Queensland Theatre Company has unveiled a “full, rich, bold” 2021 season under artistic director Lee Lewis, with eight works across the year, beginning in late January with some 20 actors on stage in the Bille Brown Theatre in a new production of a classic play that emphasises the value of life and living in the moment.

Trent Dalton and Joe Klocek who will play Eli Bell in the stage adaptation of Dalton’s novel Boy Swallows Universe. Photography © David Kelly

Casting of US playwright Thornton Wilder’s Our Town (January 30 – February 27) is being left to much later than usual, however, following the uncertainties wrought by the COVID-19 epoch that saw theatres go dark for large stretches of 2020 and many work-deprived freelance creatives being denied government financial assistance.

“In past years we would have cast a long way ahead,” says Lewis. “We’re only going to be contracting [actors] probably about eight weeks before, so we’ll have much more of a single-ticket campaign where we launch the actual cast.”

“I don’t want to get into the situation...