The Stage Show ABC listen

Perhaps no dance company has done more to expand the horizons of Australian audiences than Bangarra Dance Theatre. Now they expand those horizons further, presenting their first mainstage cross-cultural collaboration.

Horizon includes work choreographed by Deborah Brown, a descendent of the Wakaid Clan and Meriam people in the Torres Strait, with Moss Te Ururangi Patterson, of the Māori Ngāti Tūwharetoa tribe in Aotearoa and the artistic director of the New Zealand Dance Company.

William Shakespeare's plays feature witchcraft, murder, ghosts and bloody revenge. Are his displays of blood and gore simply meant to entertain us or do they have more to say about the human condition?

Wherefore, Shakespeare? is a series that explores the dilemmas, conflicts, and controversies in Shakespeare's major plays.

In our third instalment, we enter Shakespeare's house of horror. We're joined by Professor David McInnis, who teaches Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama at the University of Melbourne, Professor Jane Montgomery Griffiths, an acclaimed actor and the head of the School of Performing Arts at Collarts, and Peter Evans, artistic director of Bell Shakespeare.

A childhood love of dance and a challenging homelife drove Rafael Bonachela to leave his native Spain at just 17 years old and seek his fortune in the dance studios and theatres of London. The celebrated choreographer was then beckoned to Australia, where he has led the Sydney Dance Company since 2009.

Also, in The Audition, we meet a group of asylum seekers vying for a new life in Australia. The play was co-written by a group of established playwrights alongside writers with lived experience of displacement. And we meet high school students from Hong Kong presenting their own bilingual play inspired by classics from Spain and China.

For decades, Australia's Back to Back Theatre has been delighting audiences with shows performed and devised by an ensemble of artists who are neurodivergent or living with a disability. Following their most recent major international award win, we visit the ensemble at their Geelong headquarters as they rehearse their new show: Multiple Bad Things.

Also, alongside the stand-up, improv and cabaret at this year's Brisbane Comedy Festival, you can catch a play by one of our top writers: David Finnigan's 'apocalyptic rom-com', 44 Sex Acts in One Week. And singer, songwriter and comedian Jude Perl is staging her first full-scale musical at Arts Centre Melbourne this month. It's called Share House: The Musical.

It's Tony season on Broadway and this week we have two major figures of American theatre who have won nine Tony Awards between them: Audra McDonald and Jason Robert Brown.

Performer Audra McDonald is currently on a concert tour of Australia. Her first Tony Award came for her breakthrough role in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel and she's added five more Tonys to her collection since then. And the composer and lyricist Jason Robert Brown won his first Tony Award for Parade, which is coming to Sydney's Seymour Centre.

Simon Burke is one of Australia's most cherished entertainers. 2024 marks his 50th year performing on stage.

He made his professional stage debut at just 12 years old and shortly after won an AFI Award for his performance in Fred Schepisi's film The Devil's Playground.

He's since become renowned as a musical theatre performer, having had major roles in Australia and on London's West End.

Right now, he's playing the Wizard of Oz in a spectacular new production of Wicked.