Category: Musical Theatre
Review: You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown Is About Nothing, & Everything
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★★★★★ There is something almost radical about how little happens in You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. Before Seinfeld, this was the musical about nothing. Nobody saves the world, nobody gets the girl. Nobody has a glitter-cannon self-realisation. Charlie Brown cannot fly a kite. He cannot kick a football. He…
Review: Mackenzie Brings Pop Energy To The Scottish Play
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★★★★★ Bell Shakespeare’s Mackenzie is an exemplar of not only adaptation, but also theatre. The new play, created by Yve Blake, brings Macbeth to the early 2000s. This sees the titular role reimagined as a Hannah Montana-inspired child star. Logie award-winning actress, Virginia Gay, steps into the director’s seat for this…
Review: Sweet Charity Shimmies With Renewed Buoyancy
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★★★½ As we stand centre stage in the theatre of life, facing its fickle finger of fate – could hope be our boldest, most courageous performance, and love the seductive encore we keep returning to, no matter how turbulent the reviews? Sweet Charity brilliantly shimmies into Melbourne’s Chapel Off Chapel with…
Review: Casey Donovan This Is Me 2026 Adelaide Cabaret Festival
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★★★★★ Casey Donovan became a household name when she won Australian Idol in 2004 as its youngest-ever champion. Now, twenty-two years later, she arrives for one night only to a packed Festival Theatre for the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Despite its title, This Is Me – The Amy Winehouse Special is not about Winehouse. The…
Review: Stella Sheds New Light On A Classic Australian Figure
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★★★½ Tucked away in the expansive Monash Clayton Campus is a portal to late 1800s Australia: Stella, performed in the Alexander Theatre. Stella is a new Australian musical with book, music and lyrics by Monique diMattina, showing us Australia’s future by digging into its past. Directed by Julia Robertson with…
Review: HOUSE OF ROT Grey Gardens 2026 Adelaide Cabaret Festival
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★★★★½ Anticipated by packed tables within the Space Theatre, another fabulous show, HOUSE OF ROT: Grey Gardens, joins Reuben Kaye’s ‘Delicious Revolution’ for the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. A minimally lit stage, swathed in smoke, reveals a piano and five chairs. To each of the sides of the stage, wooden chairs…
Review: Lincoln Elliott Artefact 2026 Adelaide Cabaret Festival
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“Steal shit back” is a thesis statement and also the title-song battle cry of Artefact (or, Repatriation: The Musical), Lincoln Elliott’s ambitious emo-rock heist musical about colonial theft, cultural identity, self-determination and the punishing business of making new Australian work. Presented as a work-in-progress showing at Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Artefact…
Review: Hair The Musical Bring Peace & Love To Sydney
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★★★★☆ HAIR is no stranger to controversy. From its 1968 Broadway debut to its Australian premiere in 1969, the revolutionary rock musical attracted both conservative criticism and devoted admiration. Recognised for pushing the boundaries of traditional theatre, HAIR is a vibrant celebration of freedom, peace, and human connection, set against the rise of the anti-war movement during the…
Review: Beetlejuice The Musical Possesses Brisbane With Wicked Delight
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★★★★★ Beetlejuice the Musical has officially possessed QPAC’s Lyric Theatre, and Brisbane seems more than happy to hand over the keys to the afterlife. I love an opening night. There is something about the energy in the room that makes everything feel tenfold. The audience is either dressed to the…
Review: Baylie Carson Is Handsome(ish) 2026 Adelaide Cabaret Festival
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★★★★☆ Baylie Carson greets the audience before the show has even begun. They move through the Space Theatre in a blue cropped, sleeveless vest with red trim and black cargo pants. There is a bowl in hand. Inside are small slips of paper, like fortune cookies, waiting for permission. “You…
Review: MJ The Musical Has Perth On Its Feet
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★★★★★ Over seven million people have attended MJ The Musical since it opened on Broadway in 2022, and for good reason. This is not a tribute show with a token plot baked into it. This is an entrancing musical mirage that explores the complex psyche of a musical revolutionary. Functioning as a…
Review: Alfie Boe With Amy Manford 2026 Adelaide Cabaret Festival
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★★★★★ The stage for Alfie Boe’s Adelaide Cabaret Festival concert is dressed like a loading dock after soundcheck. Music cases are piled high, the wings are exposed, and the crew drifts in and out of view. It is a deliberate stripping back of theatre’s usual mystique. Not quite backstage, not…
Review: WAAPA’s Company Is The Real Thing
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Last night, WAAPA 3rd year Musical Theatre students opened their sold-out season of Stephen Sondheim’s award-winning musical Company, directed by visiting artist Sonya Suares. Studio Underground at Perth’s State Theatre came alive with 1970s charm, high energy and eccentricity. WAAPA students never fail to deliver work that feels fully professional.…
Review: What’s The Buzz? 2026 Adelaide Cabaret Festival
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★★★★★ Adelaide did not get the full arena-sized production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Instead, it got something rarer. What’s The Buzz? was billed as an access-all-areas concert and conversation with the Australian cast of Jesus Christ Superstar, stripping back the spectacle to share songs, road stories and backstage secrets for…
Review: Pretty Woman Finds Magic In Adelaide
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★★★★½ Bold, bright, and bubbly are words that come to mind describing the entirety of director and choreographer Jerry Mitchell’s Pretty Woman: The Musical, on now in Adelaide as part of its national tour. Retaining much of the original film’s 80s charm, this adaptation, presented in Australia by Jones Theatrical…
Review: Tootsie The Musical Is A Love Letter To Musical Theatre
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There is something quite enjoyable about Beenleigh Theatre Group’s production of Tootsie the Musical. We went along knowing absolutely nothing about the show, which actually made it more fun. Taking the plot from the 1982 movie and injecting it with plenty of humour, Tootsie the Musical is a show that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The story follows Michael Dorsey, an actor who is struggling to…
Review: Tootsie Makes A Triumphant Premiere In Sydney
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★★★★★ How far are you willing to go in pursuit of a dream? Tootsie, the stage adaptation of the 1982 film, combines comedy and heart in its exploration of this question, set against the stunning backdrop of the New York City theatre scene. The Australian premiere of this phenomenal show,…
Review: Funny Girl Shines With The Star Quality Of Fanny Brice
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★★★★★ I will start simply. You must see this production. It is truly exceptional in every way. In the words of Fanny Brice, she is “the greatest star,” and this production shines with that star quality. Funny Girl is forever linked to the icon that is Barbra Streisand. Featuring some of…
Review: How To Succeed In Business Pulteney Grammar
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Pulteney Grammar School’s production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying opened at the Future Events Centre in Paradise with a spectacle before the curtain had even risen. The foyer was filled with branded snack cups, a videographer, and a balloon-festooned photo backdrop complete with props, setting the…
Review: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels Is Too Charming Not To Love
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★★★★★ Some villains are simply too charming not to love. But what kind of chaos unfolds when you put a few of them in the same small town? We find out in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, a dazzling musical presented by Redfern Lane Productions in association with Hayes Theatre Co. Based…
Review: Come Alive! The Greatest Showman Is A Spectacular Circus
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★★★★★ Come Alive! The Greatest Showman Circus Spectacular is the best night out in Sydney right now. This is a five-star show for me because it does everything I want art to do. It woke up my inner child, and for an hour and a half, every person inside that…
Review: Sainting Joan Brings Punk Energy To Joan Of Arc
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Independent theatre in Melbourne has always provided a safe space for bold risks, strange ideas, and the kind of creative bravery that rarely survives in bigger, more traditional institutions. Sainting Joan is a perfect example of why that ecosystem matters. Staged in Theatre Works’ Explosives Factory, tucked deep in the…
Review: Ride The Cyclone Turns Mortality Into Musical Magic
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Ride the Cyclone is a genre-bending comedy musical, with highs and lows much like the ride itself. Written in 2009 by Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell, it’s the story of six members of a small-town choir who all die in a freak rollercoaster accident. Summoned in the afterlife by a fortune-telling machine, they…
Review: The Hunchback Of Notre Dame Is Larger Than Life
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★★★★½ In a haunting, twisted world where boundaries between virtue, obsession and cruelty get indecipherably blurry, a timeworn riddle dares to ask, “What makes a monster and what makes a man?” 15th-century Paris rises in shadows and song as The Hunchback of Notre Dame returns to the stage, presented by CLOC Musical…
Review: The Middle Room Musical 2026 Anywhere Festival
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★★★★☆ The Middle Room is a sweet and whimsical musical that covers all aspects of life, set in the middle room of a country family home. Written and directed by Grace Spinks, this original, acoustic contemporary musical covers issues from the mundane to the profound. Intimately exploring the dramas of…
Review: The Pirates Of Penzance Plunders Big Laughs
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★★★★★ The Pirates of Penzance is one of those shows every musical theatre-lover is familiar with. Its songs have been performed thousands of times and reimagined in many ways, yet no one has done them quite like Hayes Theatre Co. After numerous sold-out performances in 2025, which prompted an extended…
Review: Once The Musical Sings With Quiet Beauty
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★★★★☆ If you were given a choice between waiting hopefully for something that could be, and giving everything to what’s already in front of you – which way would you go? This is the proverbial dilemma that sits at the core of Once, an honest, heartfelt musical, now showing at Melbourne’s iconic Chapel Off Chapel.…
Review: Once Upon A Mattress Bursts With Chaos & Fairytale Energy
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★★★★☆ There’s nothing a good fairytale musical comedy on a wintery evening can’t fix! Hills Musical Company are treating Adelaide to a spirited revival of Once Upon a Mattress this month. Here, the conventional Princess and the Pea fairy tale is gleefully tossed aside and reshaped into a playful parody that satirises traditional…
Review: Waitress Warms The Heart In A Sweet Australian Premiere
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★★★★★ Melbourne, there’s a warm deliciousness that has drifted across our city and landed at Her Majesty’s Theatre, and it’s full of sugary delight and decadent lashings of whipped, creamy goodness. Waitress the Musical has hit the stage, with the Australian premiere filling the air in our hometown with a…
Review: Ordinary Days Celebrates The Enduring Power Of Connection
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★★★★★ As we go about our day, hundreds of people will pass us by, each with their own story. Most of the time, we will never learn it. But every so often, something happens that intertwines our story with theirs. Bold & Blunt Creative’s production of Ordinary Days, written by…
