Theatre & Musicals in Perth

Political powerhouse Van Badham (Banging Denmark, The Guardian) delivers an internet-fast brilliantly sharp adaptation of George Orwell's response to authoritarian government in Animal farm. This high-octane satire boils with the potency and emergency of a viral tweet. Trust us. You're going to love it.

Written by Tony Nicholls and directed by Bryce Manning at the Wembley Community Centre, the story follows Dick after he gets kicked out of home and decides to head to London. On his way, he encounters a smart talking cat and meets and instantly falls in love with Alice Fitzwarren. Dick wants to marry Alice – but so does the nasty Squire Crow – and he faces numerous challenges in his pursuit of Alice. After saving a fairy from King Rat, Dick is also rewarded and becomes Mayor of London. Dick Whittington and His Cat plays at 7pm October 15, 22 and 29 and 2pm October 16, 17, 23, 24, 30 and 31. Tickets are $20, $15 concession – book at www.trybooking.com/BUBZN The pantomime is showing at the Wembley Community Centre, 40 Alexander Street, Wembley.

This French play by Alexis Michalik wasawarded three Molières in 2014, the greatest recognition for theatre in France. While the French football team play Euro 84, April's bag is stolen from the metro by December. But the young man decides to return it to its owner! Destiny is on the move. Both will follow in the footsteps of Robert- Houdin, inventor of modern magic, and Georges Méliès, a great figure in cinema. Eras, places and passions respond strangely to each other. While life has fun playing tricks, will love triumph over illusions? In this dizzying, award-winning comedy, Alexis Michalik, combines lightness, depth and wonder to question the magic of art in our lives. The idea with this play is to bring the audience in a dream with wide open eyes. The Past and Present will have to intertwine. Actors will travel in time and space without constraints at a frantic pace. As in our memory, the comings and goings of the past will be instantaneous. The group movements will allow us to confuse the public to let them get lost, the magic and the illusion will transport them into a poetic universe, where destiny is created.

G&S WA proudly presents The Sorcerer – the toe-tapping, spellbinding musical that started it all! Gilbert & Sullivan’s inaugural full-length collaboration, The Sorcerer is filled with memorable characters, witty and wonderful music, and a tantalizing story-line. The tiny town of Ploverleigh is a happy place, busy with preparations for the engagement of Aline, the blue-blood daughter of Lady Sangazure; to Alexis, an officer of the Grenadier Guards and son of Sir Marmaduke Poindextre. Other romances are also waiting to bloom, as the smitten Constance pines for the oblivious Dr Daly, and Sir Marmaduke confesses a long held secret affection for Lady Sangazure. Wishing everyone could be as happy as he is, Alexis declares that love should have no rank or social distinctions and employs the services of a Sorcerer to brew a love potion so the whole town may experience the joys of romantic bliss. Filtered into the tea served at the engagement celebration, all are soon under its intoxicating influence. However, topsy turvy mismatches are awakened! Will true love survive? Celebrate The Gilbert & Sullivan Society of WA’s 70th Anniversary Year, an enchanting event not to be missed!

I was a woman, a mark for the world’s contempt. The story of Phaedra is one of lust and shame. Phaedra was the wife of King Theseus, an older woman with an all-consuming lust for her stepson Hippolytus.

Monstrous Woman is a highly visual, metaphorical allegory investigating the Intersections between repressed desire and the older woman. The play rewrites the myth of the damaging effects of the sexual transgressions of mothers and the tides of fate.

Presented by Tempest Theatre

Performed in-the-round, by the incredible Luke Hewitt, Every Brilliant Thing is an hour of life affirming humour that reaches into the soul of the audience, connecting and resonating in ways that holds and carries them from beginning to end. Every Brilliant Thing is a play about everything worth living for – from ice cream, to staying up late to watch TV, to the music of Ray Charles. It’s a responsible and hilarious way of talking about depression. With the help of the audience, who are thrown into the story as fathers, lovers, friends and allies, it tells the story of a boy’s response to his mum’s suicide. This award-winning play strikes the perfect balance between hurt and hope, using humour to have the hardest conversations. From the broad #4 ‘The Colour Yellow’ to the detailed #9998 ‘Watching someone watch your favourite film’ this joyous and intimate work shows us the miracles in life’s minutiae. “I now realise that it’s important to talk about things. Particularly the things that are the hardest to talk about.”

See the beautiful spaces of this world-class museum come alive as our Performance Making students create bespoke moments of performance in response to the WA Museum building and its collections. Folds takes inspiration from images of geological folding; the visualisation of time written into rocks. This exciting, original work uses the new Museum to contemplate how we can ‘fold’ the present moment back in time to link it to a moment in the past as a particular kind of memory and memorial.

This year marks Spare Parts Puppet Theatre’s 40th anniversary, and the seventh annual collaboration between the Fremantle-based company and WAAPA’s Performance Making students. This exciting partnership introduces our students to the world of visual storytelling through the physical and imaginative demands of puppet theatre. For their final show before they graduate, all of the students’ creative inventiveness will be let loose to bring Spare Parts’ history, building, surrounding parkland, and favourite puppets to magical life! Under the direction of Michael Barlow, SPPT’s Associate Director, the students will create a promenade performance as the centrepiece of celebrations of 40 years of contemporary puppetry, made in wonder.

Join us in celebrating the talents of WAAPA’s 2021 Aboriginal Performance cohort, as they take to the stage in the end-of-year public performance that marks the finale to their year of training. Directed by: Rick Brayford Performed by: Aboriginal Performance students

Set in the American South, the story moves between the 1920s and 1940s, as literary editor Alice Murphy attempts to find the child that was taken from her. Her journey to find the truth transforms those around her as lives torn apart are made whole again. Director: Adam Mitchell Music Director: Craig Dalton Choreographer: Jayne Smeulders Performed by: 2nd Year Music Theatre and Music students

But when Harold Slocum of Slocum’s Travelling Tent Show arrives in town, it stirs up memories of a long-ago illicit affair. This light-hearted, bittersweet Australian musical in our Spiegeltent is the perfect way to end the year. Written by: Nick Enright and Terence Clarke Directed by: Nicole Stinton Performed by: 2nd Year Acting Students

The latest work to have come out of Yirra Yaakin Writers' Group, Dating Black will be the first play by new playwright Narelle Thorne. Djinda has come out of a bad marriage and moved back in with family. Her best friend Hope is also single and ready to mingle "Window shopping is what she enjoys most". Djinda's brother is very protective of her and ready to take on anyone that might risk her heart being broken again. Justin is the new man on the scene but is he too smooth? No one comes without baggage after 30! A funny and energetic story of the trials and tribulations of dating and finding love as a mature adult – compounded by being a blackfulla and the comedic threat of being related, even distantly, to anyone that shows an interest. How do we find love and understanding later in life?

University Theatres presents a Windmill Theatre Company Production GRUG Based on the much-loved picture book character created by Ted Prior. Grug began his life as the top of a Burrawang tree that fell to the ground. Resembling a small, striped haystack with feet and a nose, Grug is fascinated by the world around him and solves everyday problems creatively and without fuss. When dancing instructions are too difficult to understand, he invents his own dance and calls it ‘The Grug’. When snails eat his cabbages, Grug plants more cabbages so there will be enough for both him and the snails. Celebrating 10 years of performances in 2020, Ted Prior’s hugely popular character is brought to life in Windmill’s magical stage production. Having performed to more than 50,000 children and families worldwide, Grug is perfect for our youngest theatre lovers. Age group: 2 - 6 years old | Preschool to Year 2 Director Sam Haren Designer Joathon Oxlade Composer DJ TR!P Grug is a Windmill Theatre Company production. Originally produced in association with Queensland Performing Arts Centre’s Out of the Box Festival. Windmill Theatre Co is supported by the Government of South Australia and the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. Suitable for all ages but ideal for 2 to 6 year olds. Children aged 2 and over will require a ticket to attend this performance. Children under aged 2 do not require a ticket but will need to sit in an adult's lap for the duration of the show.

AUSTRALIA IT’S TIME TO GET ALL REVVED UP! JIM STEINMAN’S EPIC ROCK MUSICAL, BAT OUT OF HELL is blasting into the country’s biggest arenas in June 2020.

Based on one of the best-selling albums of all time, the award-winning wild child rock musical features a powerhouse of hits including “You Took The Words Right Out of My Mouth,” “Bat Out Of Hell,” and “I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)”. An epic love story of rebellious youth and passion, this rock spectacular brings to life the legendary hits of Jim Steinman in an exhilarating two and a half hour rock event.

Surrender to the ‘SHEER POUNDING ENERGY’ (Financial Times) of this ‘OUTRAGEOUS AND NOSTALGIC’ (The Times) Rock Musical and be part of the adrenaline pumping crowd witnessing the production at a scale and size NEVER SEEN BEFORE with the full international cast.See it big at the ultimate arena experience of 2020 with BAT OUT OF HELL – THE ROCK MUSICAL.of the adrenaline pumping crowd witnessing the production at a scale and size NEVER SEEN BEFORE with the full international cast.

See it big at the ultimate arena experience of 2020 with BAT OUT OF HELL – THE ROCK MUSICAL.

In celebration of our 30th birthday, we asked you choose which of the Bard's 37 plays we are to perform at the end of our 2021 Season. Over 1,800 votes were cast, and our fate has been sealed. we are thrilled to announce that Black Swan will stage The Tempest, where it all began for us 30 years ago - at the Octagon Theatre.