The best shows to see in Sydney this month

For generations, the dynamics between women have been sidelined in theatre. Few classic plays explore the complexities of womanhood, the fraught relationships between mother and daughter, or, more specifically, the intricate bonds between Asian grandmothers, their daughters and their granddaughters. In cultures shaped by large joint families, where matriarchal relationships (often behind closed doors) deeply influence a woman’s identity, these stories are particularly rich – and yet rarely represented on stage. As a South Asian Australian woman who coincidentally named her daughter after her grandmother, I feel a connection to Merlynn Tong’s experimental exploration of her matriarchal ancestors in her new play, Congratulations, Get Rich!, an international collaboration between La Boite Theatre, Singapore Repertory Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company.

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can spit out venom so lethal that there is no antidote. There are not many works which can produce such poisonous sparring and emotional violence with the same acclaim and excellence as Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winner’s work is a gruelling feat of art, which director Sarah Goodes tackles with a fresh ferocity and with all the classical nuance and complexity that comes with Albee’s work.

Great Scott! All the way from 1985 to 1955 and now 2025, Sydney has landed the opening of mega-movie musical Back to the Future: The Musical, complete with a superb ensemble, captivating visual effects and enough nostalgia to power a time-travelling DeLorean. For full transparency, Back to the Future is one of my favourite films of all time. Growing up watching Michael J. Fox’s Marty McFly and Christopher Lloyd’s Dr. Emmett Brown travel through time across three films was a large part of my movie-watching childhood. So when it was announced that it would be getting a high-octane staging, I was both ecstatic and sceptical. However, like the show’s original writer (and now the musical’s) Bob Gale said, “we’re not going to do this unless we can do it right”. Thankfully, of the musical version I can safely say – to borrow from the Doc – “IT WORKS!”

As I’m on my way to Sydney's Capitol Theatre for the new Australian production of The Book of Mormon, my friend tells me it’s the very first musical a lot of people see. Created by South Park duo Trey Parker and Matt Stone (with Robert Lopez), the show’s reputation for extremely irreverent jabs at religion draws a non-traditional theatre crowd. What I now realise my friend didn’t mean was, “it’s often the first musical kids see”. When I say the musical is extremely irreverent, I mean it. The humour is crass, verging on grotesque (some things I wouldn’t dare repeat). So it’s probably questionable that I’ve brought along my 13-year-old son with me. That said, he loves it.