Malthouse Theatre Announces 2027 Season With Eddie Perfect, Yve Blake and More

Malthouse Theatre tonight launched its 2027 season, the first full program from Artistic Director and Co-CEO Dean Bryant – featuring eight productions, all new Australian works and seven of them world premieres.

Bryant's inaugural season tackles some of the biggest questions of our times. What are the consequences of letting AI control our lives? What do we owe the people who raised us? Can pop music be a political force? Can a religious life help an atheist find meaning? And how well do you ever know someone, even the love of your life?

Some of the country's best-loved performers meet bold new Australian voices in 2027. Eddie Perfect transports Molière into the age of AI in The Tartuffe, directed by Dean Bryant and starring Karis Oka and Noah Szto. Award-winning novelist Ellen van Neerven makes their playwriting debut with swim, starring Cynda Jace Beare and Tahlee Fereday. Sarah Goodes and Joanna Murray-Smith reunite for Stone Yard Devotional, bringing Charlotte Wood's bestselling novel to the stage with Lisa McCune and Catherine McClements. Christina O'Neill leads the Filipino-Australian cabaret extravaganza MAGIC SING: Pinoy Pop Power! created by Victoria Falconer and Bryant, and with Yvette Lee as Director and Choreographer; Mystery Road: Origin's Tuuli Narkle takes on a one-person adaptation of The Turn of the Screw by Keziah Warner, while Yve Blake brings her signature smarts to Malthouse with Jackpot.

Independent darlings Bloomshed take on Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind, and Thomas Weatherall performs his self-penned sophomore stage work, Lucy. Theatregoers can expect an AI hairdressing robot, cloistered nuns, two sisters at war and a very political southern belle.

Of the 2027 season, Bryant says: 'Theatre gives us permission to turn off our phones, take a seat and become an audience together, and that's what this season is built around. It's the first season I've put together from start to finish, and I wanted it to be unmistakably ours: every work by Australian creators, nearly all of them world premieres, from artists taking on big questions with humour and nerve.'

'Theatre that electrifies and sends audiences out fully charged is what we're aspiring to. Come in, sit down, lock in…and let go.'

Opening the season from Friday 19 February is the world premiere of The Tartuffe, written by and starring Eddie Perfect (The Beast, Beetlejuice) after Molière and directed by Dean Bryant. Orgon is having an existential crisis, so in comes The Tartuffe, an AI-powered hairdressing robot who listens, cares and wants to know what's on for the weekend. Then the family gives it access to, well, everything. Perfect will be joined on stage by Karis Oka (Beetlejuice), rising comedy star Noah Szto (Melbourne International Comedy Festival Best Newcomer 2024 and Director's Choice 2025) and a team of clowns, in a dystopian laugh-fest from the team behind Victorian Opera's Green Room Award-winning Candide that will make audiences regret everything they've ever told ChatGPT.

Landing at Malthouse for its Victorian premiere from Wednesday 12 May, swim is Mununjali poet Ellen van Neerven's (Throat, Heat and Light) debut work for the stage. On a sizzling summer's day at the public pool, genderfluid protagonist E negotiates the space between the change rooms, until the words of their Aunty come to them on the diving blocks and the crystalline blue tiles give way to much deeper water. First staged at Griffin Theatre Company, this magical realist play is brought to the Kulin Nations by ILBIJERRI Theatre Company, YIRRAMBOI and Malthouse, directed by ILBIJERRI Artistic Director Andrea James, and starring Cynda Jace Beare (Poems of a Transsexual Nature) and Tahlee Fereday (Black Light, Because the Night).

From Friday 4 June, the Merlyn transforms into a liminal world of immersive sound and luminous imagery in the world premiere of Stone Yard Devotional, blurring the line between theatre and art installation. Charlotte Wood's Booker Prize-shortlisted novel is adapted by Joanna Murray-Smith and directed by Sarah Goodes, reuniting them after Julia, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Switzerland, from an original concept by Justine Clarke and Sarah Goodes. Legendary actors Lisa McCune and Catherine McClements star in the story of a woman who detaches herself from her life and finds herself among a group of cloistered nuns, in a Malthouse Theatre production in association with Jacaranda Productions.

Take the mic for the world premiere of MAGIC SING: Pinoy Pop Power!, an evening of power ballads, politics and fierce Filo pride. While rock 'n' roll and punk shaped the sound of protest in the West, Filipinos found an emotional outlet in the sky-high vocals of Whitney, Celine and Mariah, belted down the (Magic Sing) mic at every family function and karaoke bar across the diaspora, from the 1986 People Power Revolution through the waves of migration that followed. From Wednesday 7 July, Christina O'Neill (All About Eve, My Brilliant Career) leads a trio of Filipino-Australian divas, directed and choreographed by Yvette Lee, and created by cabaret goddess extraordinaire Victoria Falconer (HOUSE OF ROT, My Brilliant Career) and Dean Bryant.

From Friday 23 July, the Beckett is haunted by the world premiere of The Turn of the Screw, Keziah Warner's (Hour of the Wolf, Nosferatu) one-person adaptation of Henry James' gothic horror. Tuuli Narkle (NCIS: Sydney, Mystery Road: Origin) is a young woman with no money, no work and a frosty sharehouse who takes a mysterious job minding two children at Bly Manor, only to find her dream of Downton Abbey turns out to be a lot more The Shining. Directed by Jessica Arthur (GAME. SET. MATCH., Koreaboo), it looks the audience dead in the eye and asks: do you believe me?

Yve Blake (FANGIRLS, Mackenzie) takes the most illegal thoughts you've ever had about your family and screams them out loud in the world premiere of the Dean Bryant-directed Jackpot, from Friday 13 August. Over one sleepless night and a shared bottle of whiskey, two sisters negotiate who will care for their mother in a pitch-black comedy exploring family obligation, housing inequality and what we owe our parents, and what they owe us.

Next year's season will also host the world premiere of Lucy from Friday 17 September, written by and starring Thomas Weatherall and directed by Dean Bryant. Sam and Lucy fall for each other fast and forever: he's darkness, she's all light; he's cautious, she's impulsive. As time goes on, Sam finds Lucy has more in common with him than he thought, as the despair that drew them together starts to drag her down. Weatherall (AACTA-nominated for The Narrow Road to the Deep North; Heartbreak High) follows his rapturously received solo debut Blue with his first Melbourne stage work, a story about the changing shape of a relationship, and what to do when you no longer recognise it.

From Friday 12 November, Bloomshed (Pride and Prejudice) return to Malthouse with the world premiere of Gone With The Wind, an unflinching adaptation of Margaret Mitchell's classic that holds a mirror to the Australian mythos. Scarlett O'Hara hates politics. She likes parties, cakes and green dresses that show off her 13-inch waist. But when a surprise election is called and the men rush off to fight the 'good fight', her comfortable world of instant gratification turns upside down. Their urgent response to a polarised Australia is fierce, funny and all about franking credits, with marginal seats turning orange faster than saying the words, 'please explain'. Wrapped in the warm cloak of a whirlwind romance, it asks whether nostalgia for a world that never existed is the answer.

ADDITIONAL PROGRAMMING

From Thursday 6 May, YIRRAMBOI marks ten years, cracking open the heart of Naarm to reveal the hum of Country beneath. First Peoples have shaped worlds, physical, spiritual and ancestral, guided by lore, kinship and an unbroken relationship with Country, through governance systems, knowledge and ceremonial practices that were not only sophisticated but opulent, and through languages that map entire ecologies and songlines that track time, stars and kinship across thousands of generations. In this world, the festival says, we are not dreaming of what might come, we are embodying what already is.

The much-loved Malthouse Comedy returns from Wednesday 24 March, taking over the entire venue as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Since 2016, Malthouse Theatre has curated a massive program of comedy for the festival, bringing some of the most exciting names in comedy alongside emerging local artists to its packed-out venues, and attracting more than 23,000 people annually. Curated and presented by Malthouse Theatre.

From Thursday 1 to Wednesday 21 October, an early bird offer of 25% off every 2027 Malthouse Theatre production will be available via the website, with ticket prices at the lowest levels they'll be all season.

Details of the YIRRAMBOI and Malthouse Comedy programs will be released later in the year.

See malthousetheatre.com.au for more information or follow on socials to stay up to date with the latest news.

MALTHOUSE THEATRE 2027 SEASON

8 productions

8 new Australian works

7 world premieres

THE TARTUFFE

Friday 19 February–Friday 19 March, Merlyn Theatre

Opening Night, Wednesday 24 February

By Eddie Perfect, after Molière

Directed by Dean Bryant

Cast includes Eddie Perfect, Karis Oka and Noah Szto

SWIM

Wednesday 12–Saturday 22 May, Beckett Theatre

Opening Night, Wednesday 12 May

By Ellen van Neerven

Directed by Andrea James

Cast includes Cynda Jace Beare and Tahlee Fereday

STONE YARD DEVOTIONAL

Friday 4–Saturday 26 June, Merlyn Theatre

Opening Night, Wednesday 9 June

By Charlotte Wood, adapted for the stage by Joanna Murray-Smith

Directed by Sarah Goodes

Cast includes Lisa McCune and Catherine McClements

MAGIC SING: PINOY POP POWER!

Wednesday 7–Saturday 10 July, Merlyn Theatre

Opening Night, Wednesday 7 July

Created by Victoria Falconer and Dean Bryant

Directed and choreographed by Yvette Lee

Cast includes Christina O'Neill

THE TURN OF THE SCREW

Friday 23 July–Saturday 21 August, Beckett Theatre

Opening Night, Wednesday 28 July

By Keziah Warner, based on the novella by Henry James

Directed by Jessica Arthur

Cast includes Tuuli Narkle

JACKPOT

Friday 13 August–Saturday 4 September, Merlyn Theatre

Opening Night, Wednesday 18 August

By Yve Blake

Directed by Dean Bryant

LUCY

Friday 17 Sep – Saturday 9 Oct, Beckett Theatre

Opening Night, Wednesday 22 September

By Thomas Weatherall

Directed by Dean Bryant

Cast includes Thomas Weatherall

GONE WITH THE WIND

Friday 12 November–Saturday 4 December, Merlyn Theatre

Opening Night, Wednesday 17 November

Created by Bloomshed, after Margaret Mitchell

YIRRAMBOI

Thursday 6–Sunday 16 May, taking over Malthouse

MALTHOUSE COMEDY

Wednesday 24 March–Sunday 18 April, taking over Malthouse