Dan Giovannoni is a prolific writer of plays for young people and adults. His work as a playwright and as a teaching artist demonstrate his belief in how creativity can change the world. Dan has new plays at Barking Gecko and the Melbourne Theatre Company. Also, Maree Johnson, Broadway cast member of Phantom of the Opera now performing on Sydney Harbour, shares her Top Shelf and we explore the 'repertory theatre' model that has inspired Belvoir's rep season of plays by Caryl Churchill and...

Tchaikovsky's opera about a blind princess, Iolanta, raises challenging questions about the nature of disability — questions the West Australian Opera confronts head on in a new production reimagined with members of the blind and vision-impaired community. Also, we hear two Sri Lankan Australian brothers debate 'wokeness' in a scene from the new comedy Stay Woke and we pay tribute to the theatre director and arts leader Andrew Ross, director of pioneering works by Aboriginal writers Jack...

Colin Lane and Frank Woodley are having a whale of a time in their new show, Moby Dick. The pair join us to reflect on forming their famous duo, forging separate paths and then discovering that neither of them had quite as much fun without the other. Also, we meet comedians readjusting to life on the road in 2022, check in with theatre companies impacted by the recent floods and congratulate Bruce Gladwin, artistic director and co-CEO of Back to Back Theatre, on the company's International...

George Gershwin's An American in Paris has been associated with dance ever since it inspired the 1951 Gene Kelly film, so who better to bring it to the musical theatre stage than the renowned ballet dancer, choreographer and now director Christopher Wheeldon. Also, with several Australian companies currently presenting works by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, we learn about the lives of these two men and their belief in the revolutionary potential of the theatre.

Isaac Bashevis Singer's Yentl was most famously adapted into a musical film by Barbra Streisand. Now a new adaptation breathes new life into the story. It's directed by Gary Abrahams, who is also at the helm of Admissions at the Melbourne Theatre Company. Also, playwright and Blak & Bright Festival Director Jane Harrison curates a session of monologues by First Nations writers and Voice and Text Coach at the Sydney Theatre Company Leith McPherson shares tips on how an actor's voice can...

The Last Great Hunt are a collective of Western Australian theatre makers who delight in bringing the unexpected to the stage. Now a documentary, Stage Changers, offers candid insight into their process as it follows the company creating their most ambitious work. Also, we visit a hip hop dance school breaking down barriers for young people who want to dance, and we meet Carla Stickler, a performer turned software engineer who during the Omicron wave found herself back on Broadway in Wicked...

In 1972, a lecturer at the University of Adelaide was attacked at a gay beat, thrown into the River Torrens and drowned. 50 years on, Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan shines a light into this appalling story and how his death changed Australia. Also, voice and dialect coach Leith McPherson shares more insights into the power of voice and we attend the rehearsal of a reimagined version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland presented by the Australian Contemporary Opera Company.

Bob Dylan's music feels inseparable from the man himself, so how could it be adapted for musical theatre? Playwright Conor McPherson explains how his dark and dreamy Girl from the North Country convinced Bob that he was the man for the job. Also, Dean Bryant, the director of Fun Home, shares the Best Advice he was ever given and Judith Lucy and Denise Scott are Still Here and heading out on the road.

Zindzi Okenyo has a lot on her plate. The actor, musician and Play School host is now a theatre director. Her first plays, Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner and Orange Thrower, are bitingly honest portrayals of growing up black in predominantly white communities. Also, when Kim Crotty couldn't be with his sons, he wrote them stories instead — 47 of them. These stories are shared in a new play at this year's Perth Festival called The Smallest Stage — a play that also reveals the reason...

Antony Hamilton is the artistic director of Melbourne's fierce and feisty contemporary dance company, Chunky Move. His new work Yung Lung plunges audiences into a restless and menacing dance party held in the midst of a world in crisis. Also, WA musician and playwright David Milroy shares what's on his Top Shelf and we meet Jules Allen, a youth support and mental health care worker (and former MasterChef contestant) who can now add 'funny and searingly honest playwright' to her CV.

The all-singing, all-dancing wives of Henry VIII reclaim history in the global smash Six the Musical. We meet Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss who wrote the show for the Edinburgh Fringe as students and have since opened the show on Broadway and the West End. Also, we discover the close connection between William Shakespeare and two terrorists whose names you're sure to know: Guy Fawkes and Osama Bin Laden. We're joined by Dr Islam Issa, author of Shakespeare and Terrorism.

Nathan Maynard is one of Australia's funniest and most clear-sighted playwrights. The Palawa writer had a hit with The Season and now he's back with At What Cost? A play that explores the thorny issue of who decides who can claim Aboriginal heritage. Also, how are theatres coping with surging COVID cases? We check in with Belvoir, Opera Australia and Global Creatures (Moulin Rouge), and we hear a scene from And She Would Stand Like This, a play described as Greek tragedy meets Paris Is Burning.

The former artistic director of The Australian Ballet, David McAllister, steals the spotlight to interview his partner, Noonuccal Nuugi playwright and director Wesley Enoch. Also, Yorta Yorta composer and singer Deborah Cheetham talks about the making of her opera Parrwang Lifts the Sky, based on the Wadawurrung story of the magpie who brought light to the land.

Tom Stoppard and William Shakespeare loom large in the canon of English drama. Two new books explore their lives, their work, their driving forces and their impact on theatre.

David Williamson is far and away Australia's most produced playwright. Now that David has retired, he looks back on his luminous career in a very candid memoir called Home Truths (HarperCollins), in which he throws open the doors to his writing room and takes us inside.

What can a 60-year-old play about drunk and sometimes spiteful American academics tell us about culture and race relations in Australia? Director Margaret Harvey shares her bold vision for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Also, we hear a performance from Black Brass, inspired by stories of resilience from Perth's African communities and we meet some of the real-life people whose generosity inspired the hit musical Come from Away.

Meet Thomas Kail, the Tony Award-winning director of the hit musical Hamilton, whose friendship and collaboration with Lin-Manuel Miranda stretches back twenty years. And Justin Levine, the man behind the music of the big winner at this year's Tonys: Moulin Rouge! The Musical — now on stage in Melbourne and heading to Sydney in May.

Live on stage at Melbourne's iconic La Mama Theatre, newly rebuilt following a devastating fire, we look at the history of independent Australian theatre and its impact on our culture, and we discuss the path ahead for small theatres in the wake of the pandemic.

Elaine Crombie is a powerhouse of an actor and singer on stage and screen. Her new role sees her performing with Bangarra Dance Theatre in Wudjang: Not the Past — a co-production with the Sydney Theatre Company at the Sydney Festival. Also, we're joined by Bangarra's artistic director Stephen Page and his recently announced successor Frances Rings and we visit Australian artists from Circa currently navigating a tangled web of border closures and health measures on tour in Europe.

Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill is now a jukebox musical. But how has this achingly personal collection of songs been transformed into a show about an American family coming apart at the seams? We ask the show's Oscar and Tony-winning writer, Diablo Cody. Also, we meet American playwright Will Arbery. His play Heroes of the Fourth Turning, lauded across the political spectrum, portrays conservative Catholics arguing about religion and politics in a Wyoming backyard — characters...

When a devastating diagnosis halted Michelle Ryan's dance career, she spent ten years away from the stage, but then some giants of dance brought her back into the spotlight. She's now artistic director of Adelaide's Restless Dance Theatre, which turns 30 this year. Also, award-winning playwright Kendall Feaver confronts sexual assault on campus in Wherever She Wanders at Griffin and we take a look at the curious history of pantomime with Virginia Gay, whose new play at Belvoir is called The...

When the writer of Rent died on the day of the show's first preview, he also left behind a little-known autobiographical musical called Tick, Tick… Boom! Now Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton) and Steven Levenson (Dear Evan Hansen) have brought it to the screen. Also, voice and text coach at the Sydney Theatre Company, Leith McPherson, shares more of her insights into the power of voice and Circa's visionary artistic director Yaron Lifschitz shares what's on his Top Shelf.

The musical Sunday in the Park with George has been the subject of speculation ever since it opened in 1984. Some say its story reflects the life and struggles of its composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim, and others celebrate how the unknown writer and director James Lapine steered Sondheim's work towards new vitality. James Lapine has now written a detailed and candid account of the show's fabled journey. It's called Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Made Sunday in the Park with...

A common thread runs through much of Australian theatre's boldest and most influential new work: director Paige Rattray. From humble beginnings in Tasmania, she now helps our most exciting new playwrights to realise their vision. Also, Stage Show regular Leith McPherson introduces her new role as Voice and Text Coach at the Sydney Theatre Company and dancer Raghav Handa and musician Maharshi Raval skirt the boundaries of Indian classical dance in Two at the OzAsia Festival.