At a time
when theatre companies are tightening the purse strings and announcing
easy-to-digest seasons filled with shows they are selling on name-recognition
first-and-foremost, the Melbourne Theatre Company has announced their 2026
season built on an array of new work they have developed through their NEXT
STAGE writers’ program.
Artistic
Director Anne-Louise Sarks explains it clearly: “We are more than the stories
we stage – we are a company investing in the future of theatre in this country.
That means building opportunities for artists, nurturing emerging voices and
connecting people through the experience of live theatre.”
One of the writers who has been involved with the NEXT STAGE program is Madelaine Nunn. As a writer and performer, Nunn has had a busy year. She took her one-woman show, Flick, about a nurse falling in love with a terminal patient to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where it was nominated for numerous awards and got rave reviews from over a dozen different publications. Then in September, she was invited to perform her solo show at the Australian Theatre Festival in New York.
Nunn has
won numerous awards for her plays aimed at young people and I first encountered
her work at La Mama Theatre in Carlton in 2021. Cactus was a story about
a teenage girl living with endometriosis. Insightful and witty, it approached
the subject with care and thoughtfulness and from that production, I knew she
was a writer to watch.
Her latest play - Nunn's MTC debut - is Shoelace Chaser, about teenage friendship and caregiving – and the way we show up for each other every day. Directed by MinterEllison Future Director, Liv Satchell, whose work is also known for its care and generosity of spirit, with a cast including Leigh Lule (Trophy Boys) and Zoe Boeson (Abigail's Party), it’s a new work that promises to be captivating and emotional.
Nunn started writing the play on her own about three years ago, thinking she would have to produce it herself like much of her previous work. She had pitched it to the mainstage company, but knew that process was long and uncertain. She had been planning to put it on next year, but in a surprise phone call before she flew off to Edinburgh, MTC asked if it was available for next year.
"It's great to be invited in so I can be just a writer. What do you mean someone else is taking the hero shot for publicity?" Nunn said in the foyer of the launch today. "It's great to focus on one thing."
The development program has been running for a number of years now and recent NEXT
STAGE success stories include this year’s insightful and moving Destiny
by Kirstie Marillier and last year’s rousing feminist musical, My
Brilliant Career, which will kick off MTC’s 2006 season before heading off
on tour to Wollongong, Canberra and Sydney.
Another
writer who has been through the program is Jean Tong, who is directing the
upcoming season of Benjamin Law’s new play, Dying: A Memoir. Tong is an
Associate Artist at the Melbourne Theatre Company and their play, Hungry
Ghosts, was staged in the Lawler Theatre as part of MTC’s award-winning Education
program in 2018.
I first encountered Tong's writing during the Melbourne Comedy Festival in 2018, with a show they wrote called Romeo Is Not the Only Fruit - a comedy musical that tackled the "dead lesbian cliche" in films and television, while upending Romeo and Juliet. My review started "Go see this play" so excited was by their work.
Their new
play, Do Not Pass Go, is an acerbic two-hander about two
colleagues navigating identity politics and their generational divide starring
Belinda McClory. Tong's writing is so sharp and I'm excited to see a show about identity politics from a young writer of colour and not hear more complaining about it from the usual suspects.
In 2023, Tong started at the MTC as the inaugural playwright-in-residence.
"I had access to ongoing dramaturgical support from the New Work Department (Jennifer Medway and Zoey Dawson) and the broader Artistic team for a year, which meant I could bounce my (many, many) ideas off people all the time, which is a real boon for a solitary playwright," Tong told me via email.
Asked whether the in-house development program meant Tong thought differently about the intended audience, they said "I think great writing captures the universal via the specific and vulnerable, and allows for everyone to see something of themselves in it."
The creative team who brought Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge brilliantly to life at MTC in 2019 have reunited to tell the story of another bridge and Australia’s worst industrial accident in Dennis McIntosh’s searing new play, West Gate. Director Iain Sinclair reunites with Steve Bastoni and Daniela Farinacci from the earlier production, joining forces with Lachy Hulme and Darcy Kent to dig into the tragedy of this brutal piece of Melbourne history.
Other new work
that has been supported through MTC’s NEXT STAGE program includes: a comedy set
in a day spa, Losing Face, written by Marieke Hardy, starring Genevieve
Morris and Michala Banas; Tom Holloway’s investigation into the birth of AI – Eliza
– about real-life therapist Dr Joseph Weizenbaum, starring Manali Datar and Dan
Spielman; and Kamarra Bell-Wykes’ play (which she also directs) about a First
Nations activist, linguist and matriarch living with dementia, called Before
I Forget, starring Tyallah Bullock, Melodie Reynolds-Diarra and Roxanne
McDonald.
More new Australian
work comes in the form of two shows that will begin life at Belvoir St Theatre
in Sydney: an adaptation of E.M. Forster’s classic novel, A Room with a
View, by writer Grace Chapple, directed by Hannah Goodwin and starring Nathalie
Morris from TV’s Bump; and S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack’s follow-up
to Counting and Cracking, an epic set against the backdrop of Civil War
in Sri Lanka, The Jungle and the Sea.
After its triumphant debut season in the West End, Olivier-nominated playwright Ryan Calais Cameron’s play, Retrograde, will make its Australian premiere at MTC in May. The play examines the racial politics of 1950s Hollywood in a story about actor Sidney Poitier and his encounter with a fast-talking studio lawyer. The play will be directed by Bert LaBonté, whose directorial debut, Topdog/Underdog, was one of the highlights of MTC’s 2023 season. It will star Donné Ngabo and Alan Dale – who locals will remember as Jim Robinson in Neighbours, before he set off to have a successful career in Hollywood (The OC, 24).
While MTC
might be turning their stages over to many new home-grown works in 2026, there
are a couple of classics getting new productions that promise to bring fresh
appreciation for both.
Playwright Joanna
Murray-Smith, whose adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley
will open at Arts Centre Melbourne later this month, has reimagined Chekhov’s Uncle
Vanya for a new era. It will be directed by MTC Artistic Director Anne-Louise
Sarks and star Daniel Henshall and Catherine Văn-Davies.
And celebrated stage and screen actor Alison Whyte will star in a new production of Tennessee Williams’ classic memory play, The Glass Menagerie. MTC Associate Artist Mark Wilson will direct. This is the first time the play has been produced by the Melbourne Theatre Company since 2004.
MTC’s embrace of new work is bold and industry-leading. If state theatre companies aren’t bringing through the next generation – as well as supporting mid-career artists, what hope does theatre have to grow and flourish into the future?
Melbourne
Theatre Company under Anne-Louise Sarks’ leadership has become a beacon for
bold new work and exciting reinventions of classic plays. I’m excited to
recommend people see shows at MTC these days – and 2026 looks to continue that
welcome trend.
Photos (clockwise from top left, then centre): Leigh Lule in Shoelace Chaser (photo by Jo Duck), Cast of My Brilliant Career (photo by Pia Johnson), Alison Whyte in The Glass Menagerie (photo by Jo Duck), Losing Face (photo by Jo Duck), cast of West Gate (photo by Jo Duck), Donne Ngabo in Retrograde (photo by Jo Duck) and Anandavalli in The Jungle and the Sea (photo by Daniel Boud).
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