The best shows to see in Sydney this month

Great Scott! Back to the Future: The Musical has made its much-anticipated Aussie premiere at the Sydney Lyric. Based on the hit film, the production features an all-Aussie cast, led by Broadway star and Tony Award winner Roger Bart as Doc Brown, and newcomer Axel Duffy in the driver’s seat as Marty McFly. Strap in for a high-octane show packed with heart and humour.

Whatever you’re up to this October, make sure you go and see Garry Starr’s award-smashing show Classic Penguins – winner of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2024 – now playing at The Grand Electric There’s only a handful of tickets left for his final October shows, so flip to it. Expect a wonderful, whimsical and downright ridiculous literary adventure – and get ready to laugh. A lot.

Many productions that examine colonisation share stories that highlight its impact on a systemic level: the institutionalised violence, the collective suffering of mobs and the disintegration of culture. Declan Greene and Amy Sole’s Whitefella Yella Tree break from this to explore the consequences of colonisation in the microcosm of romance. This unique exploration of adolescents at the precipice of adulthood delves into the disruption and havoc colonisation had in their day-to-day lives. By focusing on the personal narratives during colonisation, the production artfully cultivates compassion through relatability. Indigenous people are shown not as a monolithic group defined solely by hurt, but as varied individuals falling in love, growing up and living with the ordinary complexities of life. But these complexities become more fraught under the pervasive presence of colonialists.

Nearly 30 years after it burst onto Broadway, Rent remains a landmark. It won four Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize, but its true legacy lies in how it blew open Broadway’s doors to the misfits, bringing ’90s rock, raw emotion and the gritty diversity of real New York life to the stage. It didn’t just reflect a generation, it shaped one. For theatre kids like me, Jonathan Larson’s words were the ones we belted backstage and found ourselves in. And it wasn’t just us, Rent inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda to write In the Heights and paved the way for the Glee generation: a wave of fans and artists who saw musical theatre as urgent, inclusive and unapologetically cool. Now, Opera Australia is reigniting that spark for a new generation with a bold, heart-filled production.

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.