VISTA review | Malthouse Theatre

What if you could watch the same story twice, but see something completely different the second time? This is the intriguing premise of Stephanie Lake's new dance work VISTA, which presents two acts as two contrasting versions of the same reality. The first is a precise, monochromatic world of dynamic physicality, music and light. After the interval, this previously seen world returns in a bold burst of colour, with familiar movements and ideas transformed by a fresh perspective. Through this clever structural conceit, VISTA challenges the audience to reconsider what they think they know. As choreography, relationships and images return in altered forms, the work demonstrates how dramatically context can change our understanding of an experience.

Our Seventh String review | The Motley Bauhaus

In Our Seventh String, six friends and former housemates reunite at their Melbourne sharehouse after seven years apart. Over the course of the evening, long-held rivalries, love confessions, heartbreaks, and old resentments are reopened as the group contends with the changes they have all undergone in the intervening years, and what happens when the people you have spent so much of your life with are no longer the people with whom you should spend the rest of it.

Paperfolk Theatre is a new independent theatre company with emphasis on folk-inspired work, so it is no surprise that music plays a significant role in Our Seventh String. With music and lyrics by Emily Napolitano, Henry Smith and Lauren Green, the production features some moving and heartfelt songs, with well-crafted melodies and a variety of instruments that complement the various voices. With seven performers, there is a great range of vocal styles, but it is the duet with Frances (Miriam Ellins) and Thea (Harper Elwyn) that stands out as a particular highlight.

Heartbreak Hotel review | Arts Centre Melbourne

Heartbreak is one of life's few universal experiences, yet no two people navigate it in quite the same way. In Heartbreak Hotel, New Zealand theatre-maker Karin McCracken transforms the aftermath of a failed relationship into an inventive blend of comedy, reflection, music, and science, inviting audiences to laugh at the messiness of love while recognising a little of themselves along the way.

Heartbreak Hotel is an exploration of what happens after a relationship ends, not just emotionally, but physically and psychologically. McCracken draws on her own experience, scientific research and pop culture to examine the strange ways heartbreak manifests, from obsessive thoughts and unanswered questions to the physical response to loss. Rather than presenting a linear narrative, McCracken constructs the work as a collage of ideas, where seemingly disparate threads gradually reveal themselves to be woven together, resulting in a performance that is intellectually curious and authentic. Her writing is witty and self-aware while acknowledging the pain of heartbreak.

Bring It On: The Musical review | Theatrical Inc | The National Theatre

Bring It On: The Musical carries the legacy of one of the most beloved teen comedies of the early 2000s. The 2000 film, starring Kirsten Dunst and Eliza Dushku, became a pop culture favourite thanks to its sharp humour, fierce rivalries, and endlessly quotable cheerleading drama. More than a decade later, the story made the leap to the stage with a musical adaptation featuring a score by Tom Kitt and Lin-Manuel Miranda, lyrics by Miranda and Amanda Green, and a book by Jeff Whitty. Rather than simply retelling the film, the musical takes the spirit fingers of Bring It On and spins it into a new story set in the same high-stakes environment of competitive cheer.

The musical follows Campbell, the accomplished captain of the Truman High cheer squad, whose world is upended when a redistricting decision forces her to transfer schools. Struggling to find her place at Jackson High, Campbell becomes involved with a very different cheer team, sparking rivalries, friendships, and a battle for national championship glory.

Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) review | Athenaeum Theatre

More than two centuries after its publication, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice remains one of literature's most beloved romances, celebrated for its social observations, sparkling wit and enduring examination of class, marriage and first impressions. Published in 1813, the novel follows Elizabeth Bennet and the enigmatic Mr Darcy as misunderstandings and prejudice gradually give way to love.

In Pride and Prejudice (*sort of), writer Isobel McArthur gives Austen's classic a modern makeover. Told from the perspective of the household servants, with just five performers - Amy Lehpamer, Zoe Ioannou, Kaori Maeda-Judge, Ruby Shannon and Teo Vergara - playing every role, the Olivier Award-winning production combines breakneck costume changes, pop anthems and irreverent humour while retaining the heart of Austen's story. The result is an inventive reimagining of a tale that is fresh and funny.

Opera for the Dead | 祭歌 review | Arts House

Eight hours before stepping into Opera for the Dead | 祭歌, I had been at a funeral. It was a death that arrives without warning, even after a life well-lived. By the time I entered the space at Art House, the weight of the day had settled in. Rather than wondering how I might react, I found myself acutely aware of the strange symmetry, moving from a real farewell into an immersive exploration on life and death.

Created by Mindy Meng Wang and Monica Lim, the work fuses music, visuals and technology into a contemporary Chinese cyber-opera that is both ancient and strikingly modern. Before the show begins, the audience is gathered into a “waiting room”. Chanting hums through the space, cyclical and meditative, while an electronic sign suspended above us flashes the word REMEMBER, its glow washing over us like a quiet instruction. The atmosphere is deliberate, balanced between worlds.

Hear My Eyes - Terminator 2: Judgment Day review | Arts Centre Melbourne

It’s been roughly 20 years since I last watched Terminator 2. And it's been a decade since I last stepped into a Hear My Eyes presentation, back when they paired Xavier Dolan’s Heartbeats with an amazing live score by Melbourne’s GL. Both unforgettable. Both somehow left sitting in the “I need to revisit that” pile. Well, consider that rectified. Hear My Eyes have resurrected Terminator 2 and strapped it to a live, pulse-rattling score by Belgian electronic heavyweight Peter Van Hoesen. What this evening offers isn't just a rewatch, it’s a complete sensory overhaul. It's a blockbuster icon colliding with brooding, atmospheric techno. Propelled by electronic sound and framed by a laser show, it gives the film a new intensity and presence.

Terminator 2 is a classic, but this isn’t about revisiting it, it’s about the experience Hear My Eyes have built around it, starting with the music. Van Hoesen brings over four decades of expertise to the performance. Generally a solo artist, for this event he is joined by the Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio (MESS) Synthesiser Ensemble, gathered around a purpose-built liquid metal style table, where they, alongside lighting artist Robin Fox, perform and shape the sound and light in real time.

Homophonic! review | Midsumma Festival | Theatre Works

It's been 16 years since Homophonic! had its first performance. 16 years of championing and supporting LGBTIQ+ classical art music. So it feels almost criminal to have only just attended my first ever Homophonic! concert. Staged as part of the Midsumma Festival, with a string quintet and percussion, and voices of The Consort of Melbourne, Homophonic! is a vivid and deeply felt celebration of queer experiences, tracing stories of resistance, memory and community while looking toward what lies ahead.

Artistic Director and musician Miranda Hill also takes the role of MC, providing rich context for each of the pieces we are about to hear. Hill exudes a warmth and openness to her introductions, allowing the audience to grasp not only the compositions themselves but the meaning and purpose behind them. This elevates the six performances beyond music, turning them into an experience that resonates emotionally and intellectually, and leaving a real sense of connection with the stories being told.

Saturday Night Fever review | The Athenaeum Theatre

Saturday Night Fever follows Tony Manero, a young man from Brooklyn trying to escape the grind of his working-class life through disco, ambition, and the hope of love. The musical immerses the audience into the glittering, pulsating world of 1970s disco, but beneath the sequins and platform shoes, it touches on darker realities of family conflict, personal trauma, and the pressures of growing up. While the show’s set, costumes, and music vividly capture the era and energy of the dance floor, the tension between its flashy, celebratory style and the weight of its serious themes creates a complex, sometimes uneasy viewing experience.

2025 My Melbourne Arts Awards

For twelve years now, I’ve been publishing my favourite theatre of the year. It started as a simple best-of list and slowly became my ritual, part celebration, part love letter to the Melbourne theatre scene. But for 2025, I’m shaking it up! :)

Instead of crowning just one “best show”, this year I’m recognising the people behind the work. The directors, performers, writers, designers, and creative forces who made this year what it was. Fourteen categories, because the performing arts is never just one thing, and neither is excellence. (In retrospect, there's other categories I should have considered - namely Best Clown, Best Cabaret Artist, Best Dancer and Best Experimental - and will consider these for inclusion in the 2026 MMA Awards.)

I say some version of this every year, because it never stops being true. The shows that stay with you longest are not always the big, glossy productions with a marketing budget and recognisable names. Sometimes it’s the little show that ran for four nights and played to ten people that absolutely wrecks you. Support independent theatre makers and venues. Some tickets cost less than $30 and can deliver the most original, daring, and affecting work you’ll see all year.

There’s already plenty to be excited about in 2026. Take a risk. See something you’ve never heard of. Walk into a space you’ve never been to. Melbourne theatre thrives on curiosity, and these awards exist to celebrate exactly that.

And with that, here are the nominees and winners in the 2025 My Melbourne Arts Awards:

Gus The Frog Spits Bars (One Man's Response To Existential Dread) review | Melbourne Fringe | The Motley Bauhaus

A frog suddenly finds itself hurled over 100 kilometres from its home in the River Torrens to the Clare Valley, where a mysterious curse is wreaking havoc on its residents and their land, and Gus is determined to get to the bottom of it. Gus the Frog Spits Bars (one man's response to existential dread), created and performed by Angus Leighton, is a wild, fast-paced, and absurdly funny ride, blending rap, inventive storytelling, and pure Fringe exhuberance into an adventure like no other. 

Nobody participates in a Festival because they have to. They do it because they want to. But honestly, if there were an award for the Happiest Fringe Performer, it would without a doubt go to Leighton. Watching him on stage is like catching a glimpse of unadulterated joy in motion. There’s a genuine sparkle in his eyes, a buoyancy in his step, and a warmth in his smile that makes the audience instantly at ease and connect with him.

Requiem for a Cuddle review | Melbourne Fringe | Fitzroy Town Hall

Taking my seat for Requiem for a Cuddle, it was hard not to feel intimidated and curious. I mean it's not every day you walk into a room to be surrounded by an 80-strong choir all wearing black suits, standing still and staring at us. All wearing black balaclavas. It’s this strange, surreal sight that Harrison Ritchie-Jones plays with, blending choral singing, dance and movement, and sound into an experience that sparks a profound sense of community and connection. Amid this eerie, mesmerizing tableau, two human bodies emerge, guiding us into the choreography and linking us intimately and communally.



Paired with Michaela Tancheff, the two perform hypnotic sequences that reveal the intricacies of the body and its remarkable capabilities, their muscles coiling and stretching in seamless rhythm. The support and strength they offer one another to succeed mirrors that which we need in our own lives. At one point, they collapse to the floor in a tight wrap, rolling gracefully down the aisle and through the audience, drawing us into their shared dependence and vulnerability.



Motion Sickness review | Melbourne Fringe | Trades Hall

There’s something exhilarating and nauseating about being alive right now - information flying at us from all directions, our brains struggling to keep up. Motion Sickness, the latest work from a2 company, takes these feelings and turns them into theatre: a charged collision of projections, sound, and language that mirrors the sensory barrage of the digital age. Performed with throbbing live music and restless physicality, it propels its audience to the brink of chaos before pulling them back toward something startlingly visceral.
 
On stage are writer and performer Ben Ashby, and composer and performer Toby Leman. And then Ashby begins sharing thoughts that seem random at first - on marine snow, Sudan, Gaza, telephone companies - but there’s method to the mayhem. It's a lot to take in, but that's the point. There is a lot going on in the world.

Piera Dennerstein is Bringing Plenty of Pleasure, Power, and Provocation to Melbourne Fringe

Pursuing Pleasure is a daring cabaret that mixes opera, pop, and cabaret sensibilities to explore what it means to accept joy, sensuality, and self-discovery. Piera Dennerstein, known for her dynamic performances, takes audiences on a journey that balances humour, vulnerability, and bold theatricality. Ahead of her Melbourne Fringe season, we sat down with the soprano to talk about how she transforms personal experiences into performance, the power of pleasure, and pushing boundaries on stage.

And no better way to begin than ask how a show that centres pleasure as a political and personal act has been a work in progress for years, even though Dennerstein didn't quite know it. "For the longest time, I thought I had nothing to say! I enjoyed writing and was a prolific poet, but whenever I was encouraged to write my own show, I felt I had no stories of value. In 2022, by chance, I saw Betty Grumble’s "Enemies of Grooviness Eat Sh!t" at Brisbane Festival," she recalls. "It was unlike anything I had seen before: a composting of her experiences with domestic abuse, culminating in a communal rebirth fuelled by sisterhood and the power of female pleasure. I related so strongly that I spent the entire ovation typing into my Notes app. I had finally found something I needed to say!"

a2 Company on going from Fringe Outsiders to Festival Firestarters (Melbourne Fringe Festival)

Not many Melburnians would have known a2 Company this time last year, but after taking home the Best in Theatre award at the 2024 Melbourne Fringe Festival for Running into the Sun, they’ve become a theatre company on everyone’s lips. Excitement is building as they prepare to return to the festival with their sophomore production, Motion Sickness.

It was an incredible season for the company, capped off by their win for Best Emerging Company. Toby Leman (composer and performer) and Ben Ashby (writer and performer) describe the experience as something like a fevered dream. "It still feels like a fairytale. I don't remember all the details from that night because it all happened so fast!" Leman says.

Listening Acts review | Melbourne Recital Centre

Chamber Made have long been shaking up Melbourne’s performing arts scene, constantly challenging and surprising audiences with what live art can entail, particularly in the realms of music, sound, and contemporary performance. Their latest project, Listening Acts, was a series of works - some live, some recorded - that reshape how we respond to aural experiences and technology, and how these elements connect to memory and identity. The three live performances in this program each carve out a distinct realm, yet together, they form a fluid, thought-provoking journey through acoustic textures that pushes the boundaries between audience and performance.

Aviva Endean's Tactile Piece for Human Ears is an exquisite meditation on sound and perception. Three binaural dummy heads, equipped with microphones, “hear” audio created via the custom ‘Hear Muffs’ that twist and transform the way we normally process sounds. These altered waves are then streamed directly to each audience member’s Bluetooth headphones. In the opening moments, Endean covers the dummy head’s ears, and the resulting noise feels like I'm rushing through the sky with the wind blowing in my face. It presents an invitation to enter with a clean slate and simply exist in the present as Endean interacts with the heads, generating a variety of sounds.

Ordinary Days review | fortyfivedownstairs

Ordinary Days has long been regarded as one of those small-scale musicals that carries a surprisingly large emotional weight, and Clovelly Fox’s production affirms just how effective Adam Gwon’s work can be in the right hands. With direction by Tyran Parke and an ensemble that leans into the show’s quiet humanity rather than overstatement, this staging offers a measured, thoughtful take on a piece that balances humour with poignancy.
 
The musical follows four young New Yorkers whose lives intertwine in unexpected ways. Warren is an ambitious artist striving to make his mark while caring for his mentor's cat after he is arrested. Deb, a graduate student from the middle of nowhere, navigates the city in search of opportunities her upbringing denied her. Meanwhile, Jason and his girlfriend Claire face the challenges of moving in together with the difficulty of letting go of the past.

Stories that Must be Heard: Truth in the Cage and Limbo review | Melbourne Recital Centre

Presented by Nightingale Performing Arts Australia, Stories That Must Be Heard brings refugee stories to the forefront and gives a voice to those that are too often ignored. The musical double bill of works composed by Chloé Charody shifted seamlessly between emotional intensity and breathtaking physicality, producing performances that are compelling and sobering.

Truth in the Cage is a movingly intimate song cycle tracing Mohammad Ali Maleki’s seven years in detention on Manus Island. Charody uses his poems to create music that is raw, unflinching, and resilient. Through themes of loss, identity, and optimism, the songs provide a searing insight into life under confinement, conveying the anguish and the enduring human spirit of someone who survived years of unjust incarceration.

Labyrinth review | Abbotsford Convent

For their latest offering, Forest Collective takes its audience into the labyrinthian myth of Theseus and Ariadne and their battle with the Minotaur, Ariadne’s half-brother. Set in the large and winding spaces within Abbotsford Convent, this opera / physical theatre performance of Labyrinth leads us into the maze alongside Theseus as he edges his way to the confrontation with the beast that has the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man.

Artistic Director of Forest Collective Evan J. Lawson serves as composer, music director and sound designer for this production and the touches he has put to these define and embolden the vision of this show. Alongside librettist Daniel Szesiong Todd, this is a captivating story that is told at a pace that allows you to be drawn deeper and deeper into this world.

Liza’s Good Judy review | The Motley Bauhaus

Legendary mother-and-daughter duo Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli reunite for an evening of storytelling and musical delights. Performed by Manda Rozen-Flannery as both celebrities, cabaret show Liza’s Good Judy explores the challenges and hardships experienced by them and the strong bond that existed between them.
 
Aesthetically, Rozen-Flannery captures Minnelli with her hair and outfits but further differentiation is needed during her scenes as Garland. The dialogue generally confirms who is speaking, but having distinction in mannerisms or physical appearance for each would benefit the show immensely.