Now that the Sydney Festival juggernaut has rumbled out of view for another year, fans of Sydney theatre, opera and dance can take a breather to collect their thoughts, check what's left in their entertainment budget and plan ahead.
It will be a brief respite at best. Over the next few months Sydney stages will host a procession of blockbusting musicals, hit overseas plays, new work from established local writers, fresh voices and radical takes on the classics.
![Paulini (left) and Kip Gamblin take the main roles in the stage musical of <i>The Bodyguard</i>.](/web/20170205085121im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/0/7/e/p/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtwwsa.png/1486219447364.jpg)
We've pored over the season programs to highlight the shows not to be missed.
MUSICALS
Calamity Jane
Git yerself aboard the Deadwood Stage for Australia's first professional production of the musical spun-off from the 1953 Doris Day film. Virginia Gay takes the title role in a production glimpsed at the Hayes last year in a short try-out season. "She's a hero of mine, she's a feminist icon," Gay says. "I grew up with the Doris Day movie. From about the age of five, I watched it at least twice a week. I was a real tomboy growing up but I was also bookish ... So for me Calamity Jane was my hero. Totally fearless." Sheridan Harbridge, Laura Bunting and Rob Johnson feature.
March 8-April 2, Hayes Theatre Company, Potts Point, $55-$68, hayestheatre.com.au
![Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner in the 1992 movie <i>The Bodyguard</i>.](/web/20170205085121im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/3/0/y/k/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtwwsa.png/1486219447364.jpg)
Kinky Boots
The critical reception to this feel-good British musical has been glowing. "Irresistible, big-hearted fun", wrote The Age, and pretty much everyone else seems to agree. Toby Francis stars as Charlie Price, a young man who reluctantly takes over his family's ailing show factory. Financial ruin beckons – until Charlie meets Lola (Callum Francis), a black drag queen who opens Charlie's eyes to an unexplored niche market: high-end ladies' footwear for men.
From April 12, Capitol Theatre, Haymarket, $65-$170, kinkybootsthemusical.com.au
The Bodyguard
Whitney Houston left big boots to fill but we think Australian Idol graduate Paulini has the chops to channel the late soul diva in this stage musical version of the 1992 movie thriller The Bodyguard. Paulini stars as singer-superstar Rachel Marron, who is being threatened by an unknown stalker. It's up to former FBI agent-turned-personal security expert Frank Farmer – played by Kip Gamblin (Home and Away , most recently, Neighbours) – to take the bullet should one come her way.
From April 21, Sydney Lyric Theatre, Pyrmont, $79.90-$159.90, sydneylyric.com.au
Cabaret
The dream-teamy quality of the front line cast for this new staging of John Kander and Fred Ebb's Weimar Berlin-set Cabaret – Chelsea Gibb as devil-may-care English ingenue Sally Bowles and Paul Capsis as the Kit Kat Klub MC – all but guarantees the show's hotness. Marcus Graham, Jason Kos and Kate Fitzpatrick also feature and choreographer Kelley Abbey will make numbers including Don't Tell Mama and Two Ladies pop in this intimate venue.
Until March 5, Hayes Theatre Company, $100-$110, hayestheatre.com.au.
OPERA
Handa Opera on the Harbour: Carmen
In 2013, Gale Edward's visually rich, action-packed production of Bizet's Carmen helped Sydney embrace the idea that dramatically and musically satisfying opera could be staged against the focus-pulling backdrop of Sydney Harbour. This revival features Jose Maria Lo Monaco in the title role (alternating with Sian Pendry).
March 24-April 23, Fleet Steps, Mrs Macquaries Point, $69-$329, opera.org.au
![Mitchell Butel in <i>Mr Burns: A Post Electric Play</i>, nodding to <i>The Simpsons</i>, at Belvoir.](/web/20170205085121im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/0/9/e/0/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtwwsa.png/1486219447364.jpg)
DANCE
Faster
The Australian Ballet's contemporary work for 2017 takes the form of a pulsating triple bill showcasing the work of British choreographers David Bintley and Wayne McGregor, and the AB's resident choreographer Tim Harbour. Created in 2012, the year of the London Olympics, Bintley's Faster is inspired by the Olympic motto ("Faster, higher, stronger") and the agony and ecstasy of elite competition. McGregor's 2008 Infra is set to a haunting score by composer Max Richter. Harbour's Squander and Glory is spanking new.
April 7-26, Sydney Opera House, $43-$198, australianballet.com.au
Orb
Inspired by the moon and set to a score by film composer Lim Giong, Orb marks the Sydney Dance Company's first collaboration with the Taiwanese choreographer Cheng Tsung-lung. "He wants to convey the idea that if we raised our heads and looked up at the moon, we might discover the mysteries of the universe," says the company's artistic director, Rafael Bonachela.
April 29-May 13, Roslyn Packer Theatre, Walsh Bay, $20-$93, roslynpackertheatre.com.au
![The Australian Ballet's <i>Faster</i> is inspired by the Olympic motto: Faster, higher, stronger.](/web/20170205085121im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/0/6/v/h/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtwwsa.png/1486219447364.jpg)
COMEDY AND DRAMA
Richard 3
Kate Mulvany adapts Shakespeare's Richard III and plays the wily Son of York for Bell Shakespeare, adding her name to the select list of women to have played the Plantagenet bad boy. Are audiences ready for a gender-blind casting? Bell's artistic director, Peter Evans, believes they are. "Some people feel incredibly strongly that there is a certain way [Shakespeare] should be done. But I get a feeling audiences are interested in diversity as long as we're not smacking them over the head with something that might twist the play out of shape."
February 27-April 1, The Playhouse, Sydney Opera House, $45-$92, bellshakespeare.com.au
Chimerica
Inspired by the famous image of a young man armed with plastic shopping bags halting a column of tanks approaching Tiananmen Square during the student uprising of 1989, Lucy Kirkwood's Chimerica considers two decades of US-China relations through personal stories. Kip Williams directs.
February 28-April 1, Roslyn Packer Theatre, $77-$105, roslynpackertheatre.com.au
![Virginia Gay gets to play her hero Calamity Jane at the Hayes Theatre.](/web/20170205085121im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/0/6/e/9/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtwwsa.png/1486219447364.jpg)
The Homosexuals, or 'Faggots'
Melbourne writer-director Declan Greene's provocative new comedy takes aim at cashed-up gay lifestyles, exemplified by fictional Potts Point same sex newlyweds Warren and Kim. Greene's play is "like throwing a brick in a puddle", says Griffin's artistic director, Lee Lewis. "I don't know where the splash is going to end up."
March 17-April 29, Griffin Theatre, Kings Cross, $35-$55, griffintheatre.com.au
Black Birds
A stand out of the inaugural all-female Festival Fatale last year, Black Birds is a whip-smart show about being a woman of colour in Australia. Actor-writer Ayeesha Ash uses spoken word, poems, movement, singing and music to "smash Afro stereotypes", she says.
March 29-April 8, Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, Penrith, $30-$35, thejoan.com.au
![Wendy Strehlow (left) is a patient of Jo Turner's character Sigmund Freud in <i>Hysteria</i>.](/web/20170205085121im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/2/t/v/2/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtwwsa.png/1486219447364.jpg)
Hysteria
Terry Johnson's modern classic comedy transports its audience to Hampstead, London, in 1938, and to the home of the pioneering psychologist Sigmund Freud. Among the clients – the elderly, terminally ill and exhausted – Freud must attend to are a manic exhibitionist, who strips naked and hides in his closet, and the artist Salvador Dali. It'll be a tough day at the office.
March 31-April 30, Eternity Playhouse, Darlinghurst, $38-$54, darlinghursttheatre.com
Dracula
Brisbane's Shake & Stir return to Sydney with its fangsome take on Bram Stoker's gothic masterpiece. The primary audience is high school groups, but as the company demonstrated with its high-impact staging of George Orwell's 1984 a couple of years ago, age is no barrier to appreciation.
April 1-4, Riverside Theatres, Parramatta, $28-$52, riversideparramatta.com.au
![Matthew Manahan, Michelle Barr, Jason Kos and Michelle Smitheram in <i>Cabaret</i>.](/web/20170205085121im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/y/f/u/t/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtwwsa.png/1486219447364.jpg)
The Rasputin Affair
Kate Mulvany again, this time as the writer of a new historically-informed comedy set in St. Petersburg, Russia, in the winter of 1917, where three would-be assassins gather over a plate of poisoned cup cakes to plot the murder of the faith healer and mystic Rasputin. John Sheedy directs. Tom Budge, Hamish Michael, John Gaden, Zindzi Okenyo and Sean O'Shea feature.
April 1-30, Ensemble Theatre, Kirribili, $34-$71, ensemble.com.au
The Play That Goes Wrong
One of the biggest West End comic hits for years (it recently celebrated its 1000th performance), The Play That Goes Wrong charts the attempts of the hapless members of the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society to stage an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery. The Australian production features Brooke Satchwell, Francine Cain, George Kemp and Luke Joslin. There shouldn't be a dry seat in the house.
April 5-16, Roslyn Packer Theatre, $89.90-$119.90, roslynpackertheatre.com.au
![Kate Mulvany has written the historically-inspired comedy <i>The Rasputin Affair</I>.](/web/20170205085121im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/0/7/u/t/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtwwsa.png/1486219447364.jpg)
Fallen
Sydney indie company Sport for Jove teams up with Melbourne's She Said Theatre to present the premiere of a new Australian work inspired by the history of Urania Cottage, a home for "fallen" women in London dreamed up by Charles Dickens in 1846 and funded by a millionaire philanthropist. Playwright Seanna van Helten zooms in on six inmates promised a clean start in the colonies.
April 6-22, Seymour Centre, Chippendale, $35-$44, seymourcentre.com
Smurf in Wanderland
The National Theatre of Parramatta teams up with Griffin to present David Williams' humorous examination of western Sydney's football culture, the myths that surround it, and what it means to be a true blue fan.
April 20-29, Riverside Theatres, Parramatta, $25-$49, riversideparramatta.com.au (also May 2-13, Griffin Theatre,$30-$43, griffintheatre.com.au)
![The feel-good musical <i>Kinky Boots</i> has been well received by critics.](/web/20170205085121im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/7/s/n/3/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtwwsa.png/1486219447364.jpg)
Mr Burns – A Post Electric Play
A catastrophe has rocked the world to its foundations. Society, technology and culture as we know it now has crumbled. All the survivors have shared but shaky memories of the classic Simpsons episode Cape Feare. Fast forward seven years and those survivors are travelling the land, spreading a new, mutated gospel featuring a pantheon of strangely familiar gods. Mitchell Butel features alongside Little Shop of Horrors stars Esther Hannaford and Brent Hill. Exxxcellent ...
May 19-June 25, Belvoir, Surry Hills, $37-$72, belvoir.com.au
COMEDY CENTRAL
Edition #13 of the Sydney Comedy Festival brings comics from across the world.
Among the hotly anticipated shows are the Comedy Store debut of America's Chris D'Elia, new shows from Ireland's Jason Byrne and David O'Doherty, Britain's Stephen K Amos, Paul Foot and Sarah Callaghan and the return of perennial American visitor Arj Barker. For fans of the local talent, tickets are now available for shows from Dave Hughes, Aunty Donna, Joel Creasey, Matt Okine, Rove McManus and Rhys Nicholson, and the infamous Puppetry of the Penis returns with its unique take on the world's architectural wonders. You'll never look at the Eiffel Tower the same way again.
April 24-May 1, see sydneycomedyfest.com.au
MARDI GRAS ON STAGE
Leading Sydney venues are on board for this year's Mardi Gras, including the Old Fitzroy (which hosts a new production of David Hare's The Judas Kiss), the Eternity Playhouse (Bathsheba Doran's The Mystery of Love & Sex) and the New Theatre (Douglas Carter Beane's zingy showbiz comedy The Little Dog Laughed).
This year's program also features the long-awaited Sydney premiere of Lachlan Philpott's The Trouble with Harry, a play based on the sensational murder trial of Sydneysider Harry Crawford, who was born female, lived as a man, married twice and lived a regular suburban life, until the unexpected arrival of a young woman brought his world crashing down.
February 17-March 6, see mardigras.org.au