MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA THEATER REVIEWS

Maryam Master's adaptation of David Walliams' popular children's book MR STINK returns to the Sydney stage under Jonathan Biggins' direction....

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The Play That Goes Wrong starts subtly with a member of the audience brought up on stage to lend a hand to two hopeless stage technicians, Trevor and Annie. They are setting the stage for a performance of Murder at Haversham Manor by the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society. With fireplace mantles fall...

HANDEL'S MESSIAH, one of the most iconic Baroque works is finally given the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra's exquisitely emotive and expressive treatment under the baton of Artistic Director and Conductor Paul Dyer....

If you've been in the habit of blinking lately, you might have missed the fact that Arts Centre Melbourne has transformed to house the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts, so you might want to cut that out and head to a box office hashire hashire! What transpired on my visit was one of the mos...

The saying goes that there are no new ideas. Originality in the age of mass-production and population density and exponential destruction of every natural muse known to great artists, has been shot mid-flight. Originality was shot through the heart, plummeted into an oil-drenched ocean, washed upon ...

Australian poet Nan Witcomb once wrote a remarkable statement which has stuck in my memory from childhood, which I will paraphrase: 'we lock up the crazy to keep them from living the dreams of the sane'....

What do you get when you put the creators of South Park and Avenue Q in a room together to write a musical? The Book of Mormon. A musical about a pair of young Mormons, off on their 2 year mission to convert the African people....

Having celebrated 50 years since CABARET debuted in New York on 20th November 1966, the return to the stage of this love story, set against the transition from the Hedonistic days of the Weimar Republic to the early days of the Nazi Germany, is both entertaining and a timely reminder to a world faci...

Darling of stage and voice of Disney Princesses, Lea Salonga, with the help of the SYDNEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, under the baton of Gerard Salonga, brought the Sydney Opera House audience to its feet in a flawless performance....

Written by New-Yorker-turned-Melburnian Kotryna Gesait, The Nursery Web holds a mirror up to the way we behave in love....

World War II has been on our minds a great deal of late, with events preceding the rise of modern history's most reviled dictator being comparable to those elevating the incumbent American President. In East Berlin, the second World War was an intersection of prejudice, fear and violence from which ...

As the years go by, Cirque du Soleil set the bar higher and higher for circus around the world. Kooza is an interesting glance backwards into a more classic and traditional time of circus....

Richard Sidwell's (Arranger and Conductor) successful melding of Rock and Orchestral music in THE MUSIC OF QUEEN: A ROCK & SYMPHONIC SPECTACULAR returns to Sydney to delight audiences....

Capturing the not too distant past of 1950's Sydney, the heart-warming coming of age story of a young, intelligent woman comes to life with fabulous songs and fantastic fashion in LADIES IN BLACK....

Circus 1903 is circus at its theatrical best...in its opening number... then unfortunately for the show it drops this theatricality and with it its energy and genuine excitement. There are some remarkable artists and beautiful moments, which are particularly captivating. However, there are lengthy p...

Revisiting the excitement and wonder that enchanted crowds at the start of the 20th Century, CIRCUS 1903 recreates the magic that inspired many contemporary circuses....

It's always exciting to see a new Australian musical on display. Often they are in a development phase and rarely do they have a return life. First presented in 2011, Belinda Jenkin and Will Hannagan's musical The Gathering has been re-worked and is now being produced by Vic Theatre Company at 45 ...

Vic Theatre Company has had a very auspicious beginning, staging the award winning Loving Repeating, the hilarious 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and now the joint billing of Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years and Jenkins and Hannagan's Australian musical The Gathering. This week The...

Walking across the stage to get to your seat, you find yourself in an Upper West Side apartment where 4 eager writers have paid $5000 each to learn from eccentric Leonard, a posturing writer with stories the equivalent of a student who just got back from a gap year in Moldova or Rwanda....

Carla Conlin takes to the stage in a red gown that is to die for...but she's a kid? Through pop, jazz, and contemporary musical theatre, Carla Conlin grows up before our very eyes....

For Melbourne audiences this chilly spring, The Light in the Piazza is the musical we had no idea we would love....

In June 2013 two musicals went head to head in the best musical category at the Tony Awards. One would win but both would leave their mark in the musical theatre industry as being truly special shows. Kinky Boots and Matilda are currently playing a block away from each other in Melbourne and movin...

Kinky Boots opened its Australian tour in Melbourne on Saturday night and what a kicking success it was! A musical so appropriate for our country to see as conversation about equality and plebiscites continues....

Guest violinist Shunske Sato stuns audiences with his expressive and incredible interpretation of three 19th Century works with the support of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra in SATO & THE ROMANTICS....