OIBSERVER: MTC 2027 Season
Melbourne Theatre Company Artistic Director and CEO Anne-Louise Sarks has revealed the ambitious 2027 season – 11 productions spanning bold new Australian work,sharp provocations on classics, compelling dramas and international hits.
“Our new season highlights who we are: a company that backs Australian artists, commissions new Australian work and gives artists the support to continue making ambitious theatre from the ground up,” says CEO Anne-Louise Sarks.
Highlights include Rachel Griffiths’s return to Melbourne Theatre Company for the first time in 20 years, to star as the largely forgotten modernist painter Clarice Beckett in the premiere of Clarice, a new work developed through a unique creative collaboration between Griffiths, AACTA Award-winning writer Trudy Hellier and multi-award-winning director Simon Phillips.
Actor and playwright Kate Mulvany embarks on a virtuosic one-person tour de force, embodying all the characters of Shakespeare’s Richard III, directed by Ian Michael.
The Australian premiere of Stereophonic, the most Tony Award-nominated play in Broadway history, featuring an original score by Will Butler, formerly of Arcade Fire.
The Australian premiere of John Proctor is the Villain – seven Tony Award nominations, two Outer Critics Circle Awards, and a feature film in development with Tina Fey and Sadie Sink attached. Directed by Anne-Louise Sarks.
A premiere reimagining of H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds, adapted by award-winning Wirlomin Noongar writer Claire G. Coleman and co-created and directed by Joe Paradise Lui – turning the classic invasion story inside out by looking at it through a new lens.
Another world premiere inspired by a real meeting between Bob Hawke, Kerry Packer and CliveLloyd, in Julian Larnach’s Rebels, directed by Jessica Arthur.
A First Nations road trip crime caper Dirty Diamonds, written and directed by Abbie-lee Lewis,inspired by the real Argyle diamond mine heist – a co-production with Belvoir, in association with Yirra Yaakin and Rising.
The new musical spectacular, Phar Lap: The Electro-swing Musical, fresh from winning Best Production of a Musical at the Sydney Theatre Awards. It’s an all-singing,all-dancing ensemble with an infectious song list inspired by Duke Ellington and Daft Punk. Directed by Sheridan Harbridge.
A major new work from Andrew Bovell, Every Second Wednesday, directed by Sarah Goodes. Sigrid Thornton, Nadine Garner and Erik Thomson to front Edward Albee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning A Delicate Balance, directed by Iain Sinclair. The Australian premiere of The Authenticator by Winsome Pinnock – directed by Zindzi Okenyo.
Cheryl Threadgold