September 12, 2026 — 5:00amIt’s a tough time in theatre in Melbourne, with funding cuts hitting at the same time as the costs of making and touring shows keep increasing. Combined with a cost-of-living crisis and audiences that are commitment-phobic when it comes to booking tickets, that could create a perfect storm. But the picture is more complex – and positive.Clever, brave programming is paying off in many quarters and people are seeking the communal experience that only live performance provides.Anne-Louise Sarks, artistic director at MTC; Sarah Goodes, theatre director; and Dean Bryant, artistic director at Malthouse Theatre. Simon SchluterWe are hungry for community, and for shared experiences, says Anne-Louise Sarks, artistic director and chief executive of Melbourne Theatre Company. She has always loved theatre “because of its ability to carry me into other worlds and to inspire me to think about the world differently or to feel something in a way I’ve never felt it before”.“That’s what audiences are coming back to us for, particularly those very profound emotional experiences.”When audiences sit together watching a theatre show, their heartbeats often end up in sync. That physiological response, revealed in research by University College London, confirms something regular theatregoers know.It’s a communal experience unlike any other. There’s an alchemy at work. A collective reaction. A call and response. It’s also sacrosanct: one of few forums in which our phones are turned off.Director Sarah GoodesCharlie KinrossFor director Sarah Goodes, there’s something incredible about being caught off guard emotionally, spiritually. That’s the thrill of live performance, she says. It’s the same in sport. “You don’t know what’s going to happen. Like I always say when I’m directing, a good game’s a close game … the stakes are high when no one knows what’s going to happen next. That’s what you want to try and crack open all the time, that feeling of what’s going to happen.”Goodes has been instrumental in many significant shows, including Julia, written by Joanna Murray-Smith, with Justine Clarke conjuring the first female prime minister of Australia; Sunday, which told the story of Heide founder Sunday Reed; and Amplified about Chrissy Amphlett, starring Sheridan Harbridge, which Goodes co-created with Harbridge and musical director Glenn Moorhouse.Her most recent was Break of Day, by actor and writer Steve Rodgers, which premiered at the Malthouse. The story of a single mother – played by Kat Stewart – living in a small country town, butting heads with her teenage daughter and working in an Amazon-style factory may not sound like a compelling storyline but it was a knockout.Initially, when asked to pitch something for Malthouse, Goodes and Stewart discussed doing an Edward Albee or Sam Shepard play. Then they wondered why they were looking overseas.Sherry-Lea Watson, Kat Stewart and Richard Piper in Break of Day.Pia JohnsonRodgers had sent Goodes the script for Break of Day four years ago and she says it was just “a perfect fit and the perfect time”. “Sometimes plays happen when they’re meant to, and you cannot predict it. There’s a real alchemy to it.”“This is exactly the sort of play that Kat and Sarah should do,” says artistic director at the Malthouse Dean Bryant. “It was a really good model for us to go – you can do something that is this original, and there’ll be a hunger for it if you find a story that speaks to a universal experience.”Bryant wants to give audiences something they haven’t seen before. “[People] want their world to be shifted. They want to be exposed to stuff that is new, but also will give them satisfaction and entertain them and move them and make them think about the human condition and think about their own lives,” he says.That means rigorous craft and incredible actors. “Really what we come to the theatre for is to see those artists who are almost like athletes,” he says. “They have incredible craft but they also have incredible access to humanity. And seeing people do that in the room with you, with no editing tricks, with no support except their bodies and their voices, that is what always makes theatre a really distinct offering.”Dean Bryant, artistic director of the Malthouse Theatre.Joe Armao“You get to go into that world for a period of time and come out somewhere different.”The last five shows at Malthouse exceeded their box office targets, Bryant says, the first time in a decade that has happened.Yorta Yorta and Gunaikurnai playwright and director Andrea James heads the First Nations-led company Ilbijerri Theatre. Watching the Logies recently, she was reminded about the ecosystem for writers. “I’m looking at every black person on that red carpet, going, well, they started in theatre, and I remember when they did that one person play. It is absolutely the stepping stone into film and television, sometimes people forget that,” she says.“Ignore theatre and plays at your peril film and TV because countless young people, their testing grounds are in live performance, and there’s a beautiful dance between the two where actors and writers for screen are gently moving between the two.”Andrea James, artistic director and co-CEO of Ilbijerri. Simon SchluterKnown for Big Name, No Blankets and Coranderrk: We Will Show The Country, James’ award-winning play The Black Woman of Gippsland was staged by the MTC last year.She cites the Yirramboi Festival, which is about to turn 10, as an important pathway for emerging Indigenous playwrights and theatre makers.Having worked in Sydney at various companies including Griffin Theatre, and then moving back down south, James has a particular perspective on the two cities.“Coming back to Melbourne after some time away, I feel like the audiences here are a lot more politically astute. There are a lot more allies. There’s a lot more genuine interest and respect and openness that I’ve found really, really refreshing,” she says. “There’s less wank factor ... less shimmer.”Chenoa Deemal, Zach Blampied and Brent Watkins in The Black Woman of Gippsland at the MTC.Pia JohnsonSarks is bullish about the state of theatre, even though her organisation posted a $3.9 million net deficit last year, following a drop in ticket revenue and donations and a sharp rise in costs, even as paid attendance increased by almost 9000. She is using this year’s program and next year’s to build on that audience growth and keep theatre accessible.Some of the greatest successes the MTC has had this year and last are local stories, she says. In 2025, more than half of all MTC single-ticket buyers had never attended one of their productions before, while so far in 2026 just under 40 per cent of youth ticket purchasers were first-timers. For My Brilliant Career just over 40 per cent of single-ticket buyers had never attended an MTC show, with that figure just under 40 per cent for West Gate, and at 46 per cent for The Jungle and the Sea.The flagship state theatre company’s Next Stage program, introduced by Brett Sheehy, was expanded by Sarks from supporting the writing and development of new works to programming them. Several shows born of the program have toured elsewhere, including Aiden Fennessy’s The Heartbreak Choir, Jacky by Declan Furber Gillick and Benjamin Law’s Torch the Place.In 2027, there are six new Australian works in the MTC season. “It’s a choice to invest in it, to back those artists, and to prioritise the development of our own culture and the canon of Australia works,” Sarks says.Anne-Louise Sarks, artistic director and CEO of Melbourne Theatre Company.Charlie Kinross“You only need to look to Korea to see what government-funded investment in the arts can do. The entire world is sort of high on Korean culture: Korean TV, Korean film, Korean literature. That government made an active choice to export that culture, and I’m really passionate about us building this incredible resource of Australian stories.”More government support for theatre is vital, many in the sector say. Goodes argues it takes about five years to develop a play and a lot of that work is done independently of theatre companies, meaning it goes unacknowledged – and often unpaid.Together with actor Diana Glenn, she has set up Jacaranda Productions, which will make work across film, television and theatre; the medium will be determined by how the story can best be told.Goodes is also directing her first opera. She’s currently in rehearsals for the Victorian Opera production The Spare Room, based on Helen Garner’s novel, which premieres next month. It’s a full circle moment: she tried to get the rights to the book more than a decade ago but couldn’t.Adaptation has proven a rich source of theatre over the decades, from Tim Winton’s much-loved Cloudstreet to the more recent, brilliant reimagining of Wake in Fright by Declan Greene as a one-woman show starring Zahra Newman, which returns to the University of Melbourne Arts and Culture (UMAC) stage later this year.A musical version of My Brilliant Career – a reimagining of Miles Franklin’s novel by Harbridge, Bryant and Mathew Frank, directed by Sarks at MTC in 2024 – starring Kala Gare, toured nationally this year. The TV series the novel inspired was sitting at number two on Netflix globally this month.Melburnians have embraced classics, too, of late, with Death of a Salesman returning after a successful outing in 2023. With Anthony LaPaglia in the lead opposite Alison Whyte, Arthur Miller’s 1949 play continues to resonate.GWB Entertainment CEO Torben Brookman, who produced the show, says a significant number of people re-attended having seen it first time round. Conscious of the current economic climate, he says as well as standard tickets, more accessible tickets were also on offer. The play will tour to Adelaide later this month.Staged at Red Stitch in 2023, Edward Albee’sWho’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf was so well-received it went on to play Melbourne’s Comedy Theatre and later in Sydney. It was directed by Goodes, who says its enduring appeal – and indeed that of Death of Salesman – is the craft of it, the brilliant writing.Big musical revivals including Fiddler on the Roof and My Fair Lady are also coming to Melbourne this year.Globally, the appetite for live performance is greater than ever, according to Michael Cassel, who has toured MJ The Musical, Beetlejuice and the behemoth that was Hamilton before that. He says Melbourne tends to sell tickets more quickly to such shows than other Australian cities.Next year’s much-anticipated stage adaptation of The Castle is one of his, quite a coup as the Working Dog team will make the stage show.However, the pressure is real for big shows, as touring costs more than ever. Although Beetlejuice sold 190,000-odd tickets in Melbourne, its national tour was cancelled, as was Waitress (which opened in Melbourne) and the opera AIDA.Audiences no longer book well ahead, a post-COVID trend that has persisted, with many theatregoers often waiting until a few days before an opening to book, which Cassel confirms is true locally and internationally.The upside of not being able to see live performances during lockdowns meant that when the doors finally opened, people were reminded just how precious is the communal audience experience.Ella Caldwell, artistic director at Red Stitch, agrees that’s where the magic lies. “Breathing all together and feeling someone respond next to you as you do … all of those things are happening live and that if something goes wrong, we all deal with it together. And the impulses that you’re watching are so alive and present, and reciprocal – audience to actor – we’re all creating that energy together, and there’s no pausing it or scrolling past it.”“I enjoy the sense that someone next to me is maybe having a very different version of their own response but that we’re going on the ride together, a complete stranger. That’s something that brings you together in that little moment. It reminds us that we’re all in it together.”Ella Caldwell, artistic director of Red Stitch Theatre.Simon SchluterFor Sarks, it’s a similar sensation. “You give yourself over to that experience for that period of time, and that is a rare thing. In that sense, it feels very special as well.”Going back to seeing live shows after COVID, she thought “it would be all about the lights going down and the sort of magic of the experience”.“But actually, the thing I found was the pleasure suddenly in hearing someone else laugh at something in a show that I wasn’t laughing at, gasping or responding to something on stage, and even – can you believe – the crinkle of a lolly wrapper. Things that we sort of love to hate as audience members because I couldn’t get that at home. It was bigger than me.” Theatre makes us feel things more intensely, according to Caldwell. “You go in and there’s this little hub of people in there with you. If it gets difficult or uncomfortable or confronting or surprises you into laughing out loud or whatever, you can’t turn away,” she says.“That immediacy means that in the best-case scenario, it just goes deeper and further. It’s just thrilling. It’s human to human, that thing of watching the person live that story out, right in front of you. It’s unlike anything else.”Want more theatre? We’ve got youMacy Gray concert at Arts Centre cancelled as staff prepare to strike‘Demoralised, poorly kept, badly cared for’: Belvoir boss walks Australian theatre’s tightropeSuzie Miller thought footy was just for blokes. Then one game blew her away‘Our mission is to love bomb them’: How this eclectic troupe wins over its audienceMore:ArtsFor subscribersCity lifePerforming artsStage showsFrom our partners