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Bathers enjoy MacCallum Pool
Photograph: Destination NSW

Things to do in Sydney today

We've found the day's best events and they're ready for your perusal, all in one place – it's your social emergency saviour

Winnie Stubbs
Edited by
Winnie Stubbs
Written by
Time Out editors
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We might be a little biased, but we don't believe there's a better place on earth to spend a day than in our sparkling waterside city.

From coastal walking tracks to secret swim spots so swanky sky-high bars, Sydney is home to the kinds of settings that play host to magical memories every day of the year – from ordinary Wednesdays to the most important days of your life.

On any given day, there are a whole host of happenings to discover in the Emerald City – each offering a new experience to add to your Sydney memory bank. If you're stuck for activities, we're here to help – here is what’s in store today.

Want to get your weekend plans in order, right now? Check out our pick of the best things to do in Sydney this weekend.

The day's best events

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Theatre
  • Musicals
  • Sydney

Whether arriving via a luxurious water taxi or taking a leisurely stroll through the Royal Botanic Gardens, the journey to Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour is as picturesque as the setting itself. Each year, a vibrant theatrical hub emerges, complete with a five-storey pop-up bar and dining venue with a variety of offerings, ranging from cheerful pizzas, hotdogs and pies to decadent three-course feasts. This annual event embodies the very essence of spectacle, and this year's performance of West Side Story (which makes an anticipated return to Mrs Macquries Chair after its 2019 debut) wows us while compelling us to wrestle with the stark relevance of its themes, both to Australia’s own history and the turf wars at play globally. Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s classic musical masterpiece West Side Story debuted on Broadway in 1957 and most recently got the Hollywood treatment by Steven Speilberg, to seven Oscar nominations. It’s a modern take on Shakepeare’s well-known tale of star crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, set in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City, during the 1950s. The Jets, a gang of All-American boys, are in a turf war with the Sharks, the new Puerto Rican immigrants on the block. When Maria (Nina Korbe) – the sister of the Sharks’ leader, Bernardo (Manuel Stark Santos) – and Tony (Billy Bourchier), a former Jet, lock eyes at the local dance, the rivalries escalate. You might assume that the open-air ambiance would diminish the impact of the ove

  • Theatre
  • Marrickville

Over nine glorious nights, a tribe of anarchic creatives are taking over a beloved Inner West sanctum, Marrickville’s Flight Path Theatre, inviting all who dare to dream of a love-in of music, theatre, and punk-rock revelry this March. Each night will begin with a performance of the one-act play, Cowboy Mouth, the surreal, fevered real-life love story penned by famed playwright Sam Shepard (True West, Buried Child) and the godmother of rock ‘n’ roll herself, Patti Smith. Conceived on a typewriter in the chaotic infamy of New York’s Chelsea Hotel, Cowboy Mouth is an urban fable about a woman who kidnaps a young man at gunpoint, taking him hostage from his wife and child to make him a pop prophet, ''like a rock-and-roll Jesus with a cowboy mouth.” Brought to the Sydney stage by Soft Shock productions, this subversive play is an exhilarating and poetic gunfight of a story, crafted as a cautionary tale about using art as deliverance from our flaws and the danger of relating to someone’s potential instead of who they are. Following each performance of Cowboy Mouth, the space will shift from gritty and dangerous indie theatre to a riotous evening of live music. You can expect sets from some of Sydney’s most exciting live bands including, Dande and The Lion, Silky Roads, Georgie Jones, Locked in Lummo, The Polymics, Stitcher, and Elysae. Broke Down Music Box: A 9-Day Festival of Live Performance + Music is taking over Flight Path Theatre, Marrickville, from March 21–30, playing from

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  • Things to do
  • Sydney Olympic Park

Animals, Coca-Cola Carnival rides, and showbags – oh my. Roll up, roll up! The Sydney Royal Easter Show is back on for 2024. From dagwood dogs to alpacas and the rodeo, the Show is packing in all the best bits that are beloved by all ages these school holidays from March, 22 to April, 2. For 12 days over Easter, Sydney Showground at Sydney Olympic Park will celebrate the country coming to the city. From the crowning of Best in Show puppies, goats and pigs to whirling through carnival rides – you’ll want to have a full day set aside for the Sydney Royal Easter Show.  For the kids (and kids at heart), there are literally thousands of animals to meet and greet as you learn all about farming and agriculture. Hop aboard the largest tea cup ride in Australia, see the Show from new heights on the KIIS Eye Ferris Wheel, get the fright of your life in Kyle and Jackie O's Haunted House, and feel that dizzy weightlessness you only get from being flung high into the sky on other wild rides.  At the Show, woodchopping becomes an exciting arena sport, the country's to shearers shear their sheep, and you can see Australia’s best bull riders and freestyle Moto X team in live performances every night in the GIANTS Stadium – plus, fireworks! But there's also more relaxed recreation to be had at the Arts and Crafts Show.  It’s not a Show without showbags, of course. All the lollies, chocolates, gags and collectable joys are there to discover. A day at the show is also not complete without a foo

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Theatre
  • Musicals
  • Darling Harbour

This is it, we have found the yassification of Shakespeare. Fuelled by a playlist of certified pop hits, this jukebox romp billed as “the greatest love story ever remixed” poses a simple but provocative question: What if, instead of joining Romeo in eternal slumber, Juliet decided to live? A contagiously joyous musical spectacular, & Juliet has finally landed at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre after being met with critical acclaim on Broadway and the West End, not to mention the rapturously received Australian debut in Melbourne.  Filled with sing-a-long-able chart-topping bangers made famous by the likes of Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry and more from the songbook of Grammy-winning Swedish songwriter/producer Max Martin, the Aussie cast is overflowing with talent in this feel-good, flashy production. & Juliet is Shakespeare remixed for the girls, the gays and the theys... [but does it] really cut it as the feminist reclamation that we are promised? Will you be entertained? Absolutely. Does & Juliet set a new standard for jukebox musicals? Yes. Will you see one of the most diverse and charismatic casts of triple-threats ever assembled on an Australian stage? Heck yeah. Does the story deliver on the feminist retribution we are promised? Not quite. “What if Juliet didn’t kill herself?” Anne Hathaway (played by the enthralling Amy Lehpamer) posits to her husband, William Shakespeare (the ever-charming Rob Mills). “She’s only ever had one boyfriend, and frankly, the endi

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  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Theatre
  • Drama
  • Surry Hills

At first glance, Tommy Murphy’s adaptation of activist and actor Tim Conigrave’s achingly beautiful memoir, Holding the Man, seems to have all the ingredients of a classic AIDS parable: young love defying the heteronormative status quo; young life cruelly stolen by a merciless disease. And yet, following its premiere by Sydney’s Griffin Theatre Company in 2006 – and despite a popularity with audiences that saw it transfer to the Sydney Opera House before becoming a film – this play suffered accusations of not doing enough to confront the political and social alienation that failed Australia’s earliest victims of the HIV/AIDS crisis. And this would arguably be true, if such ends were ever Conigrave’s, or indeed Murphy’s, intention. The biggest clue that those criticisms are off-target comes in the play’s closing seconds, as the audience is told of the memoir’s dedication – “For John” – a tribute to the man Tim Conigrave loved for more than half his life until John’s AIDS-related death on January 26, 1992 at the age of 31. In these two words, the truth of Holding the Man is revealed. This is not a political act in the same vein as William Hoffman’s trailblazing As Is or Tony Kushner's epic masterpiece Angels In America – plays that howl for justice, that hold a mirror up to the ugliness of society’s apathy, that pitch their dramatis personae as agents of change. Holding the Man is an honestly drawn lived experience – joyous, devastating, deeply intimate, but crucially, unbound

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