In the desert town of Papunya in 1981, four blackfellas and a whitefella bonded over rock 'n' roll and became the history-making Warumpi Band. The Warumpis were the first rock band to sing in Aboriginal languages. Now, Big Name, No Blankets from Ilbijerri Theatre Company will tell their story on stage at the Sydney Festival. Also, the American dramatic soprano Lise Lindstrom shares the works that have most inspired her journey as an artist on Top Shelf and we mark 100 years of radio in...

Richard Wagner's massive Ring Cycle consists of four heroic operas that tell stories from ancient Nordic sagas. But what would happen if you shifted the tale to an imaginary cosmos closer to our own? That is the question raised by an epic new production from Opera Australia which draws on imagery from Asia and the Pacific. Also, Moulin Rouge! The Musical is theatre at its most spectacular and dynamic — so, how do they do it? We go backstage with their technical director, Richard Martin. And...

A Tony-award winning production of A Christmas Carol has returned to Australia, this time with the Welsh actor Owen Teale as Scrooge. A Tony winner himself, best known for playing Alliser Thorne in Game of Thrones, we learn about Owen's very unconventional path to becoming an actor.  Also, the American playwright and drag icon Charles Busch has inspired a generation of artists with his outrageous writing and iconic performances. The first production from the Australian company Little Ones...

Sisters Hayley and Mandy McElhinney are two of Australia's finest stage and screen performers. Having built their careers as individuals, they now join forces for their playwriting debut. The pair have written and will star in Dirty Birds at the Black Swan State Theatre Company — a strange, funny and moving portrait of two women trying to find their place in the world. Also, the plight of asylum seekers involved in a 2010 maritime disaster that left 50 people dead has inspired This Rough...

We continue our journey into the life and work of Stephen Sondheim, the composer and lyricist of some of the most well-regarded musical theatre ever made. We are joined by performer Philip Quast, authors Joanne Gordon and Robert L McLaughlin, directors of several Sondheim productions Dean Bryant and Sonya Suares, and we speak with the New York Times' chief theatre critic Jesse Green about Here We Are, Sondheim's posthumous final musical.

Stephen Sondheim is the composer and lyricist of some of the most well-regarded musical theatre ever made. We delve into his life, work and impact on the form. We hear archival interviews with Sondheim himself and are joined by performer Philip Quast, author Joanne Gordon (Art Isn't Easy: The Theatre of Stephen Sondheim), director of several Sondheim productions, Dean Bryant, and Sonya Suares, founding artistic director of the Sondheim repertory company Watch This.

Composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb's creative partnership lasted forty years and produced hit shows like Cabaret, Chicago and Kiss of the Spider Woman. Since Ebb's death in 2004, John Kander — now 96 years old — has continued making new work. With Chicago back on stage in Australia, John Kander joins us from New York.  Also, we travel to Moscow to encounter the devil and his gang of misfits wreaking havoc among the literati of Stalinist Russia. Mikhail Bulgakov wrote the novel The...

In traditional Weitou culture (the first people of Hong Kong), brides defiantly sing of grief and bitterness towards their arranged marriages. Drawing on these folk songs and her own Weitou heritage, Rainbow Chan has written The Bridal Lament — a new song cycle coming to this year's Liveworks and OzAsia Festivals.  Also, Paradise or The Impermanence of Ice Cream is inspired by Parsi sky burials where the dead are consumed by vultures, theatre maker Wang Chong shares the work on his Top...

Whether he's playing, conducting, orchestrating or composing, Alex Lacamoire is a musician in demand. He has won three Tony Awards for his orchestrations (In the Heights, Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen). On the new Sadler's Wells dance work Message in a Bottle, Alex's palette is the iconic music of Sting. Also, how does a musical theatre performer bring their A-game to eight shows a week? We ask two of the hardest working performers on the Australian stage, and we learn about a fan-led project...

The new work, Bark of Millions, features 55 original songs that explore queer life and culture.

Nakkiah Lui (Kamilaroi/Torres Strait Islander) is one of Australia's most incisive, provocative, and funniest writers. Never one to follow convention, when she was asked to consider adapting a 'classic', Nakkiah Lui chose the divisive 90s Hollywood flop, Showgirls. Blaque Showgirls is now on at the Griffin Theatre Company. Also, Sandaime Richard, a Japanese play inspired by Shakespeare's Richard III, was radically transformed by the Singaporean director Ong Keng Sen in a 2016 production that...

Choreographer and dancer Dalisa Pigram is a Yawuru/Bardi woman and the co-artistic director of the acclaimed dance company Marrugeku. Dalisa is the winner of the 2023 Creative Australia Award for Dance. The prize was announced this week as part of ABC Arts Week. Also, ahead of the opening of her show Mutton is the New Lamb — a trans de-mythology, Julie Peters brings in her photo album to discuss making art from life, and Mary Finsterer, one of Australia's most widely performed composers,...

Cessalee Stovall is an in-demand performer and the founder of the organisation Stage a Change. When Cessalee is not on stage herself, she is driving opportunities for artists of colour working in the performing arts. Over a pot of tea, Cessalee and Stéphanie discuss the organisation's efforts — and spill some tea in the process. Also, playwright Hilary Bell shares the works that have most inspired her journey as an artist on Top Shelf and the disability-led performing arts festival...

As new parents, Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall found themselves immersed in an uncanny world of children's entertainment. The impossible chirpiness of the singers made them wonder: what struggles lurk behind those bright eyes? Those musings have inspired their new musical comedy Bananaland. Also, Stephen Schwartz thought that he had left Broadway behind when he chanced to encounter a novel called Wicked. The composer-lyricist behind Godspell and Pippin had recently won three Academy...

On the eastern edge of the Nullarbor Plain is a deeply spiritual place called Yuldi Kapi, or Ooldea Soak. It's the electrifying starting point for the bold new work from Bangarra Dance Theatre called Yuldea. It's choreographed by Bangarra's new artistic director, Mirning woman Frances Rings. Also, Mary Coustas is the creator of the big-haired, outspoken Greek Australian Effie who first took on the world in a stage show called Wogs Out of Work in 1987. She went on to star in the comedy series...

To break the mould of traditional opera, composer David Lang takes us to unexpected places. He has written an opera that is too quiet to hear, an opera for 1000 singers performed over a one-mile stretch and in The Little Match Girl Passion he substitutes the suffering of Jesus with the suffering of the young girl dying in the cold in Hans Christian Andersen's famous fairy tale. Also, choreographer Stephanie Lake gets dancers to perform with a kind of joy and discipline which would hold the...

Debra Oswald was just 17 years old when her first play was professionally workshopped. That was in 1977 and she's been a prodigious writer of plays, television and novels ever since. But her path has not always been easy and her story is laid bare in her one-woman show Is There Something Wrong with That Lady? Also, we hear a scene from the new play at Queensland Theatre, Don't Ask What the Bird Look Like, which takes us into the world of a young Aboriginal woman reconnecting with her father...

Helen Morse has performed in some of the most radical and feted Australian theatre productions of the past 50 years. As she prepares to feature in the Melbourne Theatre Company production of Caryl Churchill's play Escaped Alone, Helen reflects on her five decades in Australian theatre. Also, we hear a scene from Cactus, an acclaimed new Australian play about two teenage girls facing challenges that neither are yet prepared for, and we discuss the future of NICA, the National Institute of...

Death of a Salesman by the American writer Arthur Miller is one of the 20th century's most famous plays. It's about an ageing travelling salesman who discovers late in life that he is entirely expendable. A new production in Australia has enticed Anthony LaPaglia back to the stage for the first time in over a decade. Also, the 1913 murder of a 13-year-old girl in the American South and the anti-Semitic fervour it whipped up has become the improbable subject of a hit musical called Parade,...

Caryl Churchill is one of the most enduring and radical playwrights of our time. Several of her plays are now in production around Australia. To unpack the politics and theatrical risk-taking of Caryl Churchill, we're joined by experts, creatives and performers immersed in her work. Also, the sumptuous American musical Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 was a sensation in New York, where it was nominated for 12 Tony Awards. It's based on a tale of seduction and betrayal from Leo...

Ash Flanders made his reputation with wildly funny, often surreal queer theatre made under the name Sisters Grimm with his creative partner Declan Greene. Now, Ash has put the glitter and wigs aside and written a new, naturalistic play called This Is Living. Also, multidisciplinary artist and "radical mischief-maker" Candy Bowers shares the works of art that have most inspired her journey on Top Shelf and we explore the themes of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Fleet Street...

Australian writer Michelle Law has an ear for the humour found when cultures meet. Her new play Miss Peony takes us into the world of Chinese-Australian pageants in which young women compete to be the one who most embodies Chinese values. But who decides what those values are? Also, we meet the organisers of Club Broadway, a pop-up party that features nothing but show tunes, and we discuss 'mad scenes' in 19th century opera with the Australian soprano Jessica Pratt. What do they tell us...

Guest host Wesley Enoch meets three icons of First Nations performing arts. Roxanne McDonald's stage career began more than 30 years ago when she saw an audition flyer for a play based on the poetry of Oodgeroo Noonuccal. She has since graced some of Australia's biggest stages. Also, we meet Noongar elder Richard Walley, who has made enormous contributions to Australian performing arts, from directing and acting in a range of new theatre works to twice performing for Queen Elizabeth II, and...

The English writer Michael Frayn has produced a staggering amount of journalism, novels, philosophy, non-fiction and plays. The Tony and Olivier Award-winning writer of Benefactors, Noises Off and Copenhagen celebrates his 90th birthday this year. Also, in the regional Victorian town of Camperdown, a local theatre company has endured for 75 years. We drop by the town's historic Theatre Royal to attend their sold-out 75th Anniversary Spectacular and meet the dedicated community members...

The American composer Mary Rodgers was a funny, frank and intelligent woman who grew up in a world of showbiz royalty. But as an artist, she could never shake free of the shadow of her famous father, Richard Rodgers. She tells her life story in Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers, co-written by Jesse Green. Also, after four years on stage, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will soon take its final bow in Melbourne. It is Australia's longest-running play, with more than one...