The stream of strong feministwork continues with Animal – a remorseless, haunting dramatic vision developed in response to violence against women.

Next week the musical satire will hit Melbourne for the first time in a two-week run at Chapel Off Chapel.

The Shadow Box's genteel approach to death has been surpassed by tougher fare, but a strong cast and crew elevate a dated work.

THEATRE RUST AND BONE ★★★½ La Mama Courthouse Until November 27

Carriageworks receives more visitors, and at a fraction of the cost, than the major cultural institutions as it reveals 2017 artistic program.

Frank Ferrante has spent three decades keeping the mischievous spirit of Marxism alive.

Kenneth Branagh and Greta Scacchi

Michael Frayn's comedy presents a play-within-a-play coming apart as it goes along.

The Belarus Free Theatre joins forces with Pussy Riot's Maria Alyokhina to share stories of persecuted Russian artists in a brutal new work.

High leaps? Expressive hands? A strong profile? What was choreographer John Neumeier looking for when he auditioned dancers to play one of the great icons of twentieth century culture, Vaslav Nijinsky?

Skirmishes between the sexes touch on the ambiguities of seduction and intimations of sexual violence.

Francesca Savige and Shaun Rennie have won this year's Sandra Bates Director Award, a prize offering mentoring and directing experience for emerging theatre directors at the Ensemble Theatre in Kirribilli.

The Angelica Complex

A Life In Theatre is a barbed tribute to the acting profession.

Theatre legend John Gaden still has "most of my faculties".

The play ventures into a labyrinth of menace, violence and casual misogyny.

There is plenty of sound and fury when Anti-Hamlet rubs up against Shakespeare's tragic hero.

Andrew Upton's modern swing on a classic farce is a breathless affair.

Playwright and actor Nakkiah Lui's new musical comedy takes the idea of cultural appropriation to the extreme.

In what will be seen as no great surprise to many in the Sydney theatre scene, the STC's interim artistic director Kip Williams has been appointed to the role.

"We never think what we are doing is complicated until other people tell us it's complicated," says director Simon Phillips of the theatre productions he has created with designer Gabriela Tylesova. "We always think it's quite simple."

Still gripped by the interminable circus that is the US presidential election campaign? Will you be hankering for more come early 2017? Then The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family is the show for you.

This stage adaptation of the sitcom captures its eccentric world with suitably broad and endearing performances from a cast led by Karyn Tisdell's warmth in the title role as Geraldine.