What’s more fun than a comically flawless story about tragically flawed people? Nothing.

A clumsy brunette bombshell; an addled actress as the dotty housekeeper; an alcoholic septuagenarian in the role of a burglar. It was never going to be easy staging a bedroom farce with a mediocre cast, but pompous director Lloyd Dallas is having a crack.

You’ll cry with laughter and cringe with delight as you witness this company fray and fall apart. Onstage, it’s a whirl of slamming doors, missed cues, dropped lines and dropped trousers; backstage, it’s an even more confused and chaotic maelstrom of love triangles and trampled egos, and there’s no one without an axe to grind (or swing).

Playwright Michael Frayn’s classic meta-farce has been running all over the world since its 1982 premiere. Now, Queensland Theatre’s Artistic Director Sam Strong masterfully marshals an ensemble of the country’s top comics for a wickedly funny night.

Warnings: Adult themes, coarse language and approved theatrical smoke effect.
Running Time: Approximately 3 hrs including a 20 minute interval*


_{*Subject to change}

Everyone has problems to deal with – in the boardroom or the basement, global or local, business or personal. Two multicultural women making their way in modern Australia forge a powerful, if unlikely, friendship that gets results.
Working late, high up in a skyscraper, Nisha – at 28, a business prodigy and second-in-command of an Australian rice company – is closing a massive deal with the Indian government. Working later still is Yvette, who clears up her take-away.
“Indian princess” and “Chinese cleaner” is all they see when they face each other across the desk. They’re from different cultures, different generations – but as the nights wear on, they discover the many ties that bind them, and help each other navigate their complex lives.
Brimming with sharp observations on globalisation, power, politics and migration as well as plenty of wicked humour, Rice won Michele Lee the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award 2016-2017, and will be directed by Griffin Theatre’s Helpmann Award winning director Lee Lewis.

Run Time: Approximately 80 minutes with no interval
Warnings: Contains coarse language and adult themes

Mabuiag Island: a remote speck in the sparkling blue of the Torres Strait. Thousands of years of rich history and culture, with just a few hundred people keeping its flame. Now its favourite son is joking in three languages with his grandmother and torturing his son with spontaneous public break-dancing. Charismatic actor Jimi Bani (Mabo, The Straits, Redfern Now) whisks you away to his island for an evening of music, dance, stand-up and storytelling. Four generations of one family take the stage, as Jimi’s grandmother, mother, son and brothers help him spin yarns of totems, traditions and childhood memories.
The islanders have lived through dark times and light, and this intimate show examines the challenges and tragedies they have faced with hope, honesty and humour, looking towards a bright tomorrow. My Name is Jimi is the story of a small community of people clinging tightly to each other, and fighting to protect what really matters, in the whirling chaos of a rapidly changing world.
My Name is Jimi is the story of a small community of people clinging tightly to each other, and fighting to protect what really matters, in the whirling chaos of a rapidly changing world.

It’s the story of historical Louisiana. Or historical Far North Queensland. Or it’s the story of a black playwright. Or how race is portrayed on stage. Or, maybe… it’s about how they’re all the same story.
Brash and provocative, the satirical comedy An Octoroon can trace its roots back to an 1856 novel, then a stage melodrama by crowd-pleasing Irish impresario Dion Boucicault. When the story of a man who scandalously falls for a slave on his Louisiana plantation premiered in New York in 1859, it helped fan the flame of the American Civil War.
Today – with race still as incendiary a global issue as it was then – dazzling and radical African-American playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins has torn apart and rebuilt the original text as a towering, immersive and wildly funny theatrical experience like no other.
In a version subtly recontextualised to uncover and skewer Australia’s shameful history of slavery, leading Aboriginal artist and commentator Nakkiah Lui (Black Comedy) makes her directorial debut in a Queensland exclusive featuring Miranda Tapsell (The Sapphires, Love Child, Mabo), co-produced with Brisbane Festival.

Love blooms. Love fades. It happens to everyone. It could be happening next door. And in any marriage torn asunder, sifting through the wreckage is going to get messy.
Even a seemingly perfect marriage has cracks in its facade: cracks that if untended, can become gaping rifts. Johan and Marianne are the ideal couple: two daughters, glittering careers, a lovely home.
But when Johan admits to sleeping with another woman, he detonates the first bomb in what will become a ferocious and savagely comic battle.
Joanna Murray-Smith’s fiery adaptation of the Ingmar Bergman classic reunites her with Queensland Theatre’s new Associate Artistic Director Paige Rattray (Switzerland). Real-life power couple Marta Dusseldorp and Ben Winspear play the warring spouses.