Sydney’s Belvoir is the latest theatre company to announce its 2017 season, which includes the return of two sell-out Belvoir productions, three new Australian plays, two classics and two wildly inventive American plays. “Our 2016 season has been very much about reflecting our past, both for Belvoir and in a wider cultural sense,” says Artistic Director Eamon Flack. “With the 2017 season we are taking an imaginative leap into the future. In this season, characters dream big in the midst of disaster and confusion. They fight passionately for a brighter future. This is a season of plays that unleashes the possibility that maybe the 21st century won’t be an unmitigated disaster.”

Gideon Mzembe and Pacharo Mzemba in Prize Fighter. Photo by Dylan Evans

It opens in January with Prize Fighter, a La Boite Theatre Company and Brisbane Festival production, which premiered in 2015 to rave reviews, presented in association with the Sydney Festival. Written by Future D. Fidel and set in a boxing ring, it draws on Fidel’s own experience to tell the story of a Congolese boy who comes to...