The venue will be home to a dazzling array of Australian premieres, innovative dance works, and enthralling theatre.

Canberra Theatre Centre will be host to a number of exciting plays, powerhouse performances, and moving musical experiences in 2018. One of the most intriguing prospects comes from British theatre company Complicité, presenting the Australian premiere of a provocative new work about cancer. By acclaimed playwright Bryony Kimmings, A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer is a brash and funny musical about mortality and medicine.

^{A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer. Photo © Zan Wimberley.} 

Another Australian premiere comes to Canberra by way of Australian Dance Theatre. Weaving together live music and contemporary dance, The Beginning of Nature is a compelling exploration of metamorphosis and transformation. With live accompaniment by the Zephyr Quartet and two vocalists, the score combines electronica, strings and a libretto in Kaurna language, the first language of the Adelaide Plains, home to ADT.

In February, Terrence McNally’s Masterclass comes to the Playhouse with Amanda Muggleton reprising one of her most acclaimed roles. A tribute to the iconic Maria Callas, this play tells the turbulent life story of one of history’s greatest artists.

In July, audiences will get the chance to see Bangarra’s Dark Emu, described as a collection of dance stories directed by Stephen Page. Inspired by Bruce Pascoe’s award-winning book, the work explores how Indigenous Australians cultivated our landscape long before the colonisation of Australia.

^{Dark Emu. Photo © Daniel Boud.}

Later in the year, dance fans are in for a treat with Rafael Bonachela’s new full-length work for Sydney Dance Company, ab [intra]. An electrifying journey into the extremes of human nature, Bonachela interrogates what drives our interactions and ambitions in this visceral new piece.

The Helpmann Award-winning play The Bleeding Tree comes to Canberra in May in its Griffith Theatre Company production. By Angus Cerini, The Bleeding Tree is a highly original take on the Australian gothic with three women at its centre. Other plays with a distinctly Australian voice in Canberra Theatre Centre’s 2018 season include Nakkiah Lui’s comedy Black is the New White, The Aspirations of Daise Morrow, and The Season.

Finally, Janeites can judge for themselves whether Kate Hamill’s adaptation of Sense and Sensibility translates Austen’s prose to the stage in June. Telling the story of the Dashwoods, it satirises sentimentalism, criticises the vacuous, and is a touching story of sisterhood.

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