With world premieres, cult classics, and fan favourites, all combining for our most exciting season yet! New Theatre’s 2026 Season has arrived, and every show is a winner.
“Our 2026 season is one of our most exciting yet. It’s a season about identity, imagination, and rebellion, about challenging the status quo, and finding hope,” says Artistic Director Louise Fischer.
“I think it’s a season that is very much in response to our world at the moment, and while it addresses the issues at play, the works included next year all find a sense of optimism I think is invaluable.”
“It’s a mix of classic and new, playful and thoughtful, and very much represents the spirit of New Theatre,” says Fischer.
New Theatre’s 2026 Season:
Perfect Arrangement
4 February – 7 March
It’s 1950s America, and a new colour has been added to the Red Scare: lavender. The Lavender Scare saw LGBTQ+ people interrogated, outed, and dismissed from government service in a sweeping campaign of fear and moral panic. Inspired by the early stirrings of the American gay rights movement, this madcap, classic-sitcom setup gradually gives way to sharp, provocative drama, as two “All-American” couples find themselves staring down the closet door – and the cost of keeping it shut. Topher Payne explores themes of fear and the weaponisation of identity – themes that feel just as relevant today. Playwright: Topher Payne | Director: Patrick Kennedy
Stage Kiss
17 March – 11 April
Two actors, and former lovers, unexpectedly reunite when cast opposite each other in a forgotten 1930s melodrama. As rehearsals progress and onstage romance echoes their past, the lines between performance and real life begin to blur. Their rekindled chemistry sparks a funny, tender, and sometimes chaotic exploration of desire, loyalty, and the complexity of relationships. All the while, life imitates art and art imitates life. With sparkling dialogue and her signature wit, Sarah Ruhl (In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play, The Clean House) shows how even a single kiss can upend everything in this whimsical and insightful theatrical romp. Playwright: Sarah Ruhl | Director: Alice Livingstone
Dancing at Lughnasa
21 April – 16 May
It’s the summer of 1936, during the pagan festival of Lughnasa, and young Michael watches his five aunts navigate the fragile joys and looming hardships of rural Irish life. Brief moments of freedom, hope, and love flicker through the household only to be threatened as economic pressures and family upheaval close in. Widely regarded as Brian Friel’s masterpiece, this semi-autobiographical memory play is a haunting and affectionate portrait of five unmarried sisters whose fierce spirit and resilience shine even as their world begins to change forever. Playwright: Brian Friel | Director: Isabella Milkovitsch
Continuity
26 May – 20 June
On the set of a big-budget Hollywood eco-thriller, everything that can go wrong, does. A stereotypical ‘eco terrorist hero’ plants a bomb to save the day. A frazzled film crew battles the clock to make their final shot. And somewhere between artistic ambition and environmental catastrophe, both the movie – and the planet – teeter on the brink. In this film-within-a-play, storytelling and science collide with hilarious and unsettling consequences. Playwright: Beth Wohl | Director: Sahn Millington
The Day of the Triffids
30 June – 25 July
London, 1951: In an attempt to solve the world’s energy crisis, scientists engineer the Triffids: a biofuel crop that is highly efficient, strangely sentient, and disturbingly carnivorous. When a freak cosmic event blinds most of the world’s population, one man wakes into a collapsing society where fear, opportunism, and chaos reign. As humans struggle to survive, an unexpected predator rises. Free from observation, the Triffids begin their ascent. The beast is loose. Adapted from John Wyndham’s iconic catastrophe novel, The Day of the Triffids erupts into vivid, immersive reality in this bold new theatrical experience by Jay James-Moody. World Premiere!
A View from the Bridge
4 August – 5 September
Eddie Carbone is devoted to his wife, Beatrice, and fiercely protective of his niece, Catherine. When Beatrice’s cousins, Marco and Rodolpho, arrive illegally from Sicily in search of work and a chance at a better life, the Carbone household opens its doors. But when one of the men falls for Catherine, old certainties crumble, and the price of love – and freedom – becomes painfully clear. Arthur Miller’s dark and compelling masterpiece simmers with a tension born of jealousy, desire, and unspoken boundaries. Set in 1950s Brooklyn, A View From the Bridge explores family, loyalty, and the immigrant experience, as secrets and betrayals gather force with tragic inevitability. Playwright: Arthur Miller | Director: Louise Fischer
Next to Godliness
6 – 31 October
Erin and Sophia are “cleaners”. They work for the kind of people who need nothing left behind, and in return, they are paid extremely well, especially on public holidays. Except today, they’ve turned up to their job, and one of the bodies they’re supposed to be cleaning up, is somewhat inconveniently not dead. With few options and little time available, the pair decide to outsource their problem to an enigmatic contractor named Ferryman, a decision they may come to regret. Meanwhile, the spirits of the dead are restless, and they have their own stories to tell. This world-premiere of a razor-sharp new satire that will have you laughing, even while wondering if you really should. Winner of the 2023 Silver Gull Award. Playwright: Alastair Brown | Director: Madeleine Withington
Blithe Spirit
10 November – 12 December
Charles Condomine is a man trapped between two wives – one living, one very much deceased. When Charles and his second wife, Ruth, invite eccentric medium Madame Arcati to conduct a séance, he hopes to gather inspiration for his next novel. Instead, Madame Arcati inadvertently summons the mischievous ghost of Charles’s first wife, Elvira. Invisible to Ruth but impossible to ignore, Elvira sets about causing chaos in her former home. First performed during the Blitz, Blithe Spirit offered much-needed laughter. Nearly nine decades later, Coward’s sparkling farce remains irresistibly funny and delightfully wicked. Playwright: Noël Coward | Director: Rosane McNamara
For more information about New Theatre’s 2026 season, visit: www.newtheatre.org.au for details.
Image: © H. Armstrong Roberts/Alamy; Composition: Maddy Withington