An all-cast scene from Beetlejuice the Musical.
Photograph: Michelle Grace Hunder
Photograph: Michelle Grace Hunder

The best of Melbourne theatre and musicals this month

Get your culture fix via all the world-class productions happening in Melbourne this July

Leah Glynn
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July 2025: Listen up! It's your last chance to catch the smash-hit musical 'Hadestown', with the folk and jazz-infused production finishing up on July 13. Trust us, you'll have the soundtrack on repeat after you've seen it. 'Beetlejuice the Musical' is also continuing its mega successful run this month, leaving audiences in stitches night after night. For something completely unexpected, dont miss the Malthouse Theatre's 'ECHO: Every Cold-Hearted Oxygen'. Each night will see playwright Nassim Soleimanpour guide a new guest through the script for a (totally unrehearsed) performance that quite literally no one has seen before.

From the toe-tapping to the cathartic, consider this your ultimate guide to all the best Melbourne theatre shows happening this month.

When stuck for things to do between shows, you can also always rely on our catch-all lists of Melbourne's best bars, restaurants, museums, parks and galleries, or consult our bucket list of 100 things to do in Melbourne before you die

Want something else to do this month? Check out our gig guide.

Melbourne's best theatre shows this month

  • Musicals
  • Melbourne
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended

The auditorium of the Regent Theatre is doused in a blood-red glow tinged with anaemic green as we take our seats, a buzzing neon sign already dropping his name twice. Providing both the manic music and leery lyrics, Perfect is, well, perfect as our unseen by most living souls poltergeist of ill-repute, accompanied by a jaw-droppingly bawdy book from Scott Brown and Anthony KingExpertly conjuring the blithe spirit of the movie, complete with its iconic ‘D’ay-O (The Banana Boat Song)’ possession, you’ll want to ‘Jump In The Line’ by curtain call on this riotously rabid real good time. 

Stephen A Russell
Stephen A Russell
Contributor
  • Musicals
  • Melbourne
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended

Looking for something to warm your heart this winter? We've got just the answer: beloved musical Annie is returning to Melbourne after a smash-hit run in Sydney. With a knock-out cast that includes Anthony Warlow as Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks, Debora Krizak as Miss Hannigan and Greg Page (aka the OG Yellow Wiggle) as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, this tale of hope, family and friendship is one you won't want to miss. Annie is showing at the Princess Theatre from July 8. Now, who's ready to belt out 'It’s the Hard-Knock Life'?

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  • Drama
  • Southbank
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended

When the gauzy wall of Christina Smith’s simple but effective set swooshes up, sweeping us into the first of five apartments we will visit during Mother Play – subtitled A Play in Five Evictions – it is impossible to escape the all-commanding presence of Sigrid ThorntonClad in a fur coat and sporting a bouffant wig of Nicole Kidman-level mightiness, even before she is spun around to face us in a classically stylish Eames chair, her imperiously anxious Phyllis exerts the magnetic pull of a black hole. And that’s more or less where we find ourselves in this latest work from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel, who borrows her own mother’s name and a little of their personal history.

Stephen A Russell
Stephen A Russell
Contributor
  • Musicals
  • Melbourne
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended

Tackled by everyone from Roman poets Virgil and Ovid to Canadian indie rockers Arcade Fire and Katee Robert’s queered novel, Midnight Ruin, the myth of Eurydice and her Orpheus finds new life in the hands of folk singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell. Her eight Tony Award-winning smash-hit musical Hadestown began life as a sung-through community project before she turned it into a concept album, and then a Broadway smash with help from director Rachel Chavkin.

Stephen A Russell
Stephen A Russell
Contributor
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  • Performance art
  • Southbank

There’s no more rehearsing. In fact, there was none to begin with. Not a single cast member of ECHO: Every Cold-Hearted Oxygen knows the part by heart. Welcome to a spectacle that is deliberately unprepared, unorthodox and unpredictable. Nassim Soleimanpour is the most performed playwright in the history of Iranian theatre. You may know him for his acclaimed works like White Rabbit, Red Rabbit or NASSIM. This July, he’s joining audiences at Malthouse’s Merlyn Theatre all the way from Berlin for a spectacle that plays with technology and tricks of the trade to redefine the idea of ‘home’. 

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Before you book...

Not all seats are created equal. Sure, there are some shows so spectacular and unmissable you’d happily sit anywhere, but most experiences in the theatre can be augmented by the best seats in the house. And occasionally ruined by the worst. So, without further ado, we give them to you.

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