Critics' choice theatre shows in Melbourne

Listen up, muggles! Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will finish its record-breaking stint on July 9, 2023. After four magical years at Melbourne's Princess Theatre, the longest-running play in Australian theatre will finally come to an end and depart the country for good. If you want to catch this spellbinding production before it pops on its invisibility cloak and disappears forever, head to the website and snap up a ticket. Read on below for our review of the new one-night version of the play. It’s Christmas for Potterheads. Three years after its celebrated opening at the expensively refurbished Princess Theatre, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is taking an apt step back in time with a second premiere, this time of a streamlined one-play version that carves a good three hours off of its original running time. There are various motivations for this. Even for ardent devotees or seasoned theatre veterans, six hours in a seat is a slog, and once killed-for tickets had become readily available. But what could have been a cynical hatchet job has turned out to be the making of this show. The main pillars of the story remain – picking up where JK Rowling’s novels ended, we meet the children of famed wizard Harry Potter as they depart for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. However, the enduring friendships that kept Harry alive are elusive for Harry’s awkward son Albus, and when he fails to live up to the towering expectations of not just his school but the entire wiza

It is in fair Melbourne that we lay our scene for & Juliet, a pop-fuelled retelling of the Shakespearean tragedy that celebrates girl power, LGBTQIA+ pride, autonomy and love in all of its shapes and forms. This is Shakespeare yassified.  Billed as the greatest-ever love story remixed, & Juliet is a jukebox musical that asks: what if Juliet’s tragic ending was really just her beginning? “What if Juliet didn’t kill herself?” Anne Hathaway (played by the enthralling Amy Lehpamer) posits to her husband William Shakespeare (Rob Mills). “She’s only ever had one boyfriend, and frankly, the ending’s shit.”  Luckily for Melburnians, the new revision of the classic tale has made its long-awaited Australian debut, where the opening night of & Juliet saw a red-carpet full of glitz and glamour descend on the landmark Regent Theatre. Featuring music from Swedish songwriting powerhouse Max Martin and based on Emmy-winning writer David West Read’s book of the same name, & Juliet has stormed London’s West End, where it won three Olivier Awards, and now it’s here for a limited season in Melbourne’s East End.  The tale traces Juliet (Lorinda May Merrypor), who discovers at Romeo’s funeral just how much balcony-wooing her ex-husband had been doing on the sly. Together with her nurse Angélique (played by the wondrously affable Casey Donovan), Hathaway (who writes herself into the story) and best friend May (Jesse Dutlow), Juliet escapes Verona for the city of love, Paris. The gang celebrate thei

This production contains smoke/haze effects, coarse language, mature themes, sexual references, references to domestic and sexual violence and depictions of graphic violence, suicide and drug use.  Is God Is opens with a person whose head is encased in a burning house, the play foreshadows the homicidal acts that destroy the very fabric of familial ideals. Twin sisters Racine and Anaia have been estranged from their mother for several years and reconnect through a letter she sends from her death bed. All three bear the scars of their father’s attempt to burn their mother alive and on their mother’s directive, decide to reap violent vengeance upon him. The play features an all-black cast, with co-directors Zindzi Okenyo and Shari Sebbens continuing their acclaimed streak of steering stories that strike a communal resonance, including their recent hit stage debut, Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner. Henrietta Enyonam Amevor (previously in Sydney Theatre Company’s Hubris & Humiliation) stars as the timid Anaia and Masego Pitso kills her MTC debut as the assertive Racine. Cessalee Stovall plays their mother, referred to as the eponymous 'God', with an authority that resounds throughout the play as the driving intention behind the twins’ mission.  The journey traverses the Deep South to the Californian desert to Connecticut, taking its stylistic inspiration from spaghetti westerns, hip-hop and Afropunk. It strings together ideas of questionable morality, heroes, and villains wi