Opera Queensland, Lyric Theatre, QPAC Directed by Michael Grandage, the performance of Puccini’s sorrowful and tragic tale of a broken heart, breached trust and loss was a successful and splendid achievement. The lyricism of the opera is moving and touching and highlights why it is still so popular. The set was simple yet effective with […]

New Farm Nash Theatre Shuffles were seen from the audience as they leant forward in their seats, waiting in awe for that historic cry. “STELLAAAAAAA!” cried the slick Stanley, played by Tristan Ozinga. With a great, powerful scream, ears trembled and eyes widened. Would Stella take back her beloved Stanley? A cast of 10 brings […]

Brisbane audiences have opened their hearts to Alana Valentine’s play A Head Full of Love, donating more than $75,000 towards indigenous people with chronic kidney disease. The play, based on verbatim interviews with renal patients, blasts the myth that alcohol is a primary cause of indigenous kidney disease. Recent research by the Australian Institute of […]

“Today you are going to enter the past of my life. Three things are carried by my wounded heart: love, despair, pain!” The Tango los Mareados frames tonight’s Winter Ball as we swirl past and dip into the lives and loves of Racine’s Phedre, Flaubert’s Emma Bovary, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. Director […]

Local community theatre company New Farm Nash Theatre have achieved an entertaining and engaging production of this romantic but dark comedy. In spite of a shoestring budget, the enthusiasm and dedication of the cast and crew make this more memorable and intimate than many bigger budget productions. The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare’s […]

Harvest Rain Theatre Company Popular 1984 movie The Neverending Story comes to life in this stage adaption. Director Tim O’Connor succeeds in asking the audience to use similar levels of imagination to the book on which the tale is based. O’Connor’s own imagination has flowered into a clear and compact concept that fits — magically […]

Playhouse Theatre, Qld Performing Arts Centre Charles Dickens used his gift of the gab as journalist, author and actor to climb the social ladder. Miriam Margolyes, character actor extraordinaire, accompanied by pianist John Martin, gives us a whirlwind social tour of Dickens’ life. They settle comfortably into the Victorian drawing room featuring a gilt-edged portrait […]

Great team work by Nash Theatre has resulted in a powerful and effective production of The Laramie Project. The play begins with eight actors standing among eight chairs on a dimly-lit stage. Together they proceed to tell the shocking story of the 1998 fatal beating of gay university student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, in the […]

Based on an iconic book and epic three-hour movie, the musical adaptation of Dr Zhivago has a lot to live up to. After all, song and dance would not be the first choice for many to convey the loneliness, individualism and ideology explored in Boris Pasternak’s novel. Yet director Des McAnuff and composer Lucy Simon […]

Queensland Theatre Company and the Bell Shakespeare’s immersion into necromancy, incest, rape, and self-mutilation somehow makes for a good night at the theatre. Like Dr Faustus who in compact with Lucifer brings the dead to life, director Michael Gow has revived the Faust myth itself: that old and prolific parable of the spineless genius who […]

New Farm Nash Theatre Blood and butchery, swords and sorcery, tyranny and tragedy, murder and mayhem,  daggers and death are all promised in promotions for Nash Theatre’s production of Macbeth.  It’s a promise the cast are clearly driven to deliver as much as Lady Macbeth in her wanton desire for the throne. Brenda White’s decision […]

Fractal Theatre (Metro Arts Theatre, Brisbane) Reading between the lines of Shakespeare’s Hamlet there is little doubt that the prince of Denmark had his way with the daughter of the king’s minister, Polonius – or at least tried to. Steven Berkoff speculates about the possibilities in this clever parallelquel to Hamlet, reminiscent of Tom Stoppard’s […]

Cremorne Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre Reluctant cleaners watching this clever play will be relieved to note obsessive cleaning and too much attention to fastidious detail may blunt your passion for life! As a high achieving, clinical, busy doctor, white-clad Lane has little time for life’s pleasures. She hires a young Brazilian to clean her […]

New Farm Nash Theatre The wheels within wheels, the corruption, the bribery and the back room deals are as much a feature of modern politics as they were one hundred years ago.- Nigel Munro-Wallis, director. Set in London’s Grosvenor Square, Oscar Wilde’s classic play begins at a dinner party hosted by the wealthy and highly […]

Nash Theatre More than 2000 years since it was written, any modern staging of Antigone requires an element of creativity to make it fresh and relevant. The New Farm Nash Theatre’s current production is certainly creative. Director Jeff Zayer has put together an eclectic production that borrows elements of ancient Greek and Roman aesthetic in […]