Melbourne theatre and musicals in December
Raise your arms in praise: Tina Arena is finally in town with Opera Australia's production of Evita. As the year starts to wind down, Melbourne Theatre Company's glittering Twelfth Night is still going strong, while it's a great month for stand-up comedy.
Scroll on for a full account of what to see where this month on Melbourne's stages.
Recommended: How to get cheap theatre tickets in Melbourne.
Musicals
School of Rock: The Musical
The Rock Musical is a subset with a very chequered past. For every Hair there’s a Rent; for every Hedwig and the Angry Inch there’s an American Idiot. Andrew Lloyd Webber might have seemed an odd choice to adapt the 2003 Jack Black film School of Rock for the stage, but then the man was synonymous with the rock musical when Jesus Christ Superstar ruled the world back in 1970.
Evita
Move over My Fair Lady: the next vintage production coming to Australia is the original Evita, with Australian pop princess Tina Arena starring as Eva Perón.
Calamity Jane
This stage version of the 1950s MGM movie musical eliminates almost all traces of Doris Day’s sugary sweetness. Virginia Gay plays the ultimate Wild West heroine in a stripped back production, which exploits every opportunity for comedy while posing questions about gender norms.
Theatre
Twelfth Night
Director Simon Phillips' production of Twelfth Night features songs from Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall, and an all-star cast.
Macbeth
The Australian Shakespeare Company is celebrating its 30th anniversary of Shakespeare Under the Stars in grand fashion with a brand new production of the Bard's darkest and most twisted tragedy, in the picturesque surrounds of the Royal Botanic Gardens. Nathaniel Dean is starring in the title role and Alison Whyte is Lady M.
Peter Pan Goes Wrong
Last year Australian audiences got a taste for the hottest comedy sensation on the West End in The Play That Goes Wrong, a raucous farce that's thankfully far more imaginative than its title. The slapstick spoof follows the members of the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society as they try to hold everything together at one disastrous performance of a murder mystery.
Perpetual Frustration Machine
Theatre Works is wrapping up its year with this unexpected merging of forms. It’s called a “circus drama” and is co-created by veteran playwright Stephen Sewell and circus master Zebastian Hunter.
Comedy
Jim Jefferies
Sydney-born Jim Jefferies isn't afraid to tackle the tough subjects: one clip from his 2014 Netflix special on America's relationship with guns seems to go viral every time there's a mass shooting in the US.
After something a little less dramatic?
The best art this month
From high art to the experimental and indie, here's your hit list.
