Performing arts
Listen to the sounds of the suburbs as you’ve never heard before
Multicultural music producer Richard Petkovic is embarking on his most ambitious project yet.
- by Nick Galvin
Latest
An unflinching footy play is coming back. And so is a David Williamson classic
The MTC’s 2025 line-up includes a work that draws from Adam Goodes’ career, a play starring Sigrid Thornton and an award-winning musical.
- by Cameron Woodhead
The Aussie screen legend making an ‘electrifying’ stage comeback
Belvoir Street Theatre’s 2025 season features Judy Davis in her first stage acting role since 2011, in Helen Garner’s The Spare Room.
- by Linda Morris
Opinion
Arts
The idea that selling off the Regent will help the arts is laughable
The lord mayor has outlined a plan to take from the arts to give to the arts. Melbourne deserves better.
- by Elizabeth Flux
Now this is how you put on a production of Hamlet
Director Iain Sinclair has assembled an absolute dream team for this production – and it’s one of the biggest bargains in Melbourne theatre right now.
- by Cameron Woodhead, Kate Jones, Tony Way and Michael Dwyer
Exclusive
City life
Why Melbourne’s lord mayor wants to sell the Regent Theatre
The century-old Collins Street institution is estimated to be worth between $40 million and $50 million, and the council owns a 51 per cent stake.
- by Cara Waters
Hey big spender: Budgets for high school musicals top $200,000
While some of Melbourne’s exclusive private schools splash up to $200,000 on their musical productions, others prove that you don’t have to spend a fortune to make a song and dance of it.
- by Noel Towell
Exclusive
For subscribers
MSO’s dark past of secret payouts, gag orders, buried complaints
A $200,000-plus payout to a senior staff member who made bullying allegations is said to be part of a troubling pattern of management and governance practices at Australia’s oldest professional orchestra.
- by Chip Le Grand
Cents and sensibility: The new certainty playing out in theatres
He is the artistic director who knows how to bring the wow factor to theatre audiences, championing the new, confronting taboos. But, right now, there is a problem.
- by Cassidy Knowlton
Could this be the new face of the Sydney Opera House?
The new director of programming at the Sydney Opera House, Brenna Hobson, has had a long relationship with the Sydney theatre world.
- by Helen Pitt
Inside the ‘big, gay’ story the ballet has been scared to tell
In a bold break with fairytale traditions, The Australian Ballet celebrates one of history’s most famous gay men.
- by Kerrie OBrien