There is something special about reaching the end of three years of acting training. By the time a graduating class arrives at its final Showcase, the audience has the opportunity to see not just what they can do, but the remarkable range of work they have explored along the way.
For the third-year Acting students of Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University, the 2026 Bachelor of Acting Showcase marks the culmination of that journey, and a celebration of a cohort whose training has been defined by talent, dedication and artistic growth.
This is the seventh cohort to graduate from the Bachelor of Acting course, which commenced in 2018. The course began in the humble surroundings of Burke Street Studios and has since grown into a program based at the Cultural Centre in the heart of Southbank, placing its students among Brisbane’s major performing arts institutions and alongside industry professionals at neighbouring QPAC.
Program Director Jacqui Somerville has overseen the course’s growth into an important pathway for emerging actors, and this year’s graduating class now joins the ranks of those who have gone before them.
I have personally had the privilege of following this cohort throughout their training, attending three of their public performances. That journey began with Understory in 2025, an original work devised by the students with playwright Claire Christian, before moving into their third-year productions, Nell Gwynn and August: Osage County.
Those productions presented two very different theatrical challenges. Nell Gwynn invited the students to embrace the energy and theatricality of Restoration comedy while also finding the emotional depth beneath its historical setting.
August: Osage County, meanwhile, demanded a very different kind of commitment, asking the ensemble to sustain the intensity and complexity of one of contemporary theatre’s most demanding family dramas.
Showcase brings that breadth together in one final celebration. Presented for the second year in a row in the Diane Cilento Studio at Queensland Theatre Company, the intimate black-box space creates an opportunity to see the graduating actors up close as they move between a diverse selection of scenes, characters and theatrical styles.
The evening opens with Georgia Cassidy in a scene from Laura Mannio’s The Wedding Toast, with the ensemble joining her on stage to add depth. From there, the Showcase moves into an adaptation of Parallel Lives by Mo Gaffney and Kathy Najimy, bringing the women of the cohort together in an endearing and amusing scene complete with Southern accents.
The male members of the cohort explore a very different tone in a scene from Claire Christian’s Pash, based on Gordon Graham’s The Boys. Rather than presenting complete productions, these selections offer brief windows into larger works, allowing the audience to experience the range of styles and storytelling approaches the students have encountered during their training.
Comedy features prominently throughout the evening. Bonny Treloar explores the highly physical world of Richard Bean’s One Man, Two Guvnors, while Oliver Hunter tackles a comic rant from Laura Wade’s Posh.
Mia Thomas brings the playful world of Dating Hamlet by Bruce Kane to the stage, while Jack Miller and Oliver Hunter delve into the wonderfully absurd world of Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary!, complete with its running joke about the horses laughing.
The dramatic selections shift the mood again. Michael Hawkins takes on the famous “Tomorrow” speech from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, welcoming an opportunity to engage with classical text. Jamie Watson and Naire McDonald explore the intimacy of Brian Friel’s Translations in a scene centred on two people finding a connection despite a language barrier.
Musical theatre provides another opportunity to demonstrate the breadth of the performers’ skills. Christina Morgan brings the larger-than-life world of Smash to the stage with Let’s Be Bad, while Ben Jason-Easton and Olivia Van Gool explore the quieter, more intimate world of Once. And bringing the evening to a suitably entertaining close, Ellie Dawson takes on Girl Scout from Beetlejuice the Musical.
Across the evening, the selections move from Shakespeare to contemporary comedy, from intimate drama to musical theatre, from ensemble scenes to solo pieces and from heightened physical comedy to moments of genuine tenderness.
That variety is perhaps the greatest gift of a Showcase. Rather than attempting to tell one story, it gives graduating actors the opportunity to show audiences the many different stories they are capable of telling. For this cohort, it also offered a final snapshot of three years of training and collaboration.
From the in-house Chekhov production in their first year of training, to the second year Shakespeare school’s touring unit, to the three public performances, the Class of 2026 has had the opportunity to stretch themselves across an extraordinary range of theatrical worlds.
The Showcase may mark the end of their formal training at the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University, but it is also the beginning of the next chapter. Twelve actors now step into the wider industry, carrying with them three years of training, collaboration, experimentation and discovery.
Congratulations to the Class of 2026. We can’t wait to see where the next chapter takes you.
The Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University 3rd year Bachelor of Acting Showcase runs until 3 October at the Diane Cilento Studio, Queensland Theatre Company. 78 Montague Road South Brisbane Qld 4101.
Tickets are available here.
Website: https://www.queenslandconservatorium.com.au/
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/qldcon.acting/
Photo credits: Hermione Devlin
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