Joanna Murray-Smith News

Melbourne Theatre Company is thrilled to announce that international screen sensation Jai Courtney will return to Australia next year exclusively for MTC, to play the title role of Macbeth in Simon Phillips' fearsome new production of Shakespeare's epic tragedy.

Following the successful tour of Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party in 2016, today London Classic Theatre Artistic Director Michael Cabot announces a new production of Terry Johnson's Hysteria for spring 2017.

When using words for weapons, how far do you go before it cuts too deep?

After celebrating the company's 25th birthday in 2016, we look to the future, while at the same time acknowledge those who have made a significant impact on the company. We fondly farewell our Artistic Director of nine years Kate Cherry, who has programmed the majority of the 2017 season. We are thrilled to honour our Founding Artistic Director Andrew Ross who will direct the rarely seen and engaging absurdist classic - Beckett's Endgame, and welcome our new Artistic Director Clare Watson making her directorial debut with the Swedish romantic horror Let the Right One In.

Sydney Theatre Company and Colonial First State Global Asset Management present Speed-the-Plow, by David Mamet, this 8 November - 17 December 2016. The opening night is Saturday 12 November 2016 at 7.30pm, at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, Walsh Bay.

WHEN is love real and does it really last? That's the core theme of Honour, the latest offering from the Old Mill Theatre. Written by Joanna Murray-Smith and directed by Dale James, Honour follows a couple's exhausting and confronting - yet also tender and poignant - journey through life and love.

Melbourne Theatre Company Artistic Director Brett Sheehy AO today revealed MTC's 2017 Season - a collection of works from around the world that celebrate the art of great, live storytelling. 

Joanna Murray-Smith's acclaimed two-hander, Switzerland, comes to MTC with the stunning original cast of Sarah Peirse and Eamon Farren. Under the direction of newly appointed MTC Associate Director Sarah Goodes, this Sydney Theatre Company production opens at Southbank Theatre, the Sumner on Wednesday 21 September.

Melbourne Theatre Company's 2016 opening show Ladies in Black has won the coveted Best New Australian Work at the 16th Annual Helpmann Awards. The production, created by Queensland Theatre Company, written by Carolyn Burns and Tim Finn, and directed by Simon Phillips, launched MTC's 2016 Subscription Season and was a sell-out success. In receiving the Award the creative team stressed the need for, and clear benefits of, thorough development of Australian works.

The Hanging by STC's 2014 Patrick White Fellow, Angela Betzien, receives its world premiere at Sydney Theatre Company (STC) from 28 July to 10 September 2016. STC Resident Director Sarah Goodes and Resident Designer Elizabeth Gadsby are at the helm following their recent success with STC's Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar. The Hanging features Ashleigh Cummings of Network Ten's Puberty Blues alongside one of Australia's most versatile actors, Genevieve Lemon. Returning to STC following his highly regarded performance in last year's Battle of Waterloo by Kylie Coolwell, Luke Carroll completes the cast.

Vassar & New York Stage and Film will soon present its 32nd Powerhouse Season, which runs June 24 to July 31 at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, including full productions of new plays, workshop presentations of new plays and musicals, and readings of other works in progress, among other developmental programming. Past highlights from this celebrated program include the recent Tony nominees Hamilton, Bright Star, and The Humans.

Vassar & New York Stage and Film announced today the complete list of programming for its 32nd Powerhouse Season, which runs June 24 to July 31 at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY.

When the theatre-going Sydneysider is hunting for a story unlike any other, set amongst the most powerful of creatures and the most notable moments in modern history, told with passion and humour and dulcet sublimity, where else but the White House?!

Five years after the runaway success of SONGS FOR NOBODIES, Joanna Murray-Smith, Bernadette Robinson and Simon Phillips team up once again with PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE a brilliant one woman musical theatre piece returning to Melbourne on Thursday January 21, 2016 for a limited season at the Playhouse, Arts Centre.

The selection of outstanding plays we have chosen for The Meridian Energy 2016/17 Season give The Court Theatre the opportunity to create some genuinely great theatre and to present our audiences with memories that will be kept alive for a lifetime.

Perhaps only someone looking from the the outside can see more clearly than those living on the inside of the United States. This principle operates with brillant clarity when Milwaukee Reperatory Theater presents the World Premiere American Song by acclaimed Ausstralian author and playwright Joanna Murray-Smith. The Rep commissioned the play almost four years  iago in 2012 and then opened on the Quadraccie Powerhouse stage this past weekend. Set in the America's heartland, a supposedly rural Wisconsin town, American Players Theatre actor James DeVIta gives an incomprable portrayal of a parent in agony, a father in midlife named Andy.

Milwaukee Repertory Theater began preview performances of their brand new production AMERICAN SONG. The show is about one man's look at what it means to be a father in today's world.

Milwaukee Repertory Theater has announced an innovative partnership with the Frank Zeidler Center for Public Discussion, having received a $35,000 Art Works Award from the National Endowment for the Arts in support of the world-premiere American Song.

Melbourne audiences can now start the New Year in song and shimmering style, with the announcement that single tickets for MTC's glamorous new musical Ladies in Black go on sale today.

Broadway In Chicago and producers Starvox Entertainment and June Entertainment have announced the full cast for SHERLOCK HOLMES.  JAMES MASLOW, the actor and singer perhaps best known for playing the role of James Diamond in Nickelodeon's 'Big Time Rush' and a member of the band with the same name, will star as the legendary Dr. John Watson, along with RENNE OLSTEAD, best known for her role as Lauren Miller in the TV sitcom 'Still Standing,' and as Madison Cooperstein in 'The Secret Life of the American Teenager,' as the well-to-do-American, Lady Irene St. John, opposite DAVID ARQUETTE in the title role as SHERLOCK HOLMES.  The two actors will make their stage debuts in this new and original adaptation inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic tales by playwright Greg Kramer and directed by Andrew Shaver scheduled to play Chicago's Oriental Theatre (24 W Randolph) November 24 - 29, 2015.