Odd couples don’t come much odder than Gary and Monica in this comedic gem from national treasure David Williamson, where double Gold Logie-winner Georgie Parker (Home and Away) and Glenn Hazeldine (Colin From Accounts) reprise their performances 15 years after its debut.

When a cultured inner-city aesthete hires a knockabout true-blue tradie to renovate her kitchen, she gets more than she bargained for. The pair argue about everything, including the kitchen sink, but when the witty banter turns to music, things heat up faster than Monica’s new six-burner cooktop!

She’s an embittered former classical violinist who loves Mahler more than life itself. He’s a glib former Country and Western singer now spinning tracks as DJ Rhinestone Rex. They have nothing in common except that they’re both middle-aged and single. But as the arrows fly and the digs land, will this duo discover they’re accidentally harmonising on their own sweet duet?

David Williamson (Don’s Party, Emerald City, Family Values) returns to Queensland Theatre with this up-close and highly flammable two-hander that sparks with the spitfire comedy we’ve come to love from this legend of Australian theatre.

Rhinestone Rex and Miss Monica
28 May – 21 June 2025
Bille Brown Theatre, Brisbane
www.queenslandtheatre.com.au

Welcome to the rough-and-tumble town of Deadwood, where swaggering sharpshooter Calamity Jane is mocked and admired in equal measure. Deadly with a whip or a quip, her bluster and bravado mask a longing for something deeper.

Cabaret daredevil Naomi Price (Drizzle Boy, Ladies in Black) slips into Jane’s trail-worn boots for this rootin’ tootin’ unruly and unpredictable ride.

Join Calamity’s piano-fuelled posse and pull up a stool at one of the on-stage saloon tables to be part of the action!

This revival has all your favourite numbers, including “Secret Love” and “The Black Hills of Dakota” but this ain’t Doris Day’s Calamity Jane, no siree. This stripped-back reimagining shucks off the buckskin and brings a barrelful of dirt and grit to the classic musical.

Hailed as “outstandingly clever… gut-bustlingly funny [and with] an extraordinarily generous heart” (The Australian), saddle up and ride before dawn ‘cause these here tickets will fly out the door faster than you can crack a whip!

Calamity Jane
Bille Brown Theatre, Brisbane
22 March – 17 April 2025
www.queenslandtheatre.com.au

Billed as the first trans love story on the Australian mainstage, Triple X is written by (and stars) acclaimed New York-based Australian performer/playwright/screenwriter/comedienne, Glace Chase, and will run from March 14 to April 4 in Queensland Theatre’s Bille Brown Theatre.

Triple X examines the relationship between straight ‘Wall Street banker bro’, Scotty (Akos Armont), and Dexie (Chase), a trans performer with whom he starts an affair, just a few months out from his wedding to his ‘perfect’ fiancée.

Says Glace Chase, “Whilst the concept of ‘trans’ has finally hit the mainstream over the last few years, the next big story to be told is “trans in love”. I think very few people have any concept of what a romantic relationship looks like between a trans person and those interested in them. It’s a unique story and it’s mainly from the point of view of the straight guy who is romantically interested in a trans woman. We’ve never seen something (empathetically) explore what he and they go through. I think the general public still struggles to fully understand the trans experience, but I think they want to. Hopefully this will help.”

Triple X also stars Queensland Theatre multi-award winners Christen O’Leary (Antigone, Twelfth Night), as Scotty’s mum, Deb, and Meyne Wyatt (City of Gold) as his best mate, Jase. Making her Queensland Theatre debut isContessa Treffone (STC’s Lord of the Flies and The Harp in the South) in the role of Scotty’s sister, Claire.

As well as an unconventional love story, Triple X also contains strong language and explicit sex scenes. Chase, who is a two-time winner of the prestigious Griffin Award, knows this may be confronting for some audience members, but believes it to be a truthful representation of the characters’ lives.

“In my world people speak and act like this. I understand that it might be shocking for some but you can’t unlink explicit sexuality from the romantic reality of many trans people’s lives. We so often exist in the shadows. I wanted to be brutally honest and make people experience what it’s like from the inside,” she explains.

Whilst the story is Chase’s own, she freely admits Triple X would not have made it to the stage without the unwavering support of Director, Paige Rattray.

Says Rattray, “Glace is one of the most entertaining but also profound writers I’ve worked with. It can be an unusual combination; often comedy can overtake tragedy or vice versa. Glace rides this wave expertly in Triple X. I think only someone with her particular lived experience would be able to navigate that trickiness within this particular narrative. The toxic masculinity, examination of societal ‘norms‘, gender politics and love; it’s all woven together expertly. Working with her on this play has definitely changed the way I think about the world and I feel very lucky.”

Triple X – The Story
Scotty has it all: a multimillion-dollar loft in downtown Manhattan, a high-flying Wall Street job, and he’s about to marry the perfect fiancée, who also happens to be loaded. But when he meets trans performance artist Dexie, he discovers he wants something more. A friend? A confidante? A lover?

When the secret of their affair gets out, it’s sure to shock not only his dude-bro Jase, his highly-strung mother Deb, and his lesbian activist sister Claire, but also a theatre audience strapped in for the ride of their lives. From the wickedly funny pen of Australian-born, New York-based Glace Chase, this play is an hilarious, honest and emotionally affecting look at entitlement, hypocrisy, and the realities of love.

Triple X
14 March – 4 April 2020
Bille Brown Theatre, Queensland Theatre
www.queenslandtheatre.com.au

Antigone opens on October 26 and runs until November 16 in Queensland Theatre’s Bille Brown Theatre.

The show reunites powerhouse actors, Logie award-nominee Jessica Tovey (QT’s Constellations also in TV’s Bad Mothers, Wolf Creek, Home & Away, Underbelly) in the title role with multi award-winner Christen O’Leary(QT’s End of the Rainbow, Scenes from a Marriage, Ladies in Black also in TV’s Hoges, Wentworth and Neighbours) as Antigone’s adversary Creon, and Kevin Spink (Hydra, Kelly, Macbeth) as her ill-fated fiancé, Haemon. All three were last seen on stage together in Queensland Theatre’s Twelfth Night (2018).

Led by Travis Dowling, in his Queensland Theatre mainstage directorial debut, Antigone also stars Queensland Theatre stalwart Penny Everingham (Once in Royal David’s City, Pygmalion) as the prophet Tiresias with haunting songs performed by Queensland Conservatorium graduate Shubshri Kandiah (as Antigone’s sister, Ismene) fresh off the back of her 18-month stint as Jasmine in Aladdin – The Musical.

Whilst Antigone was written by Sophocles almost 2,500 years ago, playwright Merlynn Tong believes the tale resonates with modern audiences.

“I have tried to create a version of Antigone that pays tribute to the beautiful poetic language of the original, whilst pulling in sentiments from our present day. We don’t have a chorus as such, but we do still share the odes in a heightened fashion. My version of the play also satiates some long-standing curiosities that I’ve nursed. For example: Why does Ismene never return to the story? Can she have another role to play besides that of a fearful ‘sister’? What is Antigone and Haemon’s relationship like?”

“Also, last but not least, Creon will be played by a woman, the powerhouse that is Christen O’Leary.”

“This is exciting for me as I get to explore the patriarchy as embodied by a woman; a comment that patriarchy is not dead, rather, it has morphed and taken on a different flavour since the original play was written.”

Director Travis Dowling said, “Merlynn Tong’s play is as heartfelt as it is epic. I expect audiences to feel overwhelmed by the bigness of this epic and everlasting story and to question why we are still having debates like this in our modern world.”

Artistic Director Sam Strong agrees, “Merlynn has written an adaptation for the ages and for right now. As we watch the world respond to young climate campaigners, it’s hard not to see the parallels with this classic story of a young activist woman standing up for what she knows is right. People talk a lot about the timelessness of classic plays, but this version of Antigone cuts through the clichés, creating something genuinely urgent.”

Antigone in a nutshell
The epic argument rages on – A great city has been torn apart by a civil war between two brothers. In the aftermath, both lie dead – one hailed as a hero and lying in state, the other condemned as a traitor and dumped in a carrion pile. From the ashes of their conflict rises a dystopian state under a new leader – Creon (Christen O’Leary), a career politician who rose to power by dint of her ruthlessness.

Grieving and heartbroken, their sister Antigone (Jessica Tovey) challenges the leader for the right to bury and mourn her dead brother with dignity, sparking a furious act of rebellion that will shake the city to its foundations.

Antigone
Bille Brown Theatre at Queensland Theatre
Saturday 26th October – Saturday 16th November 2019
www.queenslandtheatre.com.au

Brisbane Open House provides residents and visitors with the rare opportunity to uncover the hidden wealth of architecture, engineering and history in buildings and special locations around the city and visitors will have the opportunity to take a peek behind-the-scenes at Brisbane’s only corner stage, opened in October 2018.

Guests can walk through the state-of-the-art theatre (shortlisted in the 2019 Australian Interior Design Awards – Public Design Category), stand centre stage and marvel at the tension net suspended above them. Plus, they will also be able to witness the next generation of Brisbane actors when Queensland Theatre’s Young Artists take to the Bille Brown Theatre stage to perform excerpts from their show The Secret Garden, at 12:00pm in a free showing.

Tour participants are able to view the large workshop facility and wardrobe department where magnificent sets and costumes from the likes of Ladies in Black, Nearer the Gods and Death of a Salesman were created before relaxing with a ‘cuppa under Besse the Bottle Tree (gifted all the way from Quilpie in 2002) in the lush courtyard.

Queensland Theatre’s 50th anniversary celebrations kick off this month and, to commemorate, guests at the Open House event are invited to share their stories about their relationship with Queensland Theatre over the past half century as well as their ideas for its future. These recordings will be shared publicly throughout 2020.

BILLE BROWN THEATRE – Brisbane Open House
Queensland Theatre’s Bille Brown Theatre, 78 Montague Rd, South Brisbane
Saturday October 12 from 9:30am to 4pm

Frequency of Guided Tours: 10:00am, 11:00am, 2:00pm and 3:00pm
Guests are advised to register at the building on arrival, as tours have a limited capacity
All Brisbane Open House tours and events are FREE
www.queenslandtheatre.com.au

Edna is fourteen years old and in love for the first time. Her object of desire is pop star Harry. He’s completely unobtainable but that does little to stop her compulsion. She and her girl friends all have the same crush, but Edna is not the type of girl to be easily denied.

What starts out light and of good cheer turns dark as infatuation turns into obsession. First love often times knows no bounds and Edna is razor sharp in her wants. As things spiral out of control, the comments on our societal norms become more pinpoint.

Using high energy song and dance to set the tone and slipping the subversion in under the veneer of happy teen life gives Fangirls that extra bite. Your loud cheers for the extremism on display only adds to the guilty pleasure.

Cast
Edna – Yve Blake
Harry – Aydan
Brianna – Kimberley Hodgson
Jules – Chika Ikogwe
Lily – Ayesha Madon
Saltypringl – James Majoos
Caroline – Sharon Millerchip
Swing Performer – Melissa Russo

Creative
Book, Music & Lyrics – Yve Blake
Director – Paige Rattray

Fangirls is currently playing at Queensland Theatre’s Bille Brown Theatre until October 5, head to their website for more information and to purchase tickets – www.queenslandtheatre.com.au
Rob Hudson

“Season 2020 confirms Queensland Theatre as the national home of new stories, with 50 percent of the season being world premieres,” said Strong. “I’m proud of how we have transformed Queensland Theatre over the last four years, but I am especially proud of our championing of new stories. This is the third successive year in which at least half of our season has been brand new work,” he said.

“In the four years including 2020, we will have staged 15 world premieres, including 10 commissions reaching the stage. That’s a theatre company reflecting contemporary Australia back to itself more than ever before and more than any other. This has included established names and new plays by David Williamson, Joanna Murray Smith, Sue Smith and Melissa Bubnic. It has also included at least seven mainstage debuts, three First Nations writers, two Asian-Australian writers, one Islamic-Australian writer and one transgender writer.”

“However, it wouldn’t be a Queensland Theatre season if we weren’t ambitiously growing. We are celebrating the milestone of our 50th season of stories by reflecting Queensland like never before. This includes more Queensland exclusives and the theatrical event of the year, the stage version of Trent Dalton’s smash hit novel, Boy Swallows Universe.”

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said it was fitting that David Megarrity, recipient of the 2018-2019 Queensland Premier’s Drama Award, will stage his play The Holidays during the 50th anniversary year of Queensland Theatre. “The award develops one playwright into a full production. I encourage all creative artists to continue the development of their playwrights and apply for the 2020-2021 Queensland Premier’s Drama Award which is currently open for nomination until 15 September 2019. Queensland has a thriving arts sector and the Queensland Government is proud to support and celebrate Queensland Theatre’s 50th anniversary milestone in 2020,” the Premier said.

Arts Minister Leeanne Enoch said 2020 was set to be an exciting year for the state theatre company as it celebrates its milestone anniversary and presents a fantastic lineup of stage productions. “Queensland Theatre has been entertaining and challenging Queenslanders since 1970, and connecting with people through exciting theatre experiences that enrich and positively impact their lives,” Ms Enoch said. “I am so proud to see the state’s flagship theatre company continue to solidify its reputation for telling Queensland stories, presenting classic favourites and new works, developing local talent, and performing widely throughout the state.”

The season showcases a spectacular smorgasbord of talent from Queensland and around Australia, including: mainstage debutants like director Zoe Tuffin through to master playwright David Williamson, who is celebrating his 50th anniversary as a playwright; actors who have become favourites at Queensland Theatre such as Christine Amor, Jimi Bani, Emily Burton, Ray Chong Nee, Jason Klarwein, Angie Milliken, Bryan Probets, and Toni Scanlan; Australian acting royalty Nadine Garner and Rhys Muldoon; and the hottest young talent in Australia, including Josh McConville, Contessa Treffone and Sheridan Harbridge. Joining these actors are the best directors and designers in Australia in Sam Strong, Paige Rattray, Lee Lewis, Dale Ferguson, Richard Roberts, Renee Mulder, Ben Hughes and Steve Francis.

Fittingly, the 50th anniversary year opens with adopted Queenslander David Williamson’s Emerald City which celebrates the acclaimed playwright’s 50th anniversary. The play uses the hedonistic late-1980s as a canvas to explore bigger – and ever more relevant – concerns about compromising personal ideals. Directed by Sam Strong, Emerald City sees the return of Rhys Muldoon (House Husbands and Rake) to Queensland Theatre after the success of his turn as Isaac Newton in David Williamson’s Nearer the Gods.

From contemporary New York comes Triple X, by one of Australia’s most prolific and dynamic young writers-turned-New York local in Glace Chase. This world premiere, directed by Paige Rattray, will move audiences as well as make them laugh through its dissection of gender and sexuality in the 2020s.

In May, Queensland Theatre presents William Shakespeare’s most intimate tragedy, Othello. Directed by stage powerhouse Jason Klarwein and starring Jimi Bani, this uniquely Queensland version will give the classic an evocative and effective setting in the Torres Strait during the Second World War.

Next up, the world premiere of the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award-winning play The Holidays, by David Megarrity, directed by Matilda Award-wining Bridget Boyle. This sensory feast will transport audiences to a quintessentially Queensland beach getaway for a touching meditation on mortality.

Posing the question, ‘what’s our responsibility to the future’ and set in the wake of a nuclear disaster, The Children is written by one of the UK’s leading young playwrights in Lucy Kirkwood and will be directed by mainstage debutant Zoe Tuffin.

Then, one of the most anticipated stage stories of the year – and an Australian coup – the world premiere stage version of Trent Dalton’s wildly successful novel Boy Swallows Universe brings Brisbane unforgettably to life under the direction of Sam Strong. Adapted for stage by Tim McGarry and presented in partnership with Brisbane Festival, the play will see the blockbuster Australian novel burst onto stage.

In October, the Griffin award-winning Prima Facie, by playwright Suzie Miller presents an urgent, gripping one woman show which mounts an irresistible call for change through its powerful story of a defense barrister whofinds herself on the wrong side of the system, directed by Lee Lewis.

The Season 2020 finale is the world premiere and Queensland exclusive of Phaedra, which satirically transplants one of drama’s great heroines to a Queensland that has seceded from the rest of Australia. From the minds of Queensland’s own Belloo Creative, written by the acclaimed Katherine Lyall-Watson and directed by Caroline Dunphy, the play sees the return of the much-loved Angie Milliken to Queensland Theatre’s stage.

As the company celebrates 50 seasons of stories, it is especially proud of the success of the immediate past. Under the Artistic Direction of Sam Strong and the executive leadership of Amanda Jolly, Queensland Theatre has made concrete its vision of leading from Queensland – with key achievements including a new name, a new theatre, record audiences and growth, national industry leadership through gender parity of writers and directors for four successive years, more diverse voices, more new stories and world premieres, and the next generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stories. These successes and so much more will be celebrated throughout Season 2020.

Sam Strong paid tribute to Queensland Theatre and audiences. “I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to lead Queensland Theatre and am so proud of what we have achieved together over the last four years. I’ve loved living, working and sitting in lots of theatres in Queensland, including the one we built together. Thank you for so generously embracing me and the Company’s work. Brisbane really does have the warmest audiences in Australia. I can’t wait to return to those audiences as a punter and as a director in 2020.”

Queensland Theatre 2020 Season
8-29th February – Emerald City
14th March – 4th April – Triple X
30th May -27th Jun – Othello
11th July – 1st August – The Holidays
1st – 29th August – The Children
29th August -19th September – Boy Swallows Universe
8th – 31st October – Prima Facie
14th November – 5th December – Phaedra
www.queenslandtheatre.com.au

With first previews opening from June 29 and the season continuing until July 20, City of Gold is a raw and honest look at the challenges facing some young Indigenous Australians working to carve out a future in modern society whilst striving to maintain their connection to community and Country. It’s a stage story everyone needs to experience.

Partially inspired by his own experiences Wyatt has written a wryly funny and sometimes brutal play that will leave audiences questioning their own preconceptions, however well-meaning, about modern Indigenous culture. It’s raw, open, honest story-telling that will resonate with audiences, alternating between shock, inspiration and deeply moving moments. This is a play for people who are interested in being at the cutting edge of the conversation about Indigenous experience in Australia today.

Meyne Wyatt said the story had to be told. “Over the past few years things have happened, there has been something in the air, which all came together to make me actually write this,” he said.

“My dad passed away in 2015 and 18 months later I found myself really disillusioned with the world, the industry and myself. The roles I was auditioning for and getting, reflected the fact I had lost my passion. At the same time in my hometown of Kalgoorlie, a young 14-year-old Aboriginal boy was killed by a hit-and-run driver, who ended up serving just 15 months. And down south, the Adam Goodes story was playing out on and off the footy field. This series of events prompted me to sit down and write City of Gold.”

Meyne said the story has the potential to be divisive. “There’s absolutely controversial lines, acts and characters in City of Gold. There’s also lots of humour. The story dives into dark and deep territory, with the humour a great release valve. I want audiences to find their own spark from this story; and what they find important, is what’s important.”
IMAGERY of the writer/actor Meyne Wyatt here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3eykx62vlsq5p85/AAA5A1PEifs0TAAjhZp1giTKa?dl=0

The talented Wyatt (he’s been nominated for a Sydney Theatre Award in 2011, Logie award 2014 and AACTA Award 2014) will be joined by a highly acclaimed and experienced cast including Matilda Award-winning actor (for Queensland Theatre’s An Octoroon) Anthony Standish, Matilda Award-nominatedJeremy Ambrum (Queensland Theatre’s The Longest Minute, also in Mabo, Cleverman, Secret Daughter) and Logie award-winning Shari Sebbens (Queensland Theatre’s An Octoroon, also in Black is the New White, TV Redfern Now, Black Comedy Film Top End Wedding, Thor: Ragnarok, The Sapphires).
A number of the cast will be making their Queensland Theatre debut including Performing Arts WA (WAAPA) Award-winning actor, Maitland Schnaars (Black Swan State Theatre’s Let The Right One In, Yirri Yaakin Aboriginal Theatre’s Conversations With The Dead, Film I Met a Girl) and Mathew Cooper (Performing Lines The Season, MTC/Neon Lucky Film, The Marshes, Television Janet King, Redfern Now).

Seasoned stage, television and film actor, Christopher Stollery (film Last Cab to Darwin, TV Top of the Lake: China Girl, House of Hanock, Neighbours) will also perform for Queensland Theatre for the first time,fresh from his Sydney Theatre Award nomination for Best Male Actor in a Supporting Role for Ear to the Edge of Time.

The creatives behind City of Gold are some of the country’s most – acclaimed and award-winning. Australian actor and dramaturg Isaac Drandic will direct (based in Cairns, he has been Queensland Theatre’s Resident Dramaturg since 2017), with Dramaturgy by Paige Rattray. Famed design team Simone Tesorieri and Simona Cosentini will bring the set to life, with Nathalie Ryner Costume Designer, Jason Glenwright Lighting Designer and Tony Brumpton Composer and Sound Designer.

City of Gold: The Story
Breythe is a young actor making his way in Sydney when news of his father’s death calls him home to Kalgoorlie. Being back on Country and stretched between the politics of his feisty sister Carina and his dispirited brother Mateo, Breythe struggles to understand how he fits into his family or his community. His father haunts his dreams and an omen of death follows him. This is an electrifying glimpse into the entanglement of present-day and ‘traditional’ Indigenous culture through the eyes of a young man. The world premiere season of City of Gold will continue after Brisbane at Griffin Theatre Company in Sydney from July 26.

City of Gold
Bille Brown Theatre
Saturday 29 June – Saturday 20 July 2019
www.queenslandtheatre.com.au

Young Storm Boy lives a simple yet free life on the coastal wilds of the South Australian Coorong, combing the beaches with his reclusive father, Hideaway Tom.

During a long summer, he makes two friends who will shepherd him from childhood into adulthood: the jester Fingerbone Bill, who teaches him about his country; and Mr Percival, an orphaned pelican who prepares Storm Boy for the wider world with a poignant lesson about love, loss and letting go.

This landmark new production of Colin Thiele’s cherished yet bittersweet coming-of-age story brings together the creative forces behind Jasper Jones and The Wider Earth. It will touch the hearts of young and old with its masterful puppetry and boundless imagination.

Storm Boy
Playhouse, QPAC, Brisbane
29 Jul to 17 Aug 2019
www.queenslandtheatre.com.au

When a family tragedy beckons, Barbara and her sister (and fellow muso) René set off on a long and winding motorbike adventure from Sydney, through Darwin, and finally to Katherine – where the bickering pair come face to face with some home truths.

Part madcap buddy comedy, part electrifying rock gig, and part clarion call against the taint of inequality, this effervescent play with songs sold out its original season at Sydney’s Belvoir Theatre. Now it’s set to charm the pants off Brisbane.

Barbara and the Camp Dogs
01 – 25 May 2019
Bille Brown Theatre, Queensland Theatre
www.queenslandtheatre.com.au