Neil Armfield News

Adelaide Festival announces the triumphant return of Australia's most celebrated international opera director Barrie Kosky with his latest masterpiece, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel. The opera will form the dazzling centrepiece of the 2022 Adelaide Festival.

ArtsEd has announced the appointment of Jonathan O'Boyle to the role of Director of the School of Musical Theatre, effective November this year. 

Australia's leading theatre producer John Frost today announced an Australian tour of the powerful hit of this year's Adelaide Festival, A German Life.

The choice for Cohens's associate artist was a stroke of genius.

The 2021 Adelaide Festival curated by Artistic Directors Rachel Healy and Neil Armfield has seen an energising and inspiring seventeen day event unfold. With two days still to go and despite challenges of border closures, COVID safe-plans and last-minute changes, the Adelaide Festival has surpassed its box office target (of $2.77 million) so far achieving a total box office income in excess of $3.7 million (figure is inclusive of umbrella shows, but does not include WOMADelaide).

The 2021 Adelaide Festival officially opens today having already hit its box office target! With a whole host of events over the next 17 days, 2021 marks the 61st Adelaide Festival and the fifth under Artistic Directors Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy.

Adelaide Festival continues the legacy of unique Festival clubs with the announcement of its new hub The Summerhouse, which will be home to fifteen headlining contemporary music acts, opera on the big screen, Breakfast with Papers and Festival Forums through the 2021 Adelaide Festival from Thursday 25 February until Sunday 14 March.

Sydney arts lovers are in for a treat on Tuesday, February 2, when the weekly Arts Tuesday show returns to Eastside 89.7FM between 10.30 and 12 noon.

The 2021 Adelaide Festival program, prepared over this past turbulent year under ever-changing circumstances, may just turn out to be one of the most necessary – and memorable.

Today, Creative Partnerships Australia announced the nine luminary recipients of the 2020 Creative Partnerships Awards.

The highly anticipated first announcement for 2021 Adelaide Festival will see Neil Armfield's production of UK composer Benjamin Britten's opera, A Midsummer Night's Dream, make its Australian debut with an exclusive season at the Adelaide Festival.

The Metropolitan Opera announced today that the ongoing health crisis has resulted in the cancellation of the entire 2020-21 season, but the company also announced ambitious artistic plans for its 2021-22 season, which will open with the Met premiere of Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up in My Bones.

Glyndebourne Open House throws open the opera's doors to everyone, everywhere. Join in at 5.00pm each Sunday and enjoy world-class opera in your living room for free.

Joint Artistic Directors Neil Armfield AO and Rachel Healy's fourth Adelaide Festival generated an estimated gross expenditure of $70.2 million for the state of South Australia.

BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge says, 'That this episode of Broadway Rewind features something Toxic, something Royal and something Academic.' We drop by New World Stages for a look at the David Bryan and Joe DePietro musical, The Toxic Avenger. We also visit with two-time Tony Award winner Matthew Broderick and the cast of Roundabout's production of The Philanthropist, but we kick it off at the opening night of director Neil Armfield's production of Eugene Ionesco's Exit The King, which starred Academy Award winners Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon, Tony Award winner Andrea Martin and Lauren Ambrose. Geoffrey Rush told Ridge, 'I just phoned my wife and said, 'Darling I just made my Broadway debut and it's a marker. It's not what I aimed for. I had never really, seriously ever thought about it... I used to listen to a lot of Broadway musical theatre back in the mid 60's when I was in high school. Next to the Beatles, I was listening to Angela Lansbury in Mame or Tommy Steele in Half a Sixpence or Zero Mostel in Fiddler. I'm pretty well seasoned in that kind of energy, and to be able to bring a weird and wonderful play like Exit the King into that arena, has been just so special.'

The 2020 Adelaide Festival curated by Artistic Directors Neil Armfield AO and Rachel Healy has seen a triumphant 17 day event unfold with sold out shows, the biggest schools program in Festival history and box-office success. With two days still to go the Adelaide Festival has increased its total audience attendance by 24.8%, has smashed its box office target (of $4.7 million) and generated the second highest box office in the event's 60-year history, so far achieving a total box office income in excess of $5.3 million (figure is inclusive of umbrella shows, but does not include WOMADelaide).

Adelaide Festival yesterday announced the launch of Foundation Adelaide Festival, with 5 of the Festival's past and present Artistic Directors coming together to celebrate the occasion: Anthony Steel (1974, 1976, 1978, 1986); Rob Brookman (1992); Robyn Archer (1998, 2000); Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021-2023).

The Adelaide Festival Board has announced respected arts leader Elaine Chia will join the senior leadership team of the Festival as Executive Director in April 2020.

The 2020 Adelaide Festival program to be launched on Tuesday 29 October 2019 at Bonython Hall, reaffirms the Festival's reputation as one of the world's great festivals and its pre-eminence in Australia, 60 years after its debut in 1960.

The Adelaide Festival Board announced today that after a 45-year career in the arts and 3 years with Adelaide Festival as Executive Director, Rob Brookman AM, will retire on completion of his current contract following delivery of the 2020 Adelaide Festival.