Big Day Out or total disaster? It's in your hands
Plan and program your own music festival, using science concepts to work out everything from the headline acts to the optimal number of Portaloos.
Stage
Supersense festival returns to Arts Centre Melbourne
Sophia Brous wants you to hallucinate. Legally, of course, via the medium of performance.
Bella Union to close after 12 years of music and laughter at Trades Hall
The much-loved Trades Hall venue Bella Union will close after 12 years of programming events at multiple venues within the historic Carlton building.
Theatre
They've got a lot of cheek, these three women
They've got a cheek, this trio of defiant, whip-smart comediennes from three continents.
Tim Winton shines a light on road trauma
"As a playwright I make a pretty decent novelist," says Tim Winton. "I don't have any illusions about that."
Lally Katz' Minnie and Liraz an oddball romantic comedy with a dark edge
Sue Jones' brilliant performance as a larger-than-life demon grandma Liraz Her is a masterful comic creation that lifts the show as she schemes and scoots around the stage.
Dance
Sydney Dance Company's Orb a bombastic, powerful double bill
Sydney Dance Company's double bill features some terrific dancing across both works.
Temperance Hall move gives new lease of life to Phillip Adams BalletLab
With a little help from Airbnb, Phillip Adams' BalletLab is bucking the trend.
Sinful entities lacking despite company's vigour
The title of Limitless Dance Company's second season, SE7EN, is a reference to the 'sinful entities inside all of us'.
Musicals
Overheated melodrama and unintentional comedy collide in dire adaptation
This Spring Awakening fails on every level as tragedy. Humour might be the one way to save it, a surrender to travesty with a knowing smirk.
Sydney's gay history worth singing about
When Alex Harding's boy-meets-boy musical romance Only Heaven Knows premiered at the Stables Theatre in Kings Cross in May 1988, Sydney's gay community was in the grip of the AIDS crisis. Now it is being revived in a new age of conservatism.
My Fair Lady revival sporadically entertaining
Anna O'Byrne sings with enchanting beauty, and eventually crisp diction, as Eliza Doolittle, while Robyn Nevin is simply sublime as Henry Higgins' mother.
Opera
Adventurous production rewarded with triumph
Economic exigency has dictated shorter and less adventurous OA Melbourne seasons recently, but this co-production with Covent Garden was refreshing.
Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci review: Superbly rendered penny dreadful opera
Shining performances and some interesting artistic choices make this a splendid double bill from Opera Australia. ★★★★½
Tiny theatre draws big names
The tiny 115-seat Hayes Theatre is getting a big reputation for staging musicals with top talent. Coming soon to the theatre: opera diva Emma Matthews, and musical theatre stars David Campbell and Toby Francis.
Comedy
Minhaj's harshest burns at the White House journos' dinner
US President Donald Trump wasn't there to roast in person at the White House correspondents' dinner, but that didn't stop the evening's entertainer, Hasan Minhaj.
Performers try critics' skin on for size
What could be more provocative than prancing around naked on stage? Talking back to critics.
Frank Woodley's festival show is a 'cavalcade of humiliations'
Soon to turn 50, Frank Woodley rightly considers himself a seasoned veteran of Australian comedy. But the anxiety never goes away.