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[title]When Kip Williams took the reins as artistic director of Sydney Theatre Company seven years ago, he was on a mission to increase the amount of Australian plays the company, one of the nation’s leading theatre organisations, was putting on stage. Looking at STC’s 2024 Season announcement, it’s fair to say that he’s come good on that promise.
Eleven of the 15 productions to be staged by STC in 2024 are written or adapted by Australian playwrights. We’ll also see the world premiere of four brand new Australian plays, and the return of some smash-hit shows from previous years that audiences are still hungry to see – such as Suzie Miller’s RBG: Of Many, One starring Heather Mitchell, and Justine Clarke in Joanna Murray-Smith’s Julia.
“The fact that the bedrock of what we're doing is Australian writing is so exciting to me, and that makes the season really, really thrilling,” says Williams. This is also the first season led by Williams that has not been impacted by building works or the pandemic, and all four of STC’s theatres will be in operation for the first time during his reign.
Perhaps the most anticipated part of the new program, however, will be the third and final instalment of Williams’ gothic “cine-theatre” trilogy – Bram Stoker’s Dracula, with the talented Zahra Newman playing all of the characters. Williams created waves when his first cine-theatre masterpiece, The Picture of Dorian Gray, opened in early 2020. Combining live theatre and cinema techniques to facilitate a solitary actor (the brilliant Eryn Jean Norvill) to play all 26 characters, Time Out hailed it “a reinvention of theatre”. The mesmerising production went on to play across multiple cities, two Sydney encores, and in January 2024 producer Michael Cassell is taking it to the West End with Sarah Snook. In 2022, Dorian was followed by a reinvention of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, with two actors sharing three roles in the classic science fiction thriller.
“I've been really overwhelmed and humbled by the reaction to both Jekyll and Dorian, and that has allowed me to fulfil this artistic vision of making a trilogy of works,” says Williams.
“I couldn't be more lucky as a writer-director than to be working with Zahra Newman on this production. She's just an unparalleled powerhouse of the stage, and I think getting to see her create every character in Bram Stoker's novel is going to be a life-changing experience for audience members.”
Meanwhile, musical theatre fans will be thrilled to see that we’re finally getting an Australian premiere of Dear Evan Hansen. STC is partnering with the Michael Cassel Group to bring us the first original staging of the hit musical to be licenced since its originating Broadway production. Dean Bryant, the same director behind STC and MTC’s co-production of Fun Home, is reimagining this raw tale of teen angst amidst tragedy.
Williams elaborates: “It’s great when Australian audiences can see Broadway versions recreated here. But there's something really special about having Australian theatre-makers interpret that work for an Australian audience, and bring their originality, perspective and their insights to these incredible texts. So having Dean lead that team and create his particular take on the Dear Evan Hansen behemoth is going to be one of the big nights of theatre in 2024.”
It’s time to start blocking out your calendar and looking into ticket subscriptions, STC is not messing around in 2024. Read on for our full breakdown of what’s in store.
Sydney Theatre Company’s 2024 Season
A Fool In Love
Feb 6-Mar 17
By Van Badham
After La dama boba by Lope de Vega
Directed by Kenneth Moraleda
Featuring the comedic talents of Melissa Kahraman (Hubris & Humiliation), Contessa Treffone (On the Beach) and Megan Wilding (The Importance of Being Earnest), A Fool in Love comes from the deliciously wicked pen of Van Badham (Banging Denmark).
Williams says: “Van Badham has the most explosive insight into the way that love and sex and power and money and class intertangle with themselves in contemporary life. This play is an adaptation of an old farce by the Spanish playwright Lope de Vega, crashing into the 21st century via bimbo-core to make audiences roll in the aisles with laughter.
RBG: Of Many, One
Feb 9-Mar 23
By Suzie Miller
Directed by Priscilla Jackman
When Heather Mitchell embodied the late, great Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Suzie Miller’s play dedicated to the feminist icon in November 2022, her performance lingered with everyone who witnessed it. (Just look at our four-star review.) A great legal mind, feminist and, later, improbably, a pop culture darling, Ginsburg continues to have an outsized impact on culture. Don’t miss your second chance to see this sublime production.
Into the Shimmering World
Apr 2-May 19
By Angus Cerini
Directed by Paige Rattray
This epic and poetic story of love, loss and renewal comes from the monumental playwriting talents of Angus Cerini (The Bleeding Tree, Wonnangatta). Legendary Aussie actors Colin Friels and Kerry Armstrong play Ray and Floss, a farming couple who have lived off the land their entire adult lives.
“This is another work of his [Cerini] that explores the Australian psyche and Australian landscape with his rich and beautiful poetic language. He's taking a visceral writing look at the Australian dream and that colonial idea of owning some land and working on the land. And he asks the question, how sustaining and how right is the pursuit of that dream?” says Williams.
No Pay? No Way!
Apr 6-May 11
By Dario Fo and Franca Rame
Adapted by Marieke Hardy
Directed by Sarah Giles
When No Pay? No Way! opened in early 2020 it was instantly met with standing ovations and glowing reviews. Then, the pandemic drove audiences out of the theatres. Now, one of Sydney Theatre Company’s funniest and most beloved productions in recent years returns to the Drama Theatre at the Sydney Opera House and to a world more in need of its wild, farcical wisdom than ever. “This work was very interesting and funny when it first premiered, but it's become even more resonant today,” says Williams.
Directed by the award-winning Sarah Giles (The Importance of Being Earnest) and adapted from the original Italian by ABC comedy powerhouse Marieke Hardy, the play follows two women who, fed up with the rising cost of living, lead an uprising at a local supermarket that sees a group of angry housewives shoplift ‘til they drop.
The President
Apr 13-May 18
By Thomas Bernhard
Translated by Gitta Honegger
Directed by Tom Creed
Australian acting legend Hugo Weaving returns to the stage for this one, joined by one of Ireland’s greatest actors, Olwen Fouéré (Terminus). In a first-time co-production, STC will join forces with Dublin’s renowned Gate Theatre to mount this genius piece of 20th century playwriting.
In this dark comedy, Weaving and Fouéré play the President and First Lady of a small, unnamed country, whose regime is under siege. Despite a revolution brewing right outside their front door, the couple seem frozen in time. What follows is a mysterious trip into a complicated marriage and an unravelling political system.
Williams says: “It's a phenomenal opportunity for audiences in both cultures to see this great play, but also for artists from both cultures to have their work seen on either side of the world. So I'm hugely excited for this, it's going to be an electric night of powerhouse performance.”
Stolen
Jun 6-Jul 6
By Jane Harrison
Directed by Ian Michael
Sydney Theatre Company welcomes back Muruwari playwright Jane Harrison (The Visitors) who first penned this classic Australian play in 1998. STC resident director and Wilman Noongar man Ian Michael (Constellations) will helm this bold new production of a play that shines a light on the ongoing injustices faced by the First Nations people of this country.
“One of the things that's so remarkable about Jane's play is that it is non-linear in its structure, it jumps backwards and forwards between various time periods in these character's lives as it builds this deeply moving and powerful portrait of the impact of the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families,” Williams explains. “You know, and I wish that we're at a point where such a story doesn't need to be told. But the sad reality is that it does need to be told.”
Dracula
Jul 2-Aug 4
By Bram Stoker
Adapted and directed by Kip Williams
First came The Picture of Dorian Gray. Then, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Now comes the final and most ambitious part of Kip Williams’ already legendary Gothic ‘cine-theatre’ trilogy, and with it – one of the most iconic figures in world literature: the prince of darkness, Count Dracula.
Starring the award-winning Zahra Newman (Fences, Julius Caesar) performing every single role, this sweeping adventure will combine live video, pre-recorded film and a superhuman live performance in the final piece in one of the most innovative theatrical feats in recent history.
Cost of Living
Jul 18-Aug 18
By Martyna Majok
Directed by Priscilla Jackman and Dan Daw
Nominated for four Tony Awards for its smash-hit run on Broadway, and the winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Cost of Living is held up as one of the best pieces of new writing to emerge from the US in the last decade. Now, we finally get an Australian premiere. Through a series of vignettes, Martyna Majok’s script follows the development of two relationships.
Williams explains: “Obviously, that phrase [cost of living] is alive and in the air a lot at the moment, so this play is very resonant. But that title speaks both to the financial realities of living in the 21st century, but also the intersection of people with lived experience of a disability and those who are able bodied.”
Featuring and co-directed by Dan Daw (The Dan Daw Show), this brand new production will also feature Kate Hood (Escaped Alone, What If If Only) and Olivier Award-winning Philip Quast (Do not go gentle...).
Julia
Sep 5-Oct 12
By Joanna Murray-Smith
Directed by Sarah Goodes
Red’s back. Run, don’t walk, to secure tickets to the special encore season of one of 2023’s most talked about theatrical experiences. The brilliantly talented Justine Clarke returns to step into the shoes of Australia’s first female prime minister and deliver an exhilarating performance that will be remembered for generations. Penned by Joanna Murray-Smith, the play traced the path of events that led to Julia Gillard’s now famous ‘Misogyny Speech’, culminating in awe-inspiring verbatim performance.
Golden Blood 黄金血液
Sep 13-Oct 13
By Merlynn Tong
Directed by Tessa Leong
In a once-grand apartment, two estranged siblings – 14-year-old Girl (played by Tong) and 21-year-old Boy (Charles Wu) – are thrown back together after the unexpected death of their Mother, and thrust into Singapore’s criminal underground. Following a celebrated premiere season at Griffin Theatre Company in 2022, this transfer production of Golden Blood is the Sydney Theatre Company playwriting debut of Merlynn Tong, and a family story that is somehow both sweeping and intimate – partly inspired by events in Tong’s own life.
Williams says: “I was really blown away by Tong’s writing. She has such a unique and incredible new voice in the Australian playwriting landscape, and so I really wanted more audiences to see this play. And Tessa Leong's production is just bombastic, it’s filled with youth and energy and it's super exciting theatre-making from the whole team really.”
Dear Evan Hansen
Oct 12-Nov 17
Book by Steven Levenson; Music and Lyrics by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul
Directed by Dean Bryant
Dear Evan Hansen is the raw, moving and inspiring story of a socially anxious highschooler who is suddenly thrust into the spotlight when he inadvertently invents an important role for himself at the centre of a local tragedy. If you were let down by the 2021 movie adaptation on this much loved musical, just wait til you get a load of what STC is going to achieve with the input of the Michael Cassel Group (the company that brought Hamilton and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to our shores).
Sunday
Oct 28-Dec 7
By Anthony Weigh
Directed by Sarah Goodes
Written by the acclaimed playwright Anthony Weigh, this instant classic is inspired by the stories and myths of the Heide Circle – the renowned group of friends, lovers, and rivals that produced some of Australia’s most beloved visual artists, including Albert Tucker and Joy Hester. It is also the story of the torrid and passionate affair between art patron Sunday Reed – played by Nikki Shiels (The Picture of Dorian Gray) – and the Circle’s most famous member, Sidney Nolan, played by Josh McConville (Do not go gentle...).
This lush, romantic, and transporting portrait of an Australian icon is having its Sydney premiere after a sellout, rave-reviewed season in Melbourne. As Williams puts it: “It's like Australian art history meets a Tennessee Williams play.”
Sweat
Nov 11-Dec 15
By Lynn Nottage
Directed by Shari Sebbens
STC resident director Shari Sebbens brings back together the creative team from STC’s celebrated production of Fences for another contemporary American play. Since its premiere, Sweat has captured audience imaginations in extended runs on both Broadway and the West End. In this new production, Sebbens will create a moving and absorbing piece featuring a cast of eight incredible actors – including icons Paula Arundell and Lisa McCune.
“Lynn Nottage is the most produced writer in America this year, and for the first time, she's going to have a play at STC,” explains Williams. “This play tells the story of where Trumpism came from in America. It looks at the working class workers of America and the social, political and economic pressures that brought about that fault line of division in the United States – and, this play is going to be on during the lead up to the American election next year.”
American Signs
Jun 15-Jul 14
By Anchuli Felicia King
Directed by Kenneth Moraleda
The remarkable Catherine Văn-Davies (Constellations) stars in this electrifying one-performer show that delves deep into the mess of corporate America and lays bare the brutal truth of what it means to “climb the ladder”’.
Williams says: “It's essentially Anchuli Felicia King [who wrote The Poison of Polygamy] writing an explosive monologue for Catherine Văn-Davies. I mean, what more could you want? …It smashes feminism and corporate workplace politics up against race, power and money. And it's funny, and sharp and dark.”
Cicada
Sep 18-Oct 13
Adapted from CICADA by Shaun Tan
By Arielle Gray, Luke Kerridge & Tim Watts
Directed by Luke Kerridge
This new adaptation brings master-storyteller Shaun Tan’s much-loved picture book to life in a stunning puppet show, presented by Sydney Theatre Company and created by one of Australia’s premier children’s theatre companies – Barking Gecko Theatre.
A small story of epic proportions, Cicada is an allegory of difference, resilience and the light we all have inside ourselves. Children and adults will love this enchanting tale about finding one’s place in the world.
Williams says: “The puppetry in this, the way they create the cicada using puppets and their own bare hands, is one of the most beautiful images I've seen created on the stage. It's so delicate, joyous, and moving. Young theatre lovers are going to just adore it.”
Season Packages for Sydney Theatre Company in 2024 are availiable now. Find out more and book here.