Kamishibai Performer In Japan.
Welcome to the wonderful world of kamishibai – a centuries-old Japanese storytelling tradition.
Gavin Webber and Kate Harman in The Mathematics of Longing.
Art Work Agency
In an ambitious new work of theatre and dance, performers read out mathematical theories then build scenes around them.
Happy and Holy: Barry Otto as Tockey, Ruth Cracknell as Cecilia McManus, Graham Rowe as Denny, Ron Hadrick as O'Halloran in a 1982 production by the Sydney Theatre Company.
Photographer David Wilson.
The 1970s transformed Australian drama. It was a time of imaginative brilliance as the Empire wrote back.
Francesco Francia, Madonna and Saints (detail).
How would a Jacobean servant react to a trumpet flourish?
Annabel Matheson as Liddy in Terrestrial.
Kate Pardey.
In Terrestrial, teenager Libby wants aliens to whisk her across the galaxy to escape her abusive father.
Ashley Lyons and Heather Mitchell as Cate McGregor pre- and post-transition in Still Point Turning.
© Philip Erbacher
Still Point Turning highlights the stigma and controversy around Australia’s most high-profile transgender person.
Yossi Zwecker/Wikipedia
Opera goers are high multiplier voters. Win them over and you might get a few more supporters along the way.
After opening in 1943, “Oklahoma!” was an instant hit and had a run of over 2,000 performances.
Charles Lucas/AP Photo
The Broadway hit offered an escape from the anxieties of World War II. But the America it portrayed – unified, patriotic and white – rings hollow today.
Shutterstock
Livecasting in cinemas is only part of the solution in the struggle to attract larger and younger audiences.
Helen Morse lends her voice to the poetry of Memorial.
Shane Reid
Memorial brings Alice Oswald’s poetic retelling of the Iliad to the stage, with its furious indictment of war and its aftermath.
Rachel Burke as Olivia (left), Miranda Daughtry as Annie (centre) and Anna Steen as Ruby in In The Club.
Sia Duff
A new work by playwright Patricia Cornelius tackles the prevalence of sexual assault in Australia’s sports culture. In The Club is engaging, poetic and relevant to our times.
Nat Randall on stage and screen in The Second Woman.
The Second Woman
In The Second Woman, actor Nat Randall replays the same scene, across 24 hours, with 100 different men. Leaving the audience to join her on stage is a thought-provoking experience.
French-Canadian actor Yves Jacques in Robert Lepage’s The Far Side of the Moon.
Toni Wilkinson
This Perth Festival show, soon to come to Adelaide, contemplates both the mysteries of the cosmos and one man’s inner life.
The opening scene of The Cake Man, recreating the arrival of the British in Australia.
Currency Press
Robert Merritt, author of The Cake Man, grew up on the Erambie Mission at Cowra. His play captures the grinding poverty and emotional paralysis of the mission experience.
Julie Hale (left) and Joshua Jenkins in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, an adaptation of Mark Haddon’s novel.
Brinkhoff/Mögenburg.
A theatre production of Mark Haddon’s much-loved novel is affirmative and at times deeply sentimental, with a hi-tech set, and exacting choreography.
Craig McLachlan (centre), playing the role of Frank-N-Furter, rehearses with the cast of the Rocky Horror Show in 2015.
Paul Miller/AAP
It is important for actors to ‘de-role’ after performing their character – but this is not something they routinely do.
Maura Tierney (second from left) plays Germaine Greer, Scott Shepherd (far left) and Ari Fliakos (second from right) both play Norman Mailer, and Greg Mehrten as Diana Shilling (far right).
Prudence Upton
The Town Hall Affair is a recreation of a 1971 debate between Germaine Greer and other feminists and Norman Mailer. It feels exceptionally prescient in 2018.
The cast of Muriel’s Wedding: the Musical, a co-production between Sydney Theatre Company and Global Creatures.
© Lisa Tomasetti
From Muriel’s Wedding to a suite of budding new shows, 2017 was a great year for original Australian musicals.
A scene from The Cocoa Butter Club: Midsumma Special, a special cabaret performance that will make its Arts Centre Melbourne debut on Friday, January 19 2018. It uses a NOTAFLOF ticketing system.
A new form of ticketing is becoming more popular in the arts – and it might help us be more charitable than before.
Actors are often required to tap profound emotions in their performance, which is one of the reasons for poor mental health in the industry.
Shutterstock.com
While we appreciate an actor’s craft on the stage, the deep emotions they draw on in performance take their toll on mental health. Actors need to “take off” their characters to return to normal life.