Title: Nineteen Presented By: Javeenbah Theatre Company Genre: Contemporary Australian Drama Synopsis: What happens when you put a writer, a gym-rat, a tradie, and a stoner together in one share house? Add aggression, a shared ex, insecurity, and unwavering pride, and you have a recipe for manhood. But is that really what it means to be a man? Crafted from interviews with more than 90 young people, Nineteen explores masculinity among young Australian men, uncovering a confronting and complex world that few often want to talk about. The play examines the hope and fear of the next generation through four young men navigating relationships, vulnerability, identity, pride, and expectations of masculinity. Audition Date: Sunday 27 September 2026 Audition Time: 4:00pm–6:00pm Audition Location and Address: Javeenbah Theatre, 21 Stevens Street, Nerang QLD 4211 Audition Requirements: All auditionees will participate in a group audition lasting approximately two hours. The session may include theatre games and cold reads from the script. The audition panel will consist of members of the production creative team and representatives from Javeenbah Theatre, potentially including members of the Management Committee, Production Managers, and/or Artistic Director. A perusal copy of the script is available by emailing nineteenjaveenbah@gmail.com Audition Registration: Register for Nineteen Auditions Audition Pack: Nineteen Audition Pack Performance Dates: 28 November – 12 December 2026 Performance Times: Saturday 28 November – 7:30pm Sunday 29 November – 2:00pm Friday 4 December – 7:30pm Saturday 5 December – 7:30pm Sunday 6 December – 2:00pm Friday 11 December – 7:30pm Saturday 12 December – 7:30pm Performance Location: Javeenbah Theatre, 21 Stevens Street, Nerang QLD 4211 Rehearsal Dates: The final rehearsal schedule will be created in consultation with the successful cast. The creative team currently envisages rehearsing one weeknight and one weekend day/half-day each week. Warnings: Exploration of masculinity, aggression, insecurity, relationships, and other potentially confronting themes. The roles of Josh and George require an on-stage same-sex kiss. Performer Age: Adult performers. Creative Team: Director – Jake Goodall, Assistant Director – Tahnee Croaker Production Website: Javeenbah Theatre – Auditions Available Roles/Character Breakdown: Adam | Male-presenting | Stage age 18–30 | A stoner who doesn’t take care of himself. Adam is Noah’s younger brother. Noah | Male-presenting | Stage age 20–40 | A labourer and Adam’s older brother. Described as a naturally handsome young man with a winning smile. Josh | Male-presenting | Stage age 18–30 | A university student and gym junkie who works hard to look good and is always interested in the latest crazes. Immaculately presented and muscular. Please note: This role requires an on-stage same-sex kiss. George | Male-presenting | Stage age 18–30 | A university student described as an “average Joe.” He is a writer and storyteller. Please note: This role requires an on-stage same-sex kiss.

Title: Up and Running Presented By: Act1 Theatre Genre: Farce / Comedy Synopsis: Veteran TV talk-show host Patrick Sumner is desperate to impress his new producer, Reg Godfrey, and invites him to his smart London flat for drinks. His carefully laid plans quickly unravel with the arrival of Jenny, a young woman intent on infiltrating Patrick’s private life who even begins passing herself off as his wife. Things become considerably more complicated when Patrick’s actual wife, Kate, unexpectedly returns early from a trip to Paris. Patrick is soon caught in a fast-paced spiral of lies, misunderstandings, and increasingly desperate subterfuge. Written by Derek Benfield. Audition Dates and Times: Saturday 19 September – 2:00pm; Monday 21 September – 7:00pm Audition Location and Address: Act 1 Theatre/Old Shire Hall, 238 Gympie Rd, Strathpine QLD 4500 Audition Requirements: Open auditions for three female and three male performers. For further audition information, contact the production team at acttheatre2@gmail.com or Terry on 5433 0655. Performance Dates: 20 November – 6 December 2026 Performance Location: Act1 Theatre, Strathpine Rehearsal Dates: Rehearsal schedule TBC. Rehearsals will take place two nights per week and Sundays. Performer Age: Adult performers. Creative Team: Director – Terry Frawley Production Website: Act1 Theatre – Auditions Available Roles/Character Breakdown: Patrick Sumner – Male | 50s | A veteran TV talk-show host who is desperate to impress his new producer. Patrick’s attempts to maintain control of an increasingly ridiculous situation drive much of the play’s farce. Kate Sumner – Female | 40s | Patrick’s wife, whose unexpected early return from Paris throws Patrick’s elaborate attempts at deception into chaos. Trevor – Male | 30–50 | A neighbour. Jenny – Female | Young adult | Described as young and pretty. Jenny arrives at Patrick’s flat intent on infiltrating his private life and begins passing herself off as his wife, setting the play’s escalating misunderstandings in motion. Virginia – Female | Young adult | Described as young and pretty. Reg Godfrey – Male | 50s | Patrick’s new producer. Described as a severe older man whom Patrick is particularly desperate to impress.

Bring It On: The Musical Presented by: NAPA Broadway Extension Class Music: Tom Kitt & Lin-Manuel Miranda Lyrics: Amanda Green & Lin-Manuel Miranda Book: Jeff Whitty Date attended: 6 September 2026 Director: Hollie Andrew Choreographers: Mandy Morrison, Cooper Swain, and Michael Hughes Vocal Directors: Steffi Gowland and Laila Chequer De Souza Sound Design: John Taylor | Sound Operation: Kate Taylor Lighting Design: Hollie Andrew | Lighting Technician: Hunter Wall | Lighting Operator: Mandy Morrison Costumes: Kim Reynolds | Props & Set Dressing: Mandy Morrison Production Photography: David Reynolds “We’re like Hells Angels, but cheerleaders!” You need to have energetic performers, athletic dancers, and a cast willing to grin through absolute cardio hell to pull off Bring It On: The Musical. NAPA has all three. This show is high ponies, pom-poms, aerials, teenage ambition, hip-hop, and smiling while you suffer. It's tailor-made for a senior youth musical theatre company. These characters live at full volume, every social crisis feels like the apocalypse, and the cast has to belt out tunes while doing choreo that would put me in hospital. My cheerleading knowledge beforehand was limited to Glee, the Bring It On films, and one football game I went to in Boston 15 years ago, so I walked in like a total rookie. I’d also never seen this musical before. It's like being back in high school, but without the braces and bad haircuts. I was loving every minute of it! And if you’re expecting the Kirsten Dunst film, don’t. This is its own story. Campbell (Summer Andrews) is newly crowned captain of Truman High’s cheer squad and sees her senior year stretching ahead in one perfect glittery line. However, she's suddenly transferred to Jackson High, where there is NO cheer team at all. Campbell also kind of needs this humbling. Summer Andrews sings with a clean, modern solo sound and beautiful confidence to make Campbell’s early certainty completely believable. At Truman, she belongs. At Jackson, she is gloriously out of water, still operating in full cheer-captain mode while everybody around her is side-eyeing her. Her world is matching uniforms, pep, and hierarchy. Jackson’s is individuality. That contrast bursts onto the stage in “Do Your Own Thing.” The Truman cheerleaders are so peppy I suspect they could smile through minor surgery. Jackson arrives in greens, purples, blacks, cargos, jerseys, bandanas, and grunge. The dance crew serves from the second they hit that stage, throwing themselves into the choreography with swagger. Mandy Morrison, Cooper Swain, and Michael Hughes give the two schools distinct movement languages, with Truman’s cheer precision crashing beautifully against Jackson’s looser hip-hop energy. The person Campbell has to win over is Danielle (Nikki Swan-Pieterse). Her phenomenal voice has that bright, current pop quality that just keeps climbing, and during some of those upper notes, I genuinely started wondering where her ceiling was. There’s an Ariana flavor in her mix, but Swan-Pieterse still sounds uniquely herself. More importantly, she has the acting to match the vocals. Danielle doesn’t soften just because Campbell needs her to. Swan-Pieterse gives her pride, suspicion, and some serious fire when Campbell betrays the group’s trust. She digs right into that anger, and suddenly the conflict has weight beyond high-school drama. Side note, Swan-Pieterse casually flips then drops into the splits at one point. That got an actual WTF out of me. Danielle’s crew is a whole event. Danielle, Nautica (Madison Hirst), and La Cienega (Tasman Grew-Jones) kept giving me Rihanna, Beyoncé, and Tina Turner vibes. They all know how to hold focus without begging for it, and Grew-Jones in heels during “It’s All Happening” was particularly admirable! That number barrels along with rapping by Keanu Paunde-Schaffer, sharp hip-hop movements, and personality everywhere you look. Luan Fitzgerald commits wholeheartedly to whatever nonsense Twig is up to. He has a knack for throwing himself into every role I've seen him play, always embracing every opportunity for creativity and expression. Georgia Wellburn as Bridget was a definite crowd-favourite chaos agent. Underneath all her goofy mascot awkwardness, she has a heart of gold and an astonishing singing voice. “It Ain’t No Thing” absolutely slaps as Wellburn starts riffing like she plans to blow the roof off before she heads out. Lucas Brown as Randall offers some welcome breathing room from the competitive madness. His voice possesses an easy boy-band quality that pairs beautifully with Campbell’s in their duet, “Enjoy the Trip.” Brown and Andrews share a sweet chemistry, but Randall is somewhat underserved by a story whose most compelling relationships are between its girls. His rapid romantic subplot can feel comparatively incidental. Brown brings an appealingly different energy to the Jackson crowd, and I would love to see the show provide more space for that individuality, enhancing both Randall's role and the romance's purpose. But alas, I'm not the dramaturg. The Truman girls understand the comedy in their particular brand of weaponised cheerfulness. Saje Roberts as Skylar has cheerleader energy down to an art, with the airy cockiness of someone who probably practices smiling in mirrors. Elly Jansen as Eva is even more dangerous because she starts out so sweetly... Campbell’s wide-eyed admirer somehow becomes captain, steals her boyfriend for good measure, and evolves into a passive-aggressive queen bee with alarming speed. By “Killer Instinct” (the only song I knew beforehand), that sweetness has sharpened into full villain mode. Jansen has a strong pop belt to match, plus seriously impressive stamina. NAPA’s casting depth is wild. This is a huge company and every person up there can sing their heart out. Across the entire show, I didn’t hear one dodgy vocal moment. Steffi Gowland and Laila Chequer De Souza’s vocal direction is a major part of that success. Harmonies have punch, the huge ensemble never turns into an indistinguishable wall of sound, and the singers remain impressively secure even after demanding physical sequences. I also love how the company divides the workload between cheerleaders, dance crew, and vocalists. If every performer had to belt, flip, cheer, rap, act, AND dance full-out in every number, somebody would eventually pass out. Instead, each group can attack its own job properly. And huge shoutout to anyone doing the aerials! “If you do what you love with your time, then you win!” That idea keeps poking through all the glitter. Campbell talks about wasted potential and ambition as though standing still is a personal failure. Jackson forces her to reconsider her priorities. “Bring It On” closes Act One as the ultimate rivalry anthem, and the sheer size of this company gets to go completely feral. Truman and Jackson collide, the vocals pile up, and the stage feels enormous. The final competition “Cross the Line” has actual joy in it. The cast pours into the aisles to pump us up (although by that point we hardly needed encouragement.) Featured vocalists Addison Hartwig, India Caveglia, Lucy Bowyer, Star Montgomery, Kiran Sen, Callum Paget, Micah Hendrickson, and Zephaniah Orines help give “Legendary” and “Cross the Line” their full-company wall of sound, while the cheer and dance ensembles keep the stage alive with movement. Hollie Andrew directs the whole thing with a clear understanding of what makes this material both fun and fundamental. NAPA’s Bring It On knows exactly who should be doing this show: high-school musical theatre kids. They understand this level of drama in their bones. And after watching those routines, I hope somebody handed out sports drinks and told them they were allowed to lie down for a week.

Koreaboo Presented by: La Boite Theatre and Griffin Theatre Company Venue: Roundhouse Theatre, La Boite Date Attended: 5 September, 2026 Written by: Michelle Lim Davidson Directed by: Jessica Arthur Cast: Michelle Lim Davidson and Heather Jeong Photography: Stephen Henry “Seoul does not sleep.” Neither does Soon Hee, by the looks of things. She's the one-woman machine behind a 24-hour convenience store. She takes no days off and has little patience for the Australian girl who's just walked in wanting her attention. Unfortunately for Soon Hee, that girl isn't leaving anytime soon... She's her daughter. Presented by La Boite Theatre and Griffin Theatre Company as part of Brisbane Festival, Michelle Lim Davidson's Koreaboo follows Korean-born, Australian-raised Hannah (Davidson) as she travels to Seoul to spend time with her biological mother, Soon Hee (Heather Jeong). Hannah arrives carrying years of questions and sky-high expectations, only to find herself getting shooed out of Soon Hee's shop like a stray cat. So begins an exceptionally funny, heartfelt story about two women who share DNA, a passion for K-pop, and (at first) not much else in common. Writer and actor Michelle Lim Davidson was adopted from South Korea at four months old and raised in Australia, before reuniting with her Korean biological family in 2019. Koreaboo pulls from those experiences, looking beyond the reunion itself to what happens when you actually try to get to know each other. “Koreaboo” is a usually derogatory term for a non-Korean person who's intensely obsessed with Korean culture. Hannah has grown up in Australia looking unmistakably Korean, only to arrive in South Korea and realise she's now conspicuously Australian. She may as well have ‘foreigner’ tattooed on her forehead. Michelle Lim Davidson plays Hannah with a jittery eagerness that tells us how badly she wants this trip to go well. Every awkward pause needs filling. She chats, tries to help, attempts to speak Korean, and even busts out the All That Jazz routine from her childhood eisteddfod days. She desperately wants Soon Hee to recognise the Korean parts of her, proudly declaring, “I watch Squid Game WITHOUT the subtitles,” all while relying on a translation app that can barely facilitate a conversation, let alone a mother-daughter reunion. Heather Jeong as Soon Hee operates on an entirely different frequency. Her delivery is dry, blunt, and gloriously matter-of-fact. The language barrier adds another layer because Soon Hee doesn't waste English words cushioning an insult. “You go now!” becomes a fairly standard response to Hannah's attempts at bonding, like a verbal eject button. Mel Page's set packs the Roundhouse stage with instant noodles, knick-knacks, garden gnomes, and rows upon rows of colourful Korean snacks. “I like stuff. When I was small we didn't have much. Happy is hard when you are poor.” That line flipped my perspective on the shelves surrounding her. This woman who grew up without much now runs her family's mart crammed to the ceiling with stuff. She works there around the clock and refuses to hand responsibility to anybody else. Then Hannah walks straight into the controlled existence Soon Hee built during all the years they were apart and asks to be included in it. (Minor spoilers coming up.) Jessica Arthur's direction and Davidson's writing do not hurry that inclusion. Soon Hee isn't going to open up about the past simply because Hannah has flown thousands of kilometres to ask about it. She recoils from affection, keeps her daughter at a practical distance, and hasn't even told her community that Hannah exists. Initially, I put some of her behaviour down to embarrassment. But Davidson starts filling in the parts of the story Hannah never knew. “No one told me where my baby go...” Soon Hee was sent to a home for unmarried mothers after falling pregnant outside marriage and has spent years trying to erase from her mind the daughter she never got to raise. “I've tried to forget you,” she eventually tells Hannah. We see Hannah and Soon Hee are grieving the same lost relationship from completely different directions, and neither has the vocabulary for what they're supposed to be to each other now. The revelations get heavier, but Koreaboo never starts behaving as though we're no longer allowed to laugh. Arthur and Davidson keep finding comedy in the pair's awkward attempts to connect. K-pop becomes common ground, which gets us Hannah attempting to turn the Nutbush into a K-pop sensation, Soon Hee dressing her like a Korean pop star (or, as she puts it, “a sexy Asian baby”), and the pair preparing for TV talent show Star Power. Hannah's pre-performance nerves culminate in the immortal announcement, “I've done three poos.” That exchange had me giggling for days afterwards and became my go-to description whenever I recommended the show to someone. “Uh oh! Poo number four is coming,” Hannah announces, only for Soon Hee to shut that down immediately: “No! There is no more poo!” The more time Hannah and Soon Hee spend together, the more alike they appear to me. Soon Hee adores American television, gets her English catchphrases from HBO, and likes pretending she's in New York à la Sex and the City. Hannah has her love for K-pop and looks towards South Korea for a piece of herself she feels she's missing. Their scenes have a great push and pull to them. Hannah fills every silence she can find; Soon Hee seems determined to create more of them (usually while throwing in another unsolicited opinion). Davidson's nervous, eager energy keeps colliding with Jeong's dry, matter-of-fact delivery, and that comic mismatch never disappears. Even when the missing pieces of their history start falling into place, Koreaboo doesn't pack the comedy away. Nervous poo jokes and bad K-pop choreography sit alongside a much sadder picture of the life Soon Hee might have had. Underneath the shopkeeper who's spent years getting on with what she believed was her duty, we start to see the mother she never got to be, and the woman she might have become if she'd been given more choices. They've lost decades together, and a few packets of ramen aren't going to give them those years back. Cultural differences remain. Generational differences remain. The language barrier certainly remains. But Hannah finally knows why she was adopted, and Soon Hee finally knows the woman her baby grew up to be. They can't fix the missing time as easily as Soon Hee fixes a smoking fridge. By the end, though, they're finally standing in the same room with the real person instead of the one they've spent years imagining.

Quartet Presented by: Gold Coast Little Theatre Date Attended: 6 September 2026 Written by: Ronald Harwood Directed by: Kate Peters OAM Set and Lighting Design: Michael Sutton Music Consultant: Kirri Adams Projection: Sean Curran Sound Design: Andrew Borg and Thomas Bell Costume Design: Shirley Whitehouse Stage Manager: Donna McNish Photography: TTL Photography “Art is meaningless if it does not make you feel.” Welcome to Quartet, where growing old may bring dodgy knees, failing memories, and an increasing awareness of mortality, but it certainly hasn’t killed the music! And let’s just say the opening line had the Gold Coast Little Theatre audience gasping, giggling, and clutching their imaginary pearls! Ronald Harwood’s four-hander follows former opera singers Reggie, Wilfred, Cissy, and Jean, now living in a British retirement home. They fill their days reading, listening to music, reminiscing, getting on each other’s nerves, and arguing over what constitutes good art. “Art which is popular is not always good and art which is good is not always popular,” Reggie insists. Reginald is the gentlemanly fellow, Wilfred has a libido that could rival a teenager’s, Cissy is happily off with the fairies, and Jean is the newcomer diva (and Reggie’s ex-wife). Together, they form a retirement-home clique with one golden rule: NSP. No Self Pity. Director Kate Peters OAM has gathered four lovely, natural performers who rattle through Harwood’s hefty dialogue like they’re swapping juicy gossip. They play a group of pals who happily skip the “How’s your day?” chit-chat and dive straight into squabbles, sex talk, old grudges, and teasing, with the occasional attempt at comfort. These are people who once had careers as big as their egos, now lounging on pink sofas and reliving their glory days. Peter Gray as Reggie is the most outwardly composed member of the quartet: neatly dressed, articulate, and comparatively sensible. His history with Jean is an obvious major intrusion on his peace, though he attempts to handle her arrival with dignity. Reggie does, however, possess one magnificently disproportionate grievance: the home’s “wardress” and her apparent policy against marmalade. His sudden fury over breakfast preserves is wonderfully incongruous coming from an otherwise measured gentleman. He can survive the collapse of his marriage and the end of an operatic career, but breakfast bureaucracy is where he draws the line. Grant Ebeling as Wilfred has fewer reservations about discussing women, sex, and the various indignities his ageing body now inflicts upon him. The audience at this performance was predominantly retirement-age, and his catalogue of complaints produced a steady soundtrack of knowing chuckles and murmured agreement around me, particularly when he declared them all “decrepit”. His body may have slowed him down, but his libido received no such memo! Lee Patterson as Cissy is absolute sweetheart. She’s sunny, distractible, enamoured with the gardener, and equipped with a handbag seemingly capable of producing whatever she requires. Patterson also turns the simple business of Cissy getting herself off the sofa into a recurring physical gag. Every attempt is a small expedition. There’s sadness underneath her absent-mindedness too. This is a home where residents who become too unwell can simply disappear from the familiar social circle. “We repeat ourselves in the opera all the time!” she protests, neatly finding a professional excuse for one of old age’s less welcome habits. Laney McLean as Jean is horrified to find herself entering the same retirement home as her former colleagues. While the others have settled into routines, Jean is having a bit of a meltdown about her new digs, grappling with the humiliation she associates with ageing and the uncomfortable distance between the woman she is now and the famous soprano she remembers. She admits, “I revere the person I once was.” But McLean brings considerable warmth to Jean beneath the character’s pride. Her early discomfort is palpable as she surveys what is now her home, and McLean lets us see how much of Jean’s resistance comes from fear. Asked to reunite with Reggie, Cissy, and Wilfred to perform the quartet from Verdi’s Rigoletto at the home’s annual gala, Jean refuses, explaining, “My gift deserted me.” Music still surrounds all these characters. Designer Michael Sutton’s grand music room is packed with ornate furniture, portraits of musicians, books, flowers, a gramophone, harp, piano, and vinyls/CDs, with Sean Curran’s projected garden stretching beyond the central windows. Within this beautiful environment, however, the play can be rather static. With four characters, one principal room, and long stretches of conversation, there is inevitably a great deal of sitting. Harwood also asks his actors to sustain some hefty passages of dialogue. Reggie and Jean’s catch-up, in particular, has years of history to squeeze into one exchange, and the script starts to feel its length. There were a few moments when the actors appeared to be searching for the next line, with occasional prompting required (totally understandable!) There were also a few technical hiccups, most memorably when the microphones suddenly blew out together, a noise so loud it appeared to take five years off everyone in the auditorium. We survived, though, and the cast recovered quickly. The Verdi gala brings a dramatic change of wardrobe from costume designer Shirley Whitehouse, with satin, puffed sleeves, elaborate gowns, and a hunchbacked jester transforming the residents back into theatrical creatures for the occasion. Quartet doesn’t pretend ageing is painless. Harwood’s characters resent their dodgy bodies, failing memories, lost careers, and the uncomfortable knowledge of what comes next. But these four aren’t saintly old dears waiting peacefully for the heavenly choir. They may have retired from performing, but they haven’t stopped being performers, with all the ego, pride, insecurity, and theatricality that comes with it. And as Jean and her fellow musicians know better than most, the performance doesn’t have to be over just because you can’t hit the notes you once could.

An Ideal Husband Presented by: St Luke’s Theatre Society Date Attended: 28 August 2026 Written by: Oscar Wilde Director: Matthew Hobbs Set Design: Susan Hobbs Lighting Design: Sean Doran Photography: Dia Holt “An ideal husband! Oh, I don't think I should like that.” Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband proves that putting anybody on a pedestal is a bad idea. Sooner or later, they’ll wobble, say something foolish, get tangled in a scandal, or turn out to have committed fraud. Hopefully not all four... An Ideal Husband is a story about political corruption, blackmail, marriage, reputation, and the impossible standards we place upon people we admire. Surrounding all of that is Wilde doing what Wilde does best: filling a room with wealthy Victorians, arming them with wit, and letting them verbally attack one another for a few hours. Sir Robert Chiltern (Alex Thompson) appears to have everything. He’s affluent, successful, respected, and married to the deeply principled Lady Gertrude Chiltern (Elaina Mullins), who considers her husband practically incapable of moral wrongdoing. Unfortunately, Robert’s rise to success began with a decision from his younger years that was... well... considerably less honourable. Then Mrs Cheveley (Sophie Parker) struts onto the scene like she owns the place. She knows what Robert did, she has evidence, and she would very much like to use it. From there, we’re dealing with blackmail, missing jewellery, old school grudges, romantic assumptions, mistaken identities, and enough secrets to keep Victorian society gossiping for weeks. Meanwhile, Lord Arthur Goring (Giorgio Impiccini) repeatedly finds himself in the middle of everybody else’s problems (despite initially appearing to be one of the least useful men in London). Alex Thompson anchors the higher stakes of the story as Robert. Plenty of people around him are allowed to revel in Wilde’s ridiculousness, but Robert’s predicament needs to appear genuinely stressful. And Thompson makes sure it does! He wears the guilt across his face before his character can ever comfortably put it into words. There’s immediate anxiety around Cheveley, fear over what exposure could do to his marriage, and the creeping realisation that his immaculate public identity could disintegrate very quickly. He’s particularly convincing as a husband caught between these two very different women. Cheveley knows exactly where to apply pressure and enjoys doing it. Gertrude, meanwhile, has no idea how much pressure she’s applying at all. Elaina Mullins plays Mrs Gertrude Chiltern with sweetness, composure, and genuine devotion. Gertrude hasn’t simply married a man she loves. In her mind, she’s married a morally impeccable one. Mullins lets us see how deeply that belief is woven into her affection for him, so when Robert falls from that pedestal, there’s a real sense of her entire emotional framework shifting with him. Mrs Laura Cheveley has no interest whatsoever in making anybody’s life easier. Sophie Parker makes her a fabulous queen bee nemesis, playing Laura with deliberately slow pacing, a siren gaze in her eyes, and a venomous edge in her voice. Parker wears the character’s malice in her knowing smiles and carries herself like a woman who’s completely aware of everybody’s weakest point. Her history with Gertrude adds another layer. We learn that they are old school acquaintances who clearly did not leave their dislike of one another in the schoolyard. Every civil exchange carries a little sting underneath it, and Cheveley seems to relish every second she has the upper hand. Then there is Lord Arthur Goring. Giorgio Impiccini gets many of Wilde’s best lines and makes excellent use of them, with crisp comic timing and a wonderfully matter-of-fact delivery. He carries himself with the easy confidence of a man who has never had to worry too much about anything, adding little looks and reactions that make his self-importance even funnier. Arthur says baffling things with tremendous conviction, dresses extravagantly, puts his foot in his mouth, and somehow ends up responsible for untangling everybody else’s mess. Impiccini also finds the warmth of a loyal friend. When Robert faces humiliation and possible ruin, Arthur’s immediate instinct is to help him. He doesn’t spend the evening delivering moral lectures or recoiling in disappointment. He rolls up his frivolous sleeves and gets involved! Nigel Munro-Wallis, portraying Arthur’s very proper father, Lord Caversham, creates some of the show's most biggest laughs. Caversham seems permanently dissatisfied with his son, while Arthur remains impressively resistant to his dad's disapproval. Munro-Wallis nails the dry wit perfectly. He doesn’t need to chase the punchlines because Caversham’s constant exasperation is funny enough. The frequent chuckles from the audience whenever father and son faced off proved that the actors' pairing was landing exactly as intended. Maya Cranny’s Mabel Chiltern occupies the same gloriously unserious corner of society as Arthur. She’s playful, self-important, a bit childlike, and entirely convinced of her own opinions. Naturally, she and Arthur make perfect sense together. Their scenes offer a lighter counterpoint to the Chilterns' marriage. Robert and Gertrude are wrestling with whether love can survive imperfection. Arthur and Mabel seem perfectly happy to begin with imperfection and save themselves the time in therapy. Cranny has some terrific facial reactions too, and I wished she’d open her positioning a little further so those expressions weren’t hidden by her hair or angle to the audience. Natalie Pedler appears as the highly sociable Lady Markby, chattering enough to sustain a drawing-room conversation indefinitely. Savarnah Cruck and June Balfour, as Mrs Mason and Phipps, round out the household with the appropriate formality and restraint, helping maintain the proper world surrounding all this improper behaviour. Matthew Hobbs’ direction handles the script’s shifting moods comfortably. Robert and Gertrude carry the marital stakes, Cheveley keeps the danger simmering, and Goring, Mabel, and Caversham are usually nearby to puncture the seriousness before anything becomes unbearably solemn. There’s a lot of dialogue here (Wilde was hardly shy of a sentence), but the conversation moves at a comfortable clip for most of the performance. Wilde also very good at convincing us the story is nearly finished. A crisis resolves. A loose end appears tied. Everyone can surely go home now... Nope. Somebody enters with another piece of information, another secret wriggles free, and off we go again. Visually, the production creates an attractive world, with the warm drawing-room setting and formal costumes supporting all those ideas of wealth, status, and respectability. Susan Hobbs’ set fills the room with cosy details and ornate furnishings, providing exactly the sort of polished home in which one should absolutely not be discussing blackmail. A few garments would benefit from a good steaming, and some of the women’s hairstyling could use a little extra finishing to match the tidier presentations. And where their tattoos are being concealed, I think lace or evening gloves could sit more naturally within the period styling than the visible bandaging. I’d also encourage a more physical freedom from Gertrude and Mabel during their heightened moments. Their vocal delivery is extremely assured, but both can occasionally look stiff through the body. Anger, distress, excitement, and disbelief all invite a reaction beyond the voice, so allowing those feelings to travel more freely through posture and gesture would help the emotional shifts register even more clearly. Politics hums underneath this piece. Robert’s career was built upon reputation, ambition, influence, and the expectation that a respected public figure must somehow possess an immaculate private history as well. More than a century after Wilde wrote the play, that aspect of the script requires very little assistance to remain recognisable... People fail. People lie. People make choices they regret. People disappoint their fathers by becoming unmarried bachelors who talk nonsense to themselves.... For audiences who enjoy wit, period comedy, scheming, and characters who can turn an insult into an art form, St Luke’s Theatre Society’s An Ideal Husband is very easy to recommend. And after an evening with Wilde’s characters, I’m inclined to agree with Mabel... An ideal husband does sound terribly dull.

The Choir of Man Presented by: Brisbane Festival, Andrew Kay, and Nic Doodson Date attended: 4 September 2026 Created by: Andrew Kay and Nic Doodson Venue: Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent, Festival Village, South Bank Cast: Ifan Gwilym-Jones, Norton James, George Knapper, Connor Mellor, Alex Mallalieu, Mark Loveday, Kristian Morse, Tyler Orphé-Baker, and Tristan Whincup Photography: Morgan Roberts “Welcome to the best pub in the world!” If my local pub contained this many excellent singers, multi-instrumentalists, and tap dancers, I’d probably go out more often! The Choir of Man transforms Brisbane Festival’s Spiegeltent into The Jungle, a British pub populated by nine blokes doing what blokes in pubs have done for centuries: drinking, chatting, stirring each other up, and having a yarn with whoever happens to be nearby. On the stage you'll find beer taps, sticky floors, an old upright piano, plenty of bottles, and even urinals. Classy. Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent is exactly the right home for it. The rounded space pulls everyone close, performers wander through the crowd pouring drinks, patrons head onto the stage for a beer, and people shout across the room. For a good chunk of the opening, I wasn’t entirely sure where the pre-show ended and the show began. Across 75 minutes, out come guitars, piano, ukulele, banjo, trumpet, whistle, shakers, percussion, and cajón. Beer glasses become instruments. And their nine voices snap into tightly arranged harmonies. We’re encouraged to sing, yell, clap, drink, and generally behave in ways that would earn stern looks in most theatres. Nobody is reverently waiting for a soprano to finish her aria. The guy in front of me was yelling the lyrics to ‘500 Miles’ while flailing a beer cup above his head. Mine was certainly one of the loudest audiences I’ve sat among in a while. Each bloke has his own personality and reason for being at The Jungle, with a narrator guiding us around the group. It’s enough structure to keep the night from becoming just an elaborate pub covers band. The character archetypes are familiar, the cast sell the friendships, and the British humour thrives on teasing, physical comedy, and men behaving like absolute idiots in the company of other men they trust. The jukebox jumps between songs like ‘You’re the Voice’, ‘The Impossible Dream’, ‘50 Ways to Leave Your Lover’, ‘Somebody to Love’, ‘Escape (The Piña Colada Song)’, ‘Teenage Dream’, and plenty more. I particularly loved the inclusion of more modern choices like ‘Chandelier’, ‘Wake Me Up’, and ‘Some Nights’, although my audience's enthusiasm noticeably dropped for a couple of the newer songs. Some of the best numbers take songs somewhere much sillier than expected. George Knapper tap dances across the bar and tables, his feet slicing through the music as though somebody ticked ‘select all’ on the musical theatre casting form. Adele’s ‘Hello’, led by Tristan Whincup, sees the pub full of men watching football in exaggerated slow motion around him, turning a sporting match into a miniature Greek tragedy. Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Under the Bridge’ takes place at the urinals. Water pours. Men sing. Nobody makes eye contact. The beer-glass choreography during ‘Some Nights’ is another piece of precision disguised as mucking around. Glasses are passed around, strike tables, clink together, and build into percussion while the vocals carry over the top. The timing has to be exact, yet the cast retain the loose energy of mates who’ve invented a game at the pub. Mark Loveday brings out a glorious falsetto for Freddie Mercury and commits himself passionately to ‘Escape (The Piña Colada Song)’. And I have to mention Tyler Orphé-Baker. His voice has a gorgeous depth to it, and there’s an ease and warmth in the way he occupies the pub that repeatedly pulls my attention back to him. Even surrounded by nine high-energy personalities, he has a presence that doesn’t require constant fighting for focus. Norton James is also (scientifically speaking) a cutie patootie with a guitar. I have no further critical analysis to offer on that point. The audience interaction extends beyond free-flowing beer and singing along. Several women are brought onstage to be serenaded, which naturally sends sections of the audience into states normally associated with hen parties. It is worth knowing before you go that the drinking culture isn’t merely decoration. It’s built into almost every part of the experience. I don’t drink beer (intolerance), and I wasn’t planning to drink while reviewing anyway, so being one of the few sober people in a very merry room can feel isolating. I still had enormous fun, but I was also keenly aware that I was surrounded by a lot of drunk strangers... In my case, an older man seated in front of me repeatedly tried to involve me in his evening with high-fives and playful touching before eventually grabbing my knee. No thank you, stranger. We have not unlocked that level of friendship. That behaviour was obviously his responsibility, not the production’s, but it did highlight the flipside of creating such a convincing pub atmosphere. The Choir of Man deliberately loosens normal theatre etiquette, and most people understand that “have fun” still includes basic personal boundaries and women's comfort. Amid all the laddish chaos, the script is interested in why these men keep returning to this place and to one another. A few of the spoken sections push hard into sentiment, but the individual characters stop the whole thing turning into a lecture entitled Men Have Feelings Too. The loudness is part of the appeal for most of the night. But when the company closes with a traditional folk song sung a cappella, we finally get those nine voices exposed. Or we should. A thumping band or DJ outside the Spiegeltent bled straight through the venue and competed with the quietest song of the night. I was trying desperately to listen while the BrisFest outside entered its nightclub phase. It’s a shame, because the contrast between the rowdy evening and that simple final arrangement deserved to be heard. Even so, The Choir of Man sent me out grinning! It’s pub culture filtered through theatre logic. May I petition to add 'Brandy You're a Fine Girl' to the setlist? Also, regular pubs need to lift their game.

Mama Does Derby Produced by: Windmill Production Company Presented by: Brisbane Festival Venue: Brisbane Powerhouse Date attended: 5 September 2026 Written by: Virginia Gay Directed by: Clare Watson Assistant Director & Choreographer: Larissa McGowan Designer: Jonathon Oxlade Lighting Designer: Lucy Birkinshaw Sound Designer: Luke Smiles Music Director, Guitar & Vocals: Joe Paradise Lui Photography: Jade Ferguson / Visual Poets Society “How’d I get so funny? Glad you asked. It’s the trauma.” Billie freezes when life gets scary. Her mum runs from it. Meanwhile, everything else is on wheels! Before Mama Does Derby has technically begun, roller skaters are already circling the Powerhouse Theatre. The crowd is rowdy, wheels rattle past our seats, and the usual polite pre-show murmur has been replaced by the atmosphere of a sporting event. By the end, we’re waving signs and pom-poms, cheering on an actual roller derby, and I think that all theatrical set changes should henceforth be performed on skates. I’ve never seen theatre quite like this. Virginia Gay’s Mama Does Derby, directed by Clare Watson, centres on sixteen-year-old Billie (Elvy-Lee Quici) and her energetic mum Maxine (Anna Lindner). They’ve spent Billie’s childhood bouncing from town to town, collecting adventures and a history of questionable boyfriends. Maxine calls her daughter “kiddo”, they finish each other’s sentences, and their closeness has the rhythm of an Aussie Gilmore Girls... until Mum eventually straps on roller skates! Even visually, they seem to occupy different worlds. Maxine’s bright hair and youthful styling match her restless energy, while Billie is comparatively muted and covered-up. In their new house, Maxine bounces around learning TikTok dances while Billie looks like her nervous system is shutting down. A session with school therapist Agatha (Annabel Matheson) puts a less cute name to their best-friend arrangement: parentification. Billie has grown accustomed to being Maxine’s confidante and companion, while Maxine would much rather turn therapy into a joke than consider what her daughter needs from her as a parent. Lindner plays Maxine as a whirlwind of chatter, spontaneous dance moves, and goofy faces, using humour to dodge uncomfortable conversations. When Maxine cheerfully describes herself as “a flaky nightmare”, Lindner delivers the line as though it’s a perfectly reasonable personality trait. She’s well aware of her flaws and bad habits, but doing anything about them is another story... Quici’s Billie is artistic, shy, awkward around her peers, and yearning for some stability. Virginia Gay’s writing captures one of the less glamorous sides of growing up: “I think being an adult means dissociation. So you can breathe, go to work...” Despite their closeness, mother and daughter have very different ways of coping when life gets difficult. Billie freezes; Maxine flees. Billie’s anxiety brings insomnia and periods of paralysed muscular rigidity as the monster under her bed emerges (in fabulous footwear!). Benjamin Hancock plays Nathan, a glittering, long-legged nightmare in heelless stilettos, twisting and contorting his body into impossible positions. Creaks, groans, and Antoine Jelk’s demonic voice complete the creature. Hancock looms over Billie like something dragged out of sleep paralysis, then breaks the tension with a ridiculous movement or line. Nathan is genuinely creepy and one of the funniest characters onstage. Billie eventually starts talking to him. She asks questions, gets closer, and learns that she can hear what her anxiety is saying without handing it control. I love that Nathan isn’t conveniently defeated either. The monster remains part of her psyche. Maxine handles fear through motion. She talks non-stop, moves house, dates around, jokes, and dismisses uncomfortable thoughts before they can pin her down. Roller derby finally offers her somewhere to direct all that energy and, importantly, something she does purely for herself. She also befriends her fellow data-entry workers on wheels, the aptly dubbed “spinning wheels of death”. This touring production incorporates members of Queensland’s actual derby community, including skaters connected to Queensland Roller Derby League, Brisbane City Rollers, Sun State Roller Derby, Northern Brisbane Rollers, and Team Indigenous Dreaming. They aren’t there simply to circle the stage looking cool (although they do!). Their speed, tricks, tight formations, and daring manoeuvres bring genuine roller derby skill into the theatre, with skaters flying around a performance space already crammed with actors, musicians, furniture, and moving scenery. And their names are awesome: Hexperiment 626, Bloody Laces, BB Gun, Scarebear, Ginger Snapz, Parks & Wreckage, Daisy Deathray are some listed in the program. Musical theatre performers need to lift their game when it comes to stage names! Jonathon Oxlade’s stage design is incapable of sitting still. Maxine and Billie’s house is divided across wheeled platforms that assemble into a kitchen, dining area, living room, Billie’s bedroom, and (as I eventually realised) the dunny! The live band is actually in the bathroom. Skaters roll furniture and entire rooms into place, while bicycles, skateboards, and even a hearse join the traffic. Nothing stays put for long. The house is constantly being rearranged, much like the lives of the two people living in it. The live band adds to the madness, bursting into musical scene changes with the energy of an unserious Hannah Montana transition. The lighting gets in on the fun too, with Halloween turning into a black-light rave, complete with the ghost of COVID past (there's a costume I hadn't considered). For Billie, it's also a rare chance to let loose and hang out with people her own age. Aud Mason-Hyde’s sweet-natured Hux helps Billie find her feet socially, offering her a friendship outside Maxine’s orbit. Around Hux, Billie can relax a bit, without having to manage her mum or negotiate with demon Nathan. Oh and Hux sings Life is a Highway. I was not prepared for that killer voice and random musical moment! Antoine Jelk also emerges from behind the drums into comic roles, including a driving instructor whose outrageous accent crosses Russia, Scotland, and Cockney London in the space of a single lesson. Annabel Matheson as Drew 'The Wombat' gets an enviable share of the best lines. Although I did love Billie’s line “This town is giving… bodies in a barrel.” Been there, baby. All this comedy makes the uglier exchanges between mother and daughter hit so much harder. “You didn’t raise me at all!” cuts straight through the fun-mum fantasy. Quici lets Billie’s anger spill out messily, with all the volume and absolutism of a sixteen-year-old who’s been holding far too much in. She’s frustrated with Maxine, frightened by her own anxiety, hurt, and still desperately attached to her mum. Lindner doesn't let Maxine's charisma excuse her behaviour either. Her chatter and impulsive enthusiasm are entertaining until she starts using those same habits to dodge what Billie is trying to tell her. And when Maxine snaps, “I have been held hostage by your mental health for too long!”, all the humour drains out of the room. Oof. There are a lot of ideas spinning around this track: domestic violence, parentification, anxiety, therapy, adolescence, community, Nathan the demon... Billie’s mental health is handled with care and patience. Therapy begins as something Maxine mocks, yet Billie gradually acquires language for what her mind and body are doing. She doesn’t wake up cured. She learns to recognise her anxiety, question it, and decide how much authority it gets. Roller derby offers Maxine a more bruising version of the same lesson. “I let everybody down..." "But you kept getting up.” Mama Does Derby has a band in the bathroom, a hearse for a family car, a demon in stilettos, a mum who thinks she’s Sarah Connor, and skaters hurtling around the space. With all those wheels, they're finally finding their feet together.

Dead Bat on the Night Shift Presented by: Observatory Theatre Venue: PIP Theatre Date attended: 27 August 2026 Written by: Samantha Hill Director / Set Design / Costume Design: Lachlan Driscoll Dramaturg: Emma Churchland Vision Designer: Freddy Komp Sound Designer / Stage Manager: Hannah Page Lighting Designer: Noah Milne Photography: Images by Anderson / Creative Futures Photography Content warnings: Coarse language, sexual references, misogynistic and racist language, fake firearm, gunshots, staged violence, fake blood, haze, and sudden flashing lights. “Hey Siri. How to murder...?” Written by Samantha Hill and presented by Observatory Theatre at PIP Theatre, Dead Bat on the Night Shift centres on Sloane (Claire Pearson), an intelligent, withdrawn employee who's come up with a dramatic plan to improve workplace morale. Her solution? Give her boss a permanent vacation. Six feet under. To be fair, Dave is the worst. I just recently watched 9 to 5, and it seems like I picked an excellent week for watching fictional office tyrants. Darren King as Dave sits comfortably among those men who mistake a tiny bit of managerial authority for evidence of their own superiority. He’s a sexist, racist bully who’s extremely comfortable making everyone else squirm. The audience kept up a chorus of groans whenever Dave launched into another revolting scene. You could feel the reaction ripple through the room, especially from the women hearing a fictional man say something we’ve all, unfortunately, heard some version of before. King gives Dave exactly the kind of cringey swagger that makes him painfully familiar. When we walk in, Sloane is already onstage, rocking the ultimate comfort combo of a hoodie, sweats, and a fanny pack. She’s giving the wall her best dissociative stare. Around her is a deliberately miserable office of grey surfaces, boxes, and a whiteboard covered in the sort of workplace nonsense that suggests somebody attended a management seminar and returned with several markers and no useful ideas. Customer service has rarely looked so bleak. Claire Pearson does a lot of the heavy lifting in this show, with Sloane onstage for almost the entire 150 minutes. She doesn’t say much for long stretches, instead expressing herself through internal asides, sudden outbursts, quirky facts, and wonderful facial reactions. Some parts of Sloane's character might really resonate with neurodivergent folks. She retreats into facts rather than socialising, likes systems that make sense to her, struggles to express emotion directly, and seems way more at ease planning a complex murder than chatting about the weather at work. There are even binders involved in said planning. She is also enormously capable, yet almost none of her strengths are valued in a workplace more interested in whether she can perform the expected version of customer-service friendliness. Pearson understands the power of stillness. Sloane is like a pressure cooker for most of the play, holding everything in and giving very little away. You can tell there’s always far more happening underneath than she knows how to express. So when that restraint finally cracks, it really hits. At one point, Sloane screams, and the sound went straight through my soul. It was like years of frustration, grief, rage, and all the words she has never been able to say coming out at once. Much of that history takes physical form through Clara (Ellen Hardisty), Sloane’s deceased mother and ultimate ghostly bully. She taunts Sloane, puts her down, and voices the cruellest things Sloane believes about herself. With exposed brain tissue and torn clothing from the car accident that killed her, Clara is a pretty horrifying sight (and that’s before she opens her mouth). But what she represents is even worse. She becomes the embodiment of Sloane’s unresolved abandonment, carrying the damage left by a mother who gave her up to foster care. Hardisty also plays another Clara, completely unrelated to Sloane’s mother. Office Clara is firm, quiet, and strong, carrying her own private grief. Hardisty separates the two women beautifully, giving one a vicious, needling presence and the other a quiet resilience. The doubling also works nicely in a play so interested in identity and the versions of people we create in our own minds. And then there is the dearly departed bat. Sloane finds a dead bat outside work and starts carrying it around. Calum Johnston’s puppet is macabre, peculiar, and somehow increasingly companionable as it begins to “speak” to her. That is the strange charm of Samantha Hill’s writing. The absurdity keeps opening little doors into something sadder. For all its dark comedy, Dead Bat on the Night Shift has a real soft spot for the odd little families that form in terrible jobs. You might hate the workplace itself, but sometimes the coworker beside you is the only reason you make it through another shift. Jaxon Norman gives Jonathan an instantly gentle quality. He’s helpful and sweet without needing a flashing “Nice Guy” sign above his head. In Sloane’s world, where she expects criticism, abandonment, or misunderstanding, simple kindness really counts. Clarise Ooi brings bright, distinctly Gen Z energy to Aysu. She’s the lively uni student of the group, full of youthful optimism and momentum. Jenna Murphy became one of my favourite recurring presences throughout the show. Pamela, bless her heart, is a bit of a doormat but stays relentlessly positive despite being injured (wrist guard and all). Murphy keeps popping up as a Centrelink worker, gun seller, glow-worm tour guide, and plenty more. Her comic instincts make each one distinct, and by the time another variation of “Pam” appears, simply recognising her becomes part of the joke. Lachlan Driscoll’s direction keeps us firmly inside Sloane’s world. She becomes our guide, speaking directly to us through narration and asides, while completely zipping up around the people actually standing beside her. Those moments are invisible to everyone else, and sometimes all it takes is one quick glance out to us (very The Office) to say exactly what she’s thinking. The world around her stays fluid too, with rapid scenes, actors shifting between characters, and simple visual changes moving us between settings. Driscoll's costume design tells us plenty as well. Sloane begins in clothes built around comfort, practicality, and invisibility, as though being unnoticed is preferable to being perceived. Later, she changes onstage into more conventionally professional clothing, making the transformation part of the storytelling. Jonathan’s preppy young-adult look suits his gentle manner, Aysu is unmistakably a Gen Z uni student, Office Clara dresses with sensible Gen X practicality, and Pamela’s brighter colours match her determined positivity. Dave, meanwhile, is just... Dave. Freddy Komp’s vision design extends Sloane’s inner world through drawn projections of buildings, beaches, caves, offices, bookshelves, and other environments. Their chalkboard-like style gives the whole thing a hand-drawn quality, as though we’re watching Sloane’s imagination sketch the world around her. Noah Milne’s lighting and Hannah Page’s sound are woven tightly into the action. A lot of the comedy relies on cues landing at exactly the right moment, and they do. Voiceovers, gunshots, flashes, and sudden shifts between Sloane’s external and internal worlds all land with sharp timing. Lastly, motifs of bats, twelves, and tarot cards appear throughout the story, tying into ideas of cycles, fate, prediction, and whether our futures are already set or still ours to mess with. One line cuts straight through all of it: “How dare you dream so small for your life?!” That, far more than the murder plot, feels like the challenge at the centre of Hill’s play. Samantha Hill began writing Dead Bat on the Night Shift 20 years ago as a young graduate feeling stuck, uncertain, and unseen. That backstory adds another dimension now. The frustrations of thankless work are funny because, let’s face it, they’re still painfully familiar for plenty of us. But the play also understands why telling someone to “just quit” or “find something better” can be wildly unhelpful. Choice gets complicated when life has taught you to expect very little. Sloane even goes through the torturous process of Centrelink and JobSeeker (iykyk), turning the whole thing into a bureaucratic circus. Quitting a lousy job is one thing. Then comes figuring out what’s next, proving you deserve assistance, dealing with judgement from strangers, filling out a thousand forms, and somehow staying sane through all of it. Sloane may be very good at planning a murder, but figuring out what she actually wants from her own life is much harder. For all its terrible bosses, maternal trauma, murder prep, and dead bats, Dead Bat on the Night Shift still has a surprising amount of heart. It will particularly appeal to audiences who enjoy black comedy, theatrical absurdity, and character-driven contemporary writing. It’s weird, funny, and is certain to catch you off guard.

Title: Take The Stage 2026 Presented By: Elements Theatre Co. Genre: Community Performance Showcase / Variety Performance Synopsis: Take The Stage is a free community performance showcase celebrating local talent, creativity, and confidence. Open to performers of all ages and experience levels, the event welcomes singers, dancers, actors, musicians, comedians, and variety performers. Participants can perform solo, as a duo, or as part of a group. Rather than operating as a competition, Take The Stage has no judges, scores, or prizes and is designed simply as an opportunity for members of the community to perform and share their talents. Audition Date: Saturday 19 September 2026 Audition Time: From 12:00pm. Individual audition times will be allocated after registrations close. Audition Location and Address: Elements Theatre Co., 1A/131–135 Old Pacific Highway, Oxenford QLD Audition Requirements: Prepare the act you intend to perform in the final showcase if selected. Maximum performance length is 4 minutes. Solo, duo, and group performances are welcome. Acts must be family-friendly and suitable for audiences of all ages. If using music, bring your track on your phone or USB. If using props or equipment, bring these to the audition and ensure they can be set up quickly. Costumes are welcome but are not required at auditions. Wear comfortable clothing and appropriate footwear suitable for your act. Arrive 15 minutes before your allocated audition time for check-in, warm-up, and to meet the team. Performers will present their act to the coaching team and may receive questions or feedback. Applicants under 18 must provide parent/guardian details. Audition Registration: Take The Stage 2026 Registration Form Registrations close Monday 7 September 2026 at midnight. Audition Pack: Take The Stage 2026 Information Pack Performance Date: Sunday 4 October 2026 Performance Times: 3:00pm and 6:00pm Performance Location: Elements Theatre Co., 1A/131–135 Old Pacific Highway, Oxenford QLD Rehearsal Dates: Friday 2 October 2026 – Free Performance Workshop Rehearsal Times: 1:00pm–6:00pm. Successful acts will select a one-hour workshop session, with each act receiving approximately 10 minutes of one-on-one coaching within the open workshop setting. Warnings: Acts must be family-friendly and suitable for audiences of all ages. Please note the studio is located upstairs and is accessed via stairs. There is currently no wheelchair access. Those with accessibility requirements are encouraged to contact Elements Theatre Co. prior to the event. Performer Age: All ages and experience levels. Production Website: Elements Theatre Co. – Event Calendar Other information: Registration, auditions, the Performance Workshop, and the performance opportunity are all free. Successful performers will attend a free workshop on Friday 2 October to polish their act in the performance space. Coaching may cover stage presence, microphone technique, movement, timing, and audience engagement. On performance day, performers should arrive 30 minutes before their concert time, completely performance-ready with costume, hair, makeup if applicable, correct footwear, props, and accessories. General enquiries: info@elementstheatreco.com.au Available Roles: There are no set characters or theatrical roles. Applications are open to a broad range of acts, including: Singers Dancers Actors Comedians Musicians Magicians Spoken word performers Variety performers Other unique performance acts Solo performers Duos Groups

My Sunny Boy Presented by: Spotlight Theatrical Company Venue: Spotlight Theatre Date attended: 30 August 2026 Written by: Amy McDonald Director: Helen Maden Stage Manager: Pat Apelt Set Design: Helen Maden Props: Dianne Lamb Costumes: Helen Maden and Amy McDonald Lighting: Thomas Bell Sound: Helen Maden and Simon Fox Photography: Vargo Studios (Clay English) “Travel safe, take care, f*ck off.” Audrey Hart is a loving, fiercely protective mother and a woman with plenty to say. Her advice to her son always begins with “my love.” Her patience for her ex-husband is non-existent. And any attempt at emotional restraint around the new wife tends to end somewhere around sarcasm, swearing, or a well-placed insult. Written by Amy McDonald and presented by Spotlight Theatrical Company, My Sunny Boy is a contemporary Australian comedy about separated families, old resentments, surprise pregnancies, and the horrifying discovery that if you raise an independent son, he may eventually have the audacity to become independent! Audrey once expected a very different life for herself. She and husband Ted were preparing to welcome their first baby when he revelaed that he was leaving Audrey for his much younger mistress, Vanessa (who was also pregnant!). Great timing, Ted. Years later, Audrey has rebuilt herself in a quirky seaside town, where she raises their son George, teaches belly dancing with free-spirited Bodhi, befriends her eccentric neighbour Leo, and has created a life that is messy, colourful, and entirely her own. George is now seventeen, and Ted offers him the chance to spend a year living with his family abroad. Where George sees travel, education, new experiences, and more time with his dad and half-brothers. Audrey sees a year of being left behind and, worse, being replaced. Naturally, she takes this extremely well... “I hold on tight and let go lightly." Helen Maden’s set gives us the lowdown on Audrey’s life from the get-go. The split-stage set is packed with plants, photographs, and knick-knacks that make a home feel properly lived in. The porch goes even further, with a surfboard, climbing flowers, roughed-up shoes, and enough coastal decoration to make their lifestyle immediately obvious. Inspired by McDonald’s affection for 1960s domestic décor, Maden creates a colourful home with personality in every corner. Even the front lawn gets involved once Leo arrives with his mower and headphones. He's apparently available at all times to perform garden maintenance, collect neighbourhood gossip, and insert himself into whatever family crisis is currently underway at the Hart household. The costumes by Helen Maden and Amy McDonald underline the contrast between George’s two families immediately. Audrey’s world is all beachy prints, flowing fabrics, dressing gowns, bare feet, and her pair of enormous green reading glasses, while Bodhi looks as though she may have wandered directly in from a music festival. Ted and Vanessa are much more restrained, with structured suits and considerably less tasselling. It’s essentially a fashion face-off between a beachside belly-dancing studio and a corporate boardroom. As director, Helen Maden cleverly uses the wider stage to establish separate locations rather than forcing every conversation to occur at Audrey’s kitchen table. She keeps the conversational script moving with natural blocking, interruptions, and constant movement through the spaces. The pacing is well defined, with scenes often ending on a revelation, cliffhanger, or killer line before snapping to blackout. At the performance I attended, those blackouts always earned applause before we were plunged back into the family chaos. The audience was especially responsive to Audrey, and it’s easy to see why. McDonald’s writing is at its funniest when affection and hostility occupy the same scene. When Vanessa shows discomfort about the past, Audrey simply replies, “That condition is called having a conscience, Vanessa.” Playing her own creation, McDonald sells every contradiction in Audrey. She’s loving, furious, spiteful, and vulnerable, with sarcasm and swearing doing very little to disguise how deeply she feels everything. Harrison Salter plays George as a genuinely likeable boy rather than a stock bundle of teenage angst. He and McDonald share an easy, affectionate mother-son rapport, full of casual teasing and kitchen-table familiarity. There’s something about him that reminded me of several boys I know who were raised by single mums, with that same emotional openness. Plus, his occasional frustrations come across as understandable rather than bratty. When he argues, “I deserve better stuff too”, it doesn’t come across as a rejection of Audrey. George loves his mum, but he also wants some of the opportunities his half-brothers have had. Peter Maden’s Ted feels immediately familiar as a daggy dad of three boys with an addiction to pastries. He’s attentive to George, eager to help, and clearly adores his son. Maden gets some great laughs from Ted’s awkwardness and reactions, but Ted can still be a bit of a prick (to both Audrey and Vanessa). The scenes with Audrey are especially entertaining because the two actors play that ex-partner history so naturally. They bicker, goad each other, slip into old habits, and still have a bit of spark underneath all the irritation. Ted has spent years being a good father to George, but the play never asks Audrey (or us) to forget why she’s angry with him. Josie Sargent plays Vanessa with a composure that avoids turning her into the obvious villain. She keeps trying to remain civil with Audrey, which is both admirable and, from Audrey’s point of view, incredibly irritating. Sargent holds her ground well against McDonald’s verbal attacks, while keeping Vanessa warm enough that she never comes across as smug or icy. Their scenes together are my favourites because every not-so-polite exchange carries years of resentment. Vanessa wants peace. Audrey would rather chew glass. Sargent is also much softer with Salter, and the affection between Vanessa and George comes across as genuine. Sienna Johnson portrays Bodhi as free-spirited, scattered, sexually confident, and genuinely sweet. Johnson plays her ditziness for plenty of laughs while still letting some vulnerability peek through. Her relationship with George did make me raise an eyebrow (five years feels rather more noticeable at 17 and 22), though the play acknowledges the age gap. Sienna Johnson and Amy McDonald develop a shift in Bodhi and Audrey’s relationship, as their workplace friendship grows into something more maternal. When Audrey speaks through tears about how she loved George while also resenting him after his birth, McDonald lets the humour fall away and the room becomes noticeably quieter. It’s a beautifully judged piece of acting from McDonald, who drops Audrey’s usual bravado and gives us a much more exposed version of her. Rob Kenna’s laid-back delivery makes Leo’s constant reappearances reliably funny, whether he’s mowing Audrey’s lawn, gossiping about locals, or grooving to Lady Gaga. There’s much more to him than comic relief, though. Leo is a later-in-life gay man with two sons from different mothers, and he becomes the person several characters confide in. I did wish the script gave Leo a little more room of his own. Much of his personal life is delivered through one-sided phone conversations. Considering how interesting his family history is, I’d happily have spent more time with him. There’s also an interesting thread running through McDonald’s writing about what it means to raise boys into men. George, Ted, and Leo all present very different versions of masculinity, while George is still working out where he fits among family expectations and all the other noise surrounding teenagers. I’d wholeheartedly recommend My Sunny Boy to audiences who enjoy contemporary Australian family comedy, parent-child stories, unapologetically blunt characters, and dialogue packed with terrific wit.

Goodbye, Eli Anderson Presented by: THAT Production Company Venue: Ipswich Civic Centre Date attended: 19 August 2026 Playwright: Grace Wilson Director: Timothy Wynn Assistant Director: Ruby Sanders Set & Costume Design: Madeleine Barlow Lighting Design: Daniel Anderson Video Design: Nevil Howell Sound Design & Composition: Morgan Francis Photography: Kenn Wylchi Content warnings: Mature themes, coarse language, mild violence, terminal illness, references to suicide, and grief. “I can't let life catch up to me." At 17 years old, Eli Anderson should be focused on senior year and whatever comes next. Instead, he’s facing terminal cancer, and a future that has been unexpectedly and unfairly cut short. Written by Grace Wilson, Goodbye, Eli Anderson won Queensland Theatre’s Young Playwrights’ Award before receiving its world premiere with THAT Production Company. Eli Anderson (Lincoln Kay) has a dark cloud hanging over him, with the same illness that took his mother now threatening his own life. His father (Hugh Parker) has gone into protective overdrive, while older brother Gabe (Angus Freer) is trying to figure out how to act around Eli when everyone knows their time together is running out. Eli doesn’t want to spend whatever time he has left being treated like he’s dying. So he takes Betty (the family’s colourful old campervan), and sets off for Uluru to make some memories of his own. Things get a lot more interesting when a teenage troublemaker, going by the oh-so-clever name “Hugh Jass”, hijacks his ride and insists on a lift to Darwin. Hello, Benji Hatchet (Jesse Frommelt). These reluctant road-trip companions quickly become something resembling brothers. Benji talks incessantly, steals things, gets bored every eight seconds, makes ridiculous decisions, and barrels through the world with the energy of an overexcited puppy who’s discovered the front gate has been left open. He becomes exactly what Eli needs. Both boys are on the run, but for very different reasons. As the story unfolds, we learn that Benji isn’t sure he even wants a future. He barely has a past to cling to either, having been essentially left alone in the universe. This younger teen is contemplating the idea of ending his own story, while Eli has had that decision made for him. Grace Wilson is clear that this isn’t really a play about cancer, but about men who love each other and struggle to say it aloud. Her writing places Eli in a cruel limbo between childhood and adulthood. Benji represents the adolescence he can still touch (full of play, impulsiveness, petty crime, and mischief), while to me, Gabe feels like everything waiting on the other side of seventeen: responsibility, family, memory, and adulthood. Eli sits between them, knowing he may never quite reach Gabe’s side. Thankfully, Wilson doesn’t let that sadness swallow the play. This is still an Aussie road trip, with plenty of joy along the way. The show takes us back to a time when cassettes were king, disposable cameras were the Instagram of the day, and a Refidex was your trusty GPS. For just a dollar, the pub jukebox could become your own disco inferno. At one point, there’s even talk of becoming pen pals, because keeping track of your random road-trip buddy was a much bigger logistical challenge before social media. The boys play cricket at a far less touristy Uluru, evade the cops like pros, and soak up the exhilarating thrill of being young and up to no good. Lincoln Kay plays Eli with a finely balanced mix of anger, fear, humour, stubbornness, and vulnerability. He never becomes simply “the sick kid” in the play. Kay’s quieter work packs just as much of a punch, with Eli’s vivid dreams and moments of make-believe reminding us how young he still is. His monologue addressed to his mum beneath the stars was met with audible sniffles in the audience. Only someone who has faced Eli’s circumstances could truly know how he feels or understand his reasoning from inside his head. Still, I found myself empathizing fiercely with him, even when his choices seemed irrational to those who cared about him. As Gabe puts it, “He doesn’t want to be coddled, he wants to be capable.” Jesse Frommelt is enormously endearing as Benji, whose relentless, chaotic energy could easily become exhausting in less capable hands. Instead, every bit of his performance feels truthful, especially when an intense confrontation with Eli completely changes the atmosphere. I went from tensing up to tearing up within the same scene as Frommelt’s emotional work landed with startling force. The impact of having young actors who actually match the characters’ ages is huge. Their awkwardness, bravado, silliness, affection, and sudden bursts of emotional intensity feel completely real - never like adults trying to imitate teenagers. Angus Freer brings a different kind of pain to Gabe. He’s facing the reality that his little brother will die before him, and there’s nothing he can do to fix it. Freer captures Gabe’s position between protecting Eli and respecting him. He understands something their father struggles to accept: keeping Eli alive isn’t the same as letting him truly live. His exchanges with Hugh Parker as their father are particularly intense. Dad’s overbearing nature can be frustrating, but having already lost his wife to cancer, his fear is painfully understandable. Together, Freer and Parker capture the emotional limbo of anticipatory grief, cherishing Eli while he’s still with them and already wondering what they might regret afterwards. Timothy Wynn’s direction allows all that emotional weight to sit comfortably alongside the pace, humour, and momentum of the road trip. Madeleine Barlow’s set drops us straight into regional Australia, with corrugated tin, road imagery, and Betty herself dominating the space. A genuine campervan is an ambitious centrepiece, but Betty more than earns her place. She rotates and shifts throughout the trip to give us different perspectives, with the backstage team deserving their own shoutout for repeatedly manoeuvring the thing around! Morgan Francis's sound design gives Betty plenty of sputters, groans, and engine noises, helping sell the idea that she’s actually getting them somewhere. The music of their era becomes another bonding language for the boys. I also loved the striped motif across Barlow’s design. Stripes appear on the walls, across Betty’s paintwork, and throughout the boys’ costumes, tying the whole visual world together. Nevil Howell’s video work is very clever too, with projections of scenery and road signage, plus live footage allowing us to watch Eli and Benji from inside the van. The projections expand beyond the stage during Eli’s imaginative sequences, while Daniel Anderson’s lighting finds beauty in the landscape, particularly beneath the stars and at dawn over Uluru. Out there, Eli can disappear from his father’s protection and feel completely alive, while the enormity of the world reminds us how much of it he’ll never get to see. Out on the road, these boys finally get something they haven’t really had before... Space to muck around. Space to fight. Space to be frightened. And, eventually, enough space to speak. Grace Wilson wrote the first version of Goodbye, Eli Anderson as a teenager, and perhaps that’s why its young characters are allowed to be so contradictory. They can be brave and terrified, selfish and generous, hilarious and devastating within moments of each other. Nobody suddenly becomes eloquent just because this awful thing has happened. These are boys trying to find words for experiences they were never taught how to discuss. Sometimes they manage it. Sometimes all they can do is sit beside each other in a battered van, put on a cassette, and keep driving. Funny, poignant, and scrappy, Goodbye, Eli Anderson introduces a distinctive young Australian voice in Grace Wilson, brought to life by the gifted young performers entrusted with her work. It brought plenty of joy and tears, and left a fairly substantial lump in my throat. Grace Wilson may have written a story about a boy running out of time, but I suspect this play itself has a long life ahead of it.