Melbourne theatre and musicals in January

What do you get when you combine a multi-award-winning playwright, a two-time Tony nominee and the producer behind Fleabag and Baby Reindeer? A highlight of the 2025 Midsumma Festival line-up playing at Arts Centre Melbourne for a swift three-week run, that’s what. Read more.

Named for the number on Goodes’s iconic Sydney Swans guernsey, 37 is set not on the national stage of the AFL, but instead follows the Cutting Cove boys. The local team of this small coastal town has been stuck at the bottom of the ladder for too long and this season, they’re determined to scramble their way to the top. Read more. 

Depending on who you ask, Evan Hansen, the neurotic heart of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s 2015 smash-hit musical Dear Evan Hansen, is either a manipulative megalomaniac or a stumbling spokesperson for mental health with the edgy appeal of an anti-hero. Read more.

Thirty-Six is a powerhouse one-woman play that Bayley Turner has co-written with fellow trans hero Jo Clifford (The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven), in an international, intergenerational collaboration. Directed by Kitan Petkovski, it offers a multi-perspective insight into the trials and the triumphs of embracing yourself in this wild world. Read more.

From the moment the curtain rises, it’s clear this is a large-scale musical with all the belles, whistles and big bucks. Visual splendour is the MO here – think kaleidoscopic costumes, gasp-inducing illusions and spectacular lighting – and it’s easy to see why this show broke box office records at Brisbane’s QPAC. Read more.

They say you should never speak 'Macbeth' while in a theatre, lest you invite tragedy. The cast of the Australian Shakespeare Company's latest foray into the Scottish Play need not worry about that particular superstition, however, as they will be performing William Shakespeare's Macbeth outside in the Royal Botanic Gardens this summer. Read more.

Fall in love with life on a baking hot Greek island with the woman who has had enough of being unappreciated. 

“Don’t say maybe, maybe,” sang Natalie Bassingthwaighte on the track ‘Voodoo Child’, back in her Rogue Traders-fronting days. 

It may as well be the catchcry of frustrated housewife Shirley Valentine, who experiences a never-too-old awakening on an idyllic Greek island holiday in Willy Russell’s beloved one-woman play. It was adapted into a big-screen adventure for stage star Pauline Collins, who shared the limelight with Joanna Lumley and Tom Conti. Read more. 

Midsumma Festival, one of Melbourne’s most loved celebrations of LGBTQIA+ communities, is returning once more in 2025 with an electric three week-long party. The festival explores and platforms queer culture, amplifying marginalised voices through visual arts, theatre, film, cabaret and much more. Read more.