Belvoir St Theatre has announced its 2027 Season, including nine mainstage productions and two late-night shows. Across the year, more than a hundred artists will bring the season to life in a celebration of new voices and beloved legends, bold Australian writing, First Nations storytelling, Tony Award-winning hits, fabulously rogue female characters, and all the thrilling, risk-taking theatrical brilliance audiences love about Belvoir.
Belvoir’s Artistic Director, Eamon Flack, said:
“Theatre is the opposite of the internet. Theatre is AI proof. Theatre is real. Theatre is the pure model of democracy. Australia needs more great theatre, more artistic licence, more of the joyful and sometimes hard work of holding many truths in one place among many people. That’s the hopeful, hopeless, heart-on-our sleeves wish that drives our work here.
Some of these names may be new to you, but that’s the thing I’m proudest of with this season – the artists of the future stepping up for the first time, the plays and stories taking their place because they deserve it, not ‘cause they’re known brands.”
BELVOIR’S 2027 SEASON
GAME. SET. MATCH.
7 – 24 January
A Malthouse Theatre Production, co-presented with Sydney Festival
Josh’s mum was a famous tennis legend, and he’s lived in her shadow all his life. But now she’s gone, and on the evening of her funeral, he meets Ray. She can return serve – and they hit it off over a long, bittersweet night of memory, sparring and revelation.
Will they? Won’t they? Or is that the wrong question? Is this a romance, a wake, a game – or something else? The Malthouse hit comes to Belvoir for a strictly limited Sydney Festival showing.
By Megan Wilding
Directed by Jessica Arthur
With Rick Davies and Megan Wilding
THE LARK
10 February to 7 March
Presented in association with Arts Centre Melbourne and Hey Dowling
Rose has lived and worked at The Lark all her life. It’s a small inner-city pub, but for Rose it’s a universe. Now, inevitably, gentrification has come to her part of the world, and demolition is around the corner. All things must pass, but can Rose escape The Lark’s song and find something beyond the drip trays – and the ghosts which haunt this little piece of Australia?
A eulogy for a vanishing world, and a deft capturing of the grandeur in one seemingly little life.
Written by Daniel Keene
Directed by Matt Scholten
With Noni Hazlehurst
STEREOPHONIC
20 March to 25 April
Co-produced with Melbourne Theatre Company and Queensland Theatre Company
A band on the verge of a breakthrough retreats to a recording studio to make the rock’n’roll album that could define a generation. But ambition comes at a cost: cocaine, egos, rivalry and fractured relationships all threaten to destroy the very thing they’re trying to create. Over weeks that blur into months, they chase the perfect take – and each other.
David Adjmi (Stunning, Marie Antoinette) wrote this “epic canvas rendered in hyper-intimate detail” (The New York Times) over a decade ago, and the now critically acclaimed fly-on-the-wall portrait of creativity and obsession is the most nominated play in Tony Award history, going on to win five.
Written by David Adjmi
Original songs by Will Butler
Directed by Daniel Evans
With Geraldine Hakewill, Alex Malone
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
8 May to 6 June
A time not too far from our own. A city, plagued with youth crime. Alex is fifteen, intelligent, passionate about Beethoven – and a sociopath. Beating up elderly academics, brawling with other gangs, breaking and entering – that’s one thing. But when he lands up in gaol, it’s the end of the road. Or is it?
The State wants to try a radical new therapy to cure young criminals – the Ludovico Technique. Alex is the guinea pig, and he’s quickly ready to be let back on the streets.
He’s cured. He’s cured all right.
By Anthony Burgess
Adapted by Tom Wright
Directed by Margaret Thanos
With Paula Arundell, Marco Chiappi, Rose Riley, Brittany Santariga, James Thomasson, Darius Williams
THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE
12 June to 18 July
In 1985 Lily Tomlin’s legendary comic characters became a satirical classic when Jane Wagner stitched them into a show that became Broadway legend. It’s a wise-cracking parade of humanity, swirling around Trudy, a bag lady who doesn’t miss a trick. The aliens want her to prove there’s some redeeming feature to the species. She’s seen the lot, and, well, our report card ain’t looking grand.
The great Robyn Nevin (Neighbourhood Watch) plays Trudy under the direction of showman Simon Phillips (Grief is the Thing with Feathers). Poignant, funny and above all entertaining, here’s something different.
Written by Jane Wagner
Directed by Simon Phillips
With Robyn Nevin, Zahra Newman
DIRTY DIAMONDS
31 July to 22 August
Co-Produced with Melbourne Theatre Company, in association with Yirra Yarkin Theatre Company
Cassie and Jordan don’t know each other from a bar of soap. Jordan is a Noongar DJ with street smarts and attitude. Cassie is a Kalkadoon forensic investigator, used to calmly solving problems from the outside, not finding herself in the midst of them. But now Cassie and Jordan are in a car with a biker ex on their tails.
How did they get in this mess? And what, as they drive from Perth to the Kimberley, will this contemporary odd couple learn from each other? A witty, sharp road-play drama of two young women, a return to Country, and some serious stuff.
Written and Directed by Abbie-lee Lewis
Associate Director Eamon Flack
Assistant Director Bobbi Henry
With Ruby Henaway, Lila McGuire, Ian Michael
WISH YOU WERE HERE
28 August to 19 September
It’s 1978 and protests against the Shah have become a daily event in Iran. In a suburban corner a group of close friends plan weddings, trade inappropriate jokes and lead something like normal lives despite what’s happening on the streets. Playful, intimate and surprisingly naughty, these girlfriends are completely unfiltered behind closed doors.
But as the situation worsens, each one must wrestle with whether to emigrate and make new lives, or face an uncertain future at home. What sort of Iran is just over the horizon?
Written by Sanaz Toossi
Directed by Mehhma Malhi and Ayah Tayeh
With Violette Ayad, Minerva Khodabande
THE LANDLORD
25 September to 24 October
It’s 2027. A pair of terrace houses in Surry Hills. They belong to John, who lives in the nice one, and today he is celebrating turning sixty-five. His 30-something son has moved back home after his life fell apart. His daughter has left her husband – after John paid all that bloody money for the wedding.
Things are coming to a head, on this his birthday night. The lives of our landlord family and their tenant in the leaky house next door are going to become messily intertwined. And in the end, landlords have the power. Or do they?
Written by Grace Chapple
Directed by Hannah Goodwin
With Ariadne Sgouros, Zoe Terakes
DANCING AT LUGHNASA
6 November to 12 December
Donegal, 1936. The Mundy sisters live on the edge of poverty. There’s five of them in one small cottage, plus Christina’s seven-year-old Michael, and now their older brother Jack is home from mission work in Africa.
One afternoon, when their dodgy wireless cuts out yet again, Agnes suddenly decides they should all go to the harvest dance for the Festival of Lughnasa – and a wild yearning for life begins to possess these mild-mannered people in their quiet corner of a world beginning its slide towards chaos.
Written by Brian Friel
Directed by Eamon Flack
With Tamsin Carroll, Luke Mullins, Matilda Ridgway
UP LATE
REDFERN RENAISSANCE
On sale in November
Co-presented with Sydney Festival
Back for its third year, Redfern Renaissance returns to Belvoir with another celebration of Redfern’s artists, storytellers and cultural leaders. Join us as the theatre comes alive with music, performance, conversation and special moments that can’t be found anywhere else.
Joyful, generous and proudly local, Redfern Renaissance shines a spotlight on the First Nations history of Redfern. Come together on Gadigal Country for an evening of culture, connection and celebration.
Creative Director Angeline Penrith
With special guest artists
UP LATE WITH BIANCA HUNT
On sale in November
Co-presented with Sydney Festival
Up Late with Bianca Hunt is the night out you wish happened more often. Part talk show, part comedy gig, part live music event, Bianca takes over Belvoir for three unforgettable nights packed with sharp conversations, surprise guests and the kind of laughter that echoes all the way to the bar.
Bringing together artists, cultural trailblazers and some of the country’s most exciting creative voices, Up Late is smart, funny and distinctly Blak. Come for the guests, stay for the unexpected.
With Bianca Hunt and special guests
Eamon Flack said:
“This is a season of generations and generation – growth, passing on, many ages of life and culture, the many great stories that lie just out of sight. And, as always, a rousing celebration of life. Long live Belvoir!”
Subscriptions for Belvoir St Theatre’s 2027 season are on sale from today via the website.
Website: https://belvoir.com.au/2027-season/
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/belvoirst/
Hero image: A Clockwork Orange. Images supplied.
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