OBSERVER: Malthouse 2026
Vivia Hickman, Malthouse’s Executive Producer, says that hope was a guiding force in choosing productions to showcase for 2026.
An eclectic mix of old and new, including dance, drama, and comedy, is on offer.
Here are just some of the highlights.
The season kicks off with Black Light, starring real-life actor sisters Rachael and Lisa Maza.
Written and directed by Jada Alberts, Black Light underscores the power of family and Country, and features an all First Nations cast.
Directed by Jessica Arthur, Game. Set. Match, written by and starring Megan Wilding, is a revenge romantic comedy about tennis, “with a little bit of blood and strawberries” thrown in.
Bloomshed will present Jane Austen’s 1813 classic, Pride and Prejudice, in a bold reinterpretation.
Class, money, the property market, and the pursuit of love in the 21st century are lampooned in this “searing satire on polite society.”
Paul Capsis and Adam Noviello star in House of Rot: Grey Gardens, about Big and Little Edie Bouvier, the eccentric cousins of Jackie Kennedy.
Created by director Dino Dimitriadis and musical director Victoria Falconer, this new cabaret will feature a dazzling mix of classic, contemporary, and new music.
Stephanie Lake Company presents Vista, a dance in two halves that encourages the audience to question reality.
Kat Stewart debuts on the Malthouse stage in Break of Day, a new Australian work by Steve Rodgers about the Australian dream and its meaning for a single mother and her daughter.
Written by and starring Michelle Lim Davidson, Koreaboo aims to “bridge distance, time, language, and culture’ in her heartfelt debut play about an adoptee tracing her birth mother.
The season concludes with Artistic Director Dean Bryant’s reimagined production of All About Eve, starring the incomparable Christie Whelan Browne in both roles – aging star Margo and the ingénue Eve.
Kathryn Keeble

