Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie continues its triumphant procession at home and abroad with Black Swan State Theatre’s production in Perth, under the direction of Kate Champion. A hit at its première at Sydney’s Griffin Theatre in 2019 and in post-Covid seasons in Melbourne, Broadway, and the West End (winning the 2023 Olivier Award for Best New Play), not to mention in South Asia and Northern Europe, it now arrives in Perth, where Miller received her first mainstage production (of Dust) in 2014.

For the past thirty years, breakthroughs in video and sound technology have, for better or worse, seeped into live performance. For better in the case of Kip William’s production of Suddenly Last Summer and Lindy Hume and Dave Bergman’s Winterreise for Musica Viva. For worse with David Livermore/Opera Australia’s ludicrous Anna Bolena and Ivo van Hove’s self-indulgent All About Eve.

The contrast could hardly be more stark. Late last year, Red Stitch’s production of Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, directed by Sarah Goodes, began life at the company’s eighty-seat theatre nestled in East St Kilda. It sold out, became the talk of the town, and attracted positive reviews. Usually, that’s how things end.

This year marks the centenary of Giacomo Puccini’s sudden death in Brussels while being treated for throat cancer. He was the most famous and celebrated living opera composer. However, Puccini’s posthumous reputation suffered in the latter half of the twentieth century; an infamous comment by renowned musicologist Joseph Kerman in 1952 describing Tosca as ‘a shabby little shocker’, was representative of much of academia’s attitude during this time.

In the Drama Theatre at the Sydney Opera House, expectations were high for Bangarra Dance Theatre’s Horizon, a double bill featuring works by Saybaylag (Saibai Island people) of Zenadth Kez (the Torres Strait) man Sani Townson and Deborah Brown of the Wakaid clan, Meriam (Murray Island), who were in collaboration with Māori choreographer Moss Te Uruangi Patterson (Ngāti Tūwharetoa). 

On its face, Stolen presents as simple storytelling. Five characters, five distinct journeys, five personal narratives, bound together within an overarching story: that of the stealing of Indigenous children from their families, their culture, their land, a shameful, reprehensible blight on our national history, a blight that continued into recent history, the impact of which is still being lived and experienced.

I recall the first time I saw pianist Paul Grabowsky play. The occasion was the launch of his debut album Six by Three, recorded with his then trio of bassist Gary Costello and drummer Allan Browne. The recital took place on a Sunday afternoon, in 1989, if memory serves, in a downstairs gallery in Flinders Lane.

Since its first iteration in 2005, the annual Woodend Winter Arts Festival has grown to become one of the more successful regional arts events in Victoria. The picturesque town of Woodend is less than an hour away from Melbourne, and now also has a significant and growing population of tree-changers and retirees.