The best shows to see in Sydney this month

Isobel McArthur’s Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of) strips away the intellectual exclusivity of Jane Austen’s classic, not only making it accessible to a wide variety of audiences, but also making clear the sort of tools that Austen herself was using in her original novel: gender, satire, romance, and – most of all – comedy. There’s no Colin Firth here – but there are plenty of karaoke songs to hum along to.

"They're creepy and they're kooky / Mysterious and spooky / They're altogether ooky / The Addams Family." If you love that jingle and the famously freaky family associated with it, you'll be thrilled to know that The Addams Family is haunting Hayes Theatre, Potts Point until August 9. Cue dark humour and death stares in this in this Gothic musical comedy where love, family and chaos collide. Brought to life by the acclaimed team behind The Producers, this new production is directed by Julia Robertson (The Producers, Metropolis) and choreographed by Shannon Burns (Gutenberg! The Musical, The Producers). Based on the beloved characters created by cartoonist Charles Addams, the musical follows Wednesday Addams as she falls for a “normal” boy – forcing the wonderfully weird Addams clan to confront love, acceptance and the awkward business of meeting the in-laws.

What do you think of when you hear "barbershop quartet"? I doubt many would answer "a trans-led, independent Australian barbershop quartet musical"... but that's exactly what Sheanna Parker Russon (No Love Songs for Lady Basses) and Lillian M. Hearne (Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812) have conjured up for Griffin Theatre's Lookout Program, now playing at Belvoir's Downstairs Theatre.

Institution versus intuition. Power versus prejudice. Bias versus belief. It’s all laid bare in the stage production of Doubt: A Parable, now at the Sydney Theatre Company. Sam Reid (The Newsreader, Interview with the Vampire) stars opposite Pamela Rabe (Wentworth) in John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play that’s directed by Australian theatre great, Marion Potts. The production also features Zindzi Okenyo (director of Purpose) and Shannen Alyce Quan (The Dictionary of Lost Words), bringing together a stellar cast for this engrossing 90-minute drama.

If you missed out on seeing the powerful and deeply moving play, The Jungle and the Sea in 2022, it returns to Belvoir St Theatre from July 11 to August 2. Created by S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack, the creative team behind Counting and Cracking, the production tells the story of one family caught in the devastating Sri Lankan civil war, which raged between the Sinhalese-majority government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from 1983 to 2009, leaving unimaginable death and destruction in its wake.

The opening note of ‘The Circle of Life’ may just be one of the most recognisable in a Disney musical. If you don’t agree, then you may have to convince the entire theatre-going audience who were at Disney’s The Lion King on opening night. The full house’s roars could be heard all the way out of the Capitol Theatre’s front doors as the king of musicals triumphantly returns to Sydney – the first time in more than a decade.

There’s always a lot going on at Sydney’s favourite house. So much so that it can be hard to keep track – with new headliners dropping every other week, and huge events taking over the various venues seemingly out of nowhere. Keen to go to a show under the sails over the next few months? We’ve rounded up a few top picks in the Sydney Opera House winter to spring season.