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A Steady Rain Presented by Aparo Theatre in co-production with PIP Theatre Written by Keith Huff Directed by Megan Hind Set and Costume Designer: Stefan Cooper-Fox Fight and Intimacy Co-ordinator: NJ Price Accent Coach: Helen Howard Photography: Creative Street / Kris Anderson - Images by Anderson / Pip Suschinsky “We should know the eyes of a demon when we see one.” Presented by Aparo Theatre in co-production with PIP Theatre, Keith Huff’s A Steady Rain is an intense buddy-cop play about loyalty, corruption, guilt, and the difficult decisions that keep narrowing until no good options remain. Directed by Megan Hind, the production starred Matthew Filkins as Denny and Zac Boulton as Joey, two Chicago cops recounting their versions of events to Internal Affairs after a bullet was fired through the front window of Denny’s family home. The play gained widespread attention after opening on Broadway in 2009, starring Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig. It explores a friendship built on brotherhood, dependency, damage, and denial, where loyalty becomes harder and harder to separate from self-preservation. A gritty buddy-cop tragedy is not generally the thing I run towards with open arms and my trusty pink notebook. But this production had me properly gripped. The writing moved at a cracking pace, the performances were intense, and the story unfolded like a puzzle being revealed piece by piece. Just when I thought I had figured out where it was going, another shocking piece fell into place. I lost track of how many life-ruining decisions were made per minute. Upon entering the studio theatre, we found Filkins and Boulton already onstage, situated in what resembled an interrogation room. Stefan Cooper-Fox set design was sparse: a white corner space, two chairs, fluorescent lights overhead, and a clock. Not exactly a room you’d want to be invited into for a friendly chat. Without theatrical clutter, there was nowhere for these performers to hide, and the emphasis sat firmly on the storytelling. And for a play centred on memory, confession, contradiction, and self-justification, this was precisely the right focus. Denny, played by Matthew Filkins, was the so-called family man, though mainly in the technical sense that he had a wife and two boys. I found his character to be loud, impulsive, foul-mouthed, prejudiced, violent, and constantly rationalising his awful behaviour as a means of protecting his family. Filkins gave him a frightening momentum. Denny was perpetually on the verge of exploding (and often did). Yet Filkins made sure we saw his fear underneath the rage, especially when Denny recounted his two-year-old son being injured by glass shrapnel after the gunshot shattered the window. It was a classic action-movie “family threatened, man leaps into action” moment, but with messy and painful repercussions. Filkins’ soliloquies were utterly vivid. When Denny spoke about his infidelity, his altercations with pimps, his enemies on the street, and the tangled mess of people orbiting his life, I could picture it all with uncomfortable clarity. Sometimes more clarity than I particularly wanted in my mind’s eye, which was probably the point. He painted the world of the play so powerfully that the invisible characters — Connie, Rhonda, the children, the criminals, the victims — all seemed to occupy the room with them. Zac Boulton brought a very different weight as Joey. Joey was Denny’s longtime partner, his oldest friend, and a man with his own battle with alcohol, but he was also the one trying to hold the crumbling pieces together. Boulton gave Joey a haunted restraint that balanced Denny’s volatility. He was softer, but not weak; damaged, but not passive. His descriptions of Connie revealed so much: Joey was clearly enamoured with her and seemed capable of offering the care and stability that Denny lacked. The interaction between the two performers shared a brotherly rhythm: quick to interrupt, quick to defend, quick to wound, and all too accustomed to compensating for one another. A particularly telling line was, “I’d been covering for him for so long, I couldn’t keep the lies straight.” Their bond was so deep that it had turned into a trap. And the underlying physical tension between the men was always palpable. Both actors handled a huge amount of dialogue with impressive skill. The pace was fast, the Chicago accents consistent, and neither performer seemed to falter, despite the sheer volume of text! Filkins’ anger and Boulton’s trauma were both intensely convincing, and together they carried the 90 minutes with stamina. I just know that both actors must have needed about five litres of water afterwards! The play effectively used perspective by presenting both sides of the story, revealing shifting truths based on the speaker’s intentions and omissions. This was especially apparent in the incident with a young Vietnamese boy discovered naked and distressed in an alley. Unable to communicate with him, the officers couldn’t determine whether he was high, traumatised, dangerous, harmless, or something else entirely. As one line put it, “99% of the f*ckin’ city is traumatised.” The scene highlighted issues of language barriers, assumptions, policing, who is believed when the full picture is unclear, and who is culpable when darkness is brought to light. Megan Hind’s direction kept the production tight. The play began right in the middle of the action and barely gave us a chance to settle. The pacing worked especially well for me because there was no room to drift. We were drip-fed information, then forced to re-evaluate it. A gunshot through a window led to a revenge mission, which led to broken protocols, job suspensions, car chases, violence, infidelity, guilt, and eventually, avoidable deaths. As the title suggests, the physical and metaphorical rain fell relentlessly throughout the story, sitting underneath the action as a dark, inescapable backdrop. The gunshots were loud and realistic, so consider that a warning for anyone sensitive to sudden sound. There were no props, yet the miming was precise enough that I never felt like anything was missing. Every drink, weapon, injury, stressful car ride, and violent encounter was conjured through performance alone. The fight and intimacy coordination by NJ Price played a crucial role, especially for a production where the action unfolded through memories rather than direct staging. This was not an easy watch, and nor should it have been. It asked uncomfortable questions about loyalty, masculinity, corruption, and the stories people tell so they can live with themselves. “It’s strange the things you have to lose in order to gain what you want” sat heavily over the final stretch of the play. By the end, I had reacted viscerally more than once, which indicates that a play has managed to get under my skin. Aparo Theatre and PIP Theatre delivered a stripped-back, hard-hitting production. It was tense, confronting theatre, and a reminder that sometimes the most unsettling storms are the ones people try to explain away.

Factory Made – A New Musical Book, Director, Set Design: Douglas Berry Composer, Music Director: Your Man Alex Smith Choreography, Costume Design, Props, Hair and Makeup: Jemma Crowhurst Lighting Design: Maddy Bosanko Sound Design: Ben Cooke and Angelina Mustafay Photography: Images by Anderson and Josh Sweeney “Music has to say something to be good. But robots have nothing to say...” Factory Made is a brand-new musical by Douglas Berry and Your Man Alex Smith, presented at Phoenix Ensemble. This show asks us whether art can still mean something if a robot helps to create it... all while serving up killer rock songs, dastardly corporate villains, tap dancing, improv, and one very loveable escapee from the factory floor. The story follows OceanSix, a corporation so aggressively greedy it has managed to monopolise status over everything (ahem, Amazon). With robots running its factories, one robot named Pru makes a daring escape and crash-lands into the life of Stu, the anxious frontman of the band Friendship Alliance. Stu was eagerly expecting a guitar amp but instead receives a sunshiny robot with the worldly wisdom of a goldfish. Stu’s band is gearing up for their debut performance when one of their members bails, leaving Pru as the emergency replacement. The problem is, the band’s entire persona is speaking out against OceanSix and corporate exploitation. So, using a robot in their music makes them look a bit… hypocritical. And thus, the story poses an intriguing question: have they become the very thing they are fighting against? In a world currently drowning in conversations about AI, art, creativity and ownership, the show has plenty to say. Beneath the punchlines and pratfalls, there's a real argument being made about why art matters, why effort matters, and why music needs to come from somewhere inside. Phoebe Imberger portrayed Pru as a walking ray of sunshine, full of brightness, sweetness and oddness. Her clear, gentle singing voice gave the character an extra warmth beneath the robotic quirks. She had a Janet-like quality from The Good Place: helpful, chipper, otherworldly, and impossible not to love. Her friendship with Stu was the show’s emotional epicentre, like a heartwarming buddy comedy where you totally get why this ragtag group would want to protect her. Alex Smith was wonderful as Stu, giving him all the awkward, anxious, hopeful musician qualities needed to make the character work. Stu was the kind of person who clearly had big feelings and big principles, but very little ability to calmly process anything. His number “Robots, They Ain’t Got It” was one of the early standouts, with big Dewey from School of Rock flavour as Stu argued that music needs struggle, soul, and something to say. The chemistry between Imberger and Smith had such a sweet, odd-couple quality to it, and the show was at its strongest when it let these two bounce off each other: think Lilo and Stitch, Buzz and Woody, Mantis and Drax. A standout sequence was “I’m a Detective,” a mini-musical within the musical where Stu and Pru pretended to be cops, fought crime, and were so committed to the bit that it actually worked. The songwriting, storytelling, choreography, and props all combined for perfect comedic effect. It was a blast watching the duo discover just how far they could push their 'improv' without being caught out. Jemma Crowhurst rocked the stage as Tess. She had the rock chick attitude, the voice, and the stage presence. Plus, she managed to choreograph the show, design the costumes, props, hair, and makeup.. so apparently sleep is just an option in her life. Emma Erdis brought some serious Terminator vibes as M.A.X., especially when rocking out to the hard-hitting tune “To the Xtreme.” And I can't forget Abi Pineda, who nailed it as the tap-dancing(!) Robot Assistant. Meanwhile, I'm still trying to master the art of walking without rolling my ankle every damn day. Rae Rose was fantastic as Deeandra, the big boss of OceanSix. All greed, grins, and power poses, they owned the opening number “Factory Made” like a corporate villain straight out of a comedy-horror flick. Rae had the crazy villain look and voice mastered to a tee. Each time they strutted on stage Deeandra was as slick as a shark in a business suit, with a dash of mean girl nastiness and a sprinkle of sarcastic glee. The Shareholders, played by Oliver Catton, Liam Hartley, Torin Cook, and Daniel Lelic, were the epitome of wealthy snobs, cranked up to about one trillion on the snooty scale. Their motto was “F*ck poor people,” which pretty much told us all we needed to know about them. All four were so funny that I do not know how anyone on stage survived without breaking. I would have been useless. The casting was excellent across the board. Douglas Berry’s script was hilarious to me. Not just “polite theatre chuckle” funny either. The kind of funny where you hear people still repeating lines to each other at interval. The direction made room for all the silliness in the story, mixing awkward pauses, silly costumes, background gags, goofy physicality and witty one-liners. It had a very Starkid-adjacent flavour: homemade, high-concept, nerdy, self-aware, oddly sincere, and completely willing to run at a ridiculous idea until it became emotionally sincere. It was anti-capitalist sci-fi, buddy-cop, and musical fever dream rolled into one. I swear I wrote a play just like this two decades ago called The Random Adventures of Bobble and Spoink. The music was the show’s not-so-secret weapon. Alex Smith tossed in a wild mix of rock, synth, barbershop quartets, villain ballads, detective jingles, and revolutionary musical theatre. The Act II opener, “The Spectrum,” was my personal favourite. I need it immediately so it can become my ringtone, my alarm, and my entire personality. It was on the nose, catchy, and odd in the way the best musical theatre songs often are. “To the Shop,” the barbershop quartet number, was another impressive highlight (special shoutout to Daniel’s falsetto!) “Enough Wasting Time” was an intense theatrical solo before expanding into a full-cast moment, complete with an intentional rock pulse and flag wave that felt very “Do You Hear the People Sing?” if Les Mis had been hijacked by robots. Then, near the end, Alex’s ballad brought a real sweetness back into the story. For all its chaos, the show did have a heart, and the final emotional beats worked because the production had taken the time to build genuine affection between its characters. Jemma Crowhurst’s choreography was a major strength of the production. The opening number used mechanical precision beautifully, instantly setting up the world of the show. That physical language carried through the production, balancing comedy, storytelling and musical flair. The Dream Ballet was a particular standout, giving us M.A.X.’s villain origin story through cinematic music, slow-motion movement and dramatic blocking. Visually, the production had a playful and cohesive identity. Douglas Berry’s set design supported the shifts between factory, band space, and urban streets. There was a lot of humour baked into the design, particularly in the costumes and prop work, that gave the whole show an extra boost of personality. Maddy Bosanko’s lighting helped shift the production cleanly between comedy, corporate menace and rock-concert flair, giving each part of the world its own visual punch. Ben Cooke and Angelina Mustafay’s sound design was also excellent, not only supporting the sci-fi setting but landing some of the jokes itself. Sound design being funny is not something I get to write often, so I was very pleased to enjoy the rare treat. The audience was completely hooked. Laughter constantly echoed around the theatre, and by interval, people were already swapping favourite moments and predicting where the story might go next. We were invested and we wanted answers! I had a great time with Factory Made. It had its own strange beating heart and was packed with songs I wanted to hear again.

Homegrown Presented by: Loose Tooth Theatre as a co-production with PIP Theatre Writer: Sarah Esser Co-Directors: Annabel Gilbert and Grace Longwill Stage Manager: Katie Smith Set and Costume Designer: Scarlett Hughes Lighting and Vision Designer: Charlii Lobley Sound Designer: Annabel Gilbert Puppet Fabricators: Sarah Esser and Grace Longwill “Every relationship has a gardener and a flower.” I've accidentally sent enough houseplants to the great garden in the sky to understand their dramatic nature. However, it wasn't until seeing Homegrown that I considered they might also be emotionally manipulative. Presented by Loose Tooth Theatre at PIP Theatre, Homegrown is a 90-minute play blending dark humour with unsettling strangeness. It begins in the painfully realm of infertility and relationship strain, then sprouts into something closer to The Exorcist: Bunnings Edition. Written by Sarah Esser and co-directed by Annabel Gilbert and Grace Longwill, the play creeps between relationship drama, psychological thriller, magical realism, and botanical horror. The story follows Tash and Sophie, a couple who share a home, a life, and a semi-successful gardening publication. After eight failed cycles their dream of motherhood has curdled into sorrow and exhaustion. When Sophie’s latest attempt fails, Tash wishes to close this chapter move on, while Sophie is not ready to give up. When a spilled fertility drink mixes with a mysterious plant spray, something starts sprouting beneath their floorboards. Tash assumes it's a weed and wants it gone. Sophie, still grieving and drawn to the possibility of new life, pleads to study it instead. Before they know it, the plant is growing faster than a teenager's appetite and becoming more like an overbearing roommate with zero regard for boundaries! At the centre of the play were two vulnerable and physically demanding performances from Geena Schwartz and Billy Fogarty. Tash was supportive and practical, but underneath, her life was a compost bin of unresolved messes. She was carrying religious trauma, nightmarish premonitions, sensual dreams about the overtly sexual postman, and the tension between her queer identity and her mother’s faith. Schwartz had to let all that inner chaos spill out through voice modulation, choking, gagging and stage combat, and she made every bit of it seem truly connected to Tash’s fear and frustration. Fogarty was equally strong as Sophie: a loving partner, wounded, stubborn, and consumed by the desire to have a family. As a character with a doctorate in botany whose world was built around growth, the infertility carried an especially cruel irony. Fogarty captured the frustration and devastation of that with painful accuracy, especially in lines like, “I wanted so bad to follow the rules of my own biology. To think nature has got my back.” Both Schwartz and Fogarty gave realistic intimacy, arguments, breakdowns, and frightening screams of trauma. Their performances had that awful recognisable rhythm of two people who love each other, but have been stuck hurting in the same pattern for too long. The Plant, played by Indiah Morris, was a standout stage creation. Painted green and bonneted, it looked like a curious baby straight from Whoville. Morris had such particular physicality in her movements — toddling, crawling, tripping, and observing everything with wide eyes. The way she played it was both cute and unsettling. The costuming and puppet fabrication were well-crafted too, subtly evolving scene by scene as the Plant claimed more space in the house. The Plant was not scary in a “feed me, Seymour” kind of way. At least, not at first... It was a reflection of what both women desired and dreaded. For Sophie, it offered a sense of motherhood, attachment, and nurture. For Tash, it became an invasive sickness, a poison pushing her toward psychosis. The Plant was not inherently harmful; it was more like an infant: needy, grabby, and amoral. Oscar Thelander brought great comic contrast as the Postman, strutting in with an aggressive commitment to package delivery. His scenes interrupted the domestic tension, allowing Homegrown to explore farcical elements amid the heavier themes. The writing captured the exhaustion of fertility treatment with brutal simplicity: “Run all the tests, rack up all the costs, and then… nothing.” That line sums up so much of the play’s emotional terrain: the endless tests, money, hope, routines, humiliation, and feeling abandoned by nature while others seem to bloom. Homegrown took that pain and externalised it into something impossible to ignore. Scarlett Hughes's set design features an expansive lower and elevated stage with a dollhouse, tattered couch, and plant décor, and an underlying hollow space that gave the whole thing a secretive, rotting-under-the-surface quality. The dollhouse was a clever visual metaphor too: a mini version of the perfect home they desired, while their real home grew feral around it. Multimedia elements, including videos, graphics, and sound, conveyed a sense of reality distorting and glitching. Charlii Lobley's lighting and Annabel Gilbert's sound design make the home feel progressively unstable. Homegrown kept diverting expectations, beginning as an intimate relationship drama before twisting into something stranger, bloodier and much harder to categorise. It dug into infertility, grief and sacrifice, while still making room for wit, imagination and bold choices. It was a curious little beast of a play and it trusted the audience to follow it all the way into the garden shed of emotional doom.

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< Back MUSICAL: Sister Act - Savoyards 27 June 2026 Season: June 27th - July 11th, Title: Sister Act Presented By: Savoyards Music Comedy Society Genre: Musical Theatre Synopsis: When disco diva Deloris Van Cartier witnesses a murder, she is placed in protective custody in the last place anyone would think to look for her — a convent. Disguised as a nun, Deloris finds herself at odds with the strict Mother Superior and the quiet life of the convent. Using her vibrant personality, powerful voice and infectious energy, she transforms the struggling choir and breathes new life into the community. But when her newfound fame attracts unwanted attention, Deloris must rely on the strength of her sisterhood to stay one step ahead of danger. Based on the hit film, Sister Act is a feel-good musical comedy packed with humour, heart and an uplifting score by Alan Menken. Performance Dates: June 27th – July 11th, 2026. Performance Times: Saturday 27 June – 7:30pm Sunday 28 June – 1:30pm Saturday 4 July – 1:30pm (AUSLAN Interpreted Performance) Saturday 4 July – 7:30pm Sunday 5 July – 1:30pm Saturday 11 July – 1:30pm Saturday 11 July – 7:30pm Performance Location and Address: Iona Performing Arts Centre, Iona College 85 North Road, Lindum QLD 4178. Ticket Costs: Adult – $58 Concession – $52 Junior (School Students to Year 12) – $35 Group Ticket (10+) – $46 Family Ticket (2 Adults + 2 Children) – $149 Ticket Link: Buy Tickets - Sister Act Warnings: Contains themes of crime, mild violence and theatrical effects. Recommended Age: Suitable for family audiences. Duration: Approximately 2 hours 30 minutes, including interval. Cast: Deloris Van Cartier – Rudo Banya Mother Superior – Beth Lowe Sister Mary Robert – Wednesday Reign Sister Mary Patrick – Emma Brack Sister Mary Lazarus – Helen Beauchamp Monsignor O'Hara – Warryn James Curtis – Lonnie Toia Eddie Souther – Lachie Gleadhill TJ – William Chen Joey – Joshua Langdon Pablo – Montil Djumapili Sister Mary Martin-of-Tours – Constanza Acevedo Burckhardt Sister Mary Theresa – Johanna Toia Tina – Jaymie Houtman Michelle – Priscilla Bernard Deloris Van Cartier (Understudy) – Alicia Brite Ernie – Jay Koloi Ensemble: Alicia Brite, Maree Butterworth, Ashlin Cork, Leah Harford, Julie Hogg, Kim Kee, Sophie Kersnovski, Jay Koloi, Kate Moriarty and Elloise O'Connell. Creative Team: Director – Andrew Cockroft-Penman Assistant Director – Adelle O'Connell Cultural Consultant – Matthew McKenzie Musical Director – Sally Faint Choreographer – Natalie Lennox Assistant Choreographer – Wallis Nersesian Music – Alan Menken Lyrics – Glenn Slater Book – Cheri Steinkellner & Bill Steinkellner Additional Book Material – Douglas Carter Beane Production Website: Savoyards - Sister Act Other Information: Based on the Touchstone Pictures motion picture Sister Act , this internationally acclaimed musical features a joyous score by Alan Menken ( Beauty and the Beast , Little Shop of Horrors , Newsies ) and has become a favourite with audiences worldwide. Savoyards brings the production to Brisbane with a large cast and creative team in one of the city's premier school performing arts venues. The Saturday 4 July 1:30pm performance will be AUSLAN interpreted . The Iona Performing Arts Centre offers accessible entry, wheelchair access and accessible amenities. Patrons requiring accessibility assistance are encouraged to contact Savoyards prior to booking on 0401 565 439 or via bookings@savoyards.com.au . Previous Next

< Back CIRCUS: Cirque Nouvelle - The Star Gold Coast 27 June 2026 Season: June 27th, 2026 Title: Cirque Nouvelle Presented By: The Star Gold Coast Genre: Contemporary Circus / Family Entertainment Synopsis: After sell-out performances across Australia, Cirque Nouvelle returns with an internationally acclaimed cast of elite circus artists. Combining breathtaking acrobatics, aerial artistry, balancing acts, juggling and physical theatre, this spectacular production showcases the extraordinary talents of world-class performers in a fast-paced and visually stunning contemporary circus experience. Designed to entertain audiences of all ages, Cirque Nouvelle blends elegance, athleticism and theatrical flair into a captivating evening of live entertainment. Performance Dates: Sunday June 28th, 2026 Performance Times: 6PM Performance Location and Address: The Star Gold Coast, 1 Casino Drive, Broadbeach QLD 4218 Ticket Costs: $35 - $75 Ticket Link: Buy Tickets - Cirque Nouvelle Warnings: May contain theatrical lighting effects, haze and high-impact circus performances. Recommended Age: Suitable for all ages. Duration: Approximately 75 minutes with no interval. Production Website: The Star Gold Coast - Cirque Nouvelle Other Information: Cirque Nouvelle brings together a versatile cast of world-class circus artists in a contemporary production that celebrates skill, creativity and human achievement. The show features a variety of circus disciplines performed by internationally experienced artists, making it an ideal family outing and a highlight of the winter entertainment season. The Star Gold Coast offers wheelchair-accessible seating, accessible amenities, lift access and accessible parking. Patrons requiring accessibility assistance are encouraged to contact The Star Box Office prior to booking to discuss seating and access requirements. Previous Next