theatre critics at the New York Times and the Guardian for the latest from the US and UK and we meet director Max Webster, the man behind a daring new Henry V starring Kit Harrington (Game of Thrones) and soon in cinemas.

Since starting her career on Young Talent Time, Tina Arena has become one of our most successful musical exports, having sold over 10 million records worldwide. She's now flexing new creative muscles as the artistic director of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

Also, we meet the students and two high-profile alumni creating new work at The Australian Ballet School and we learn about a new study that suggests job insecurity and other factors may be adversely affecting the mental health and wellbeing of performing artists.

After being cancelled in 2020 and 2021, Melbourne's RISING festival is finally here. It's the first major arts festival the city has hosted since 2019. We venture into the frosty night air to discover how this festival tries to subvert expectations and capture new audiences.

We meet the artistic directors, watch passers-by become part of the action in The Invisible Opera, meet ordinary people rehearsing for a massive dance work, encounter new work from Marrugeku and examine social taboos with choreographer Mette Ingvarten.

Tony and Olivier Award-winning musical theatre star — and two-time Disney Princess — Lea Salonga rose to international fame for originating the role of Kim in the stage musical Miss Saigon. She retraces her journey into the spotlight and struggles along the way.

Also, voice and dialect coach Leith McPherson explains how she helps actors to find their character's voice and the prolific, 'critic-proof' composer Frank Wildhorn reflects on his long career and best-known work, including Jekyll and Hyde and Bonnie and Clyde.

Les Misérables, Phantom of the Opera and Cats were all produced by the same man: Cameron Mackintosh. In Australia for the opening of a new production of Mary Poppins, Cameron shares his journey from humble beginnings to producer extraordinaire.

Also, Anna O'Byrne shares songs and stories inspired by her work with Julie Andrews and we interrogate the Cinderella story with performers from a new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella and Windmill's radical reinterpretation, Rella.

When Yorta Yorta/Gunaikurnai theatre-maker Andrea James quit her job as a legal secretary to pursue a career in the arts, it was because she saw the theatre as 'a place where truth gets told.' She is now one of our most celebrated playwrights and directors.

Also, we hear a scene from A Letter for Molly, the debut play from Brittanie Shipway at the Ensemble and Dr Ana Flavia Zuim, co-author of a study measuring vocal demands in musical theatre, explains why technique may not be enough to protect our vocal health.

Geraldine Turner has been a mainstay of the stage since the 1970s, featuring in the Australian premieres of Chicago, A Little Night Music, Into the Woods and more. Now she's written a memoir, Turner's Turn, about her performing life and a very painful personal life.

Also, the cast of Bob Dylan musical Girl from the North Country perform for us and we ask Australian Musical Theatre Festival artistic director Tyran Parke and headliner Philip Quast why Launceston is the ideal place for musical theatre tragics to gather.