From new Australian works and the latest commissions to modern and classical masterpieces, the 2025 season guide is full of promise for devotees of the performing arts.
Regardless of whether your interests are hyper-focused on theatre or opera alone, or you’re an aesthetic omnivore who adores chamber music and a perfectly performed fouetté with equal passion, the programs curated by our country’s companies, ensembles and orchestras are all deserving of attention.
Here, we attempt to highlight and summarise the many 2025 season announcements made to date in order to assist with your scheduling and subscription needs for the year ahead. And if you think you may have missed a season announcement? Then please bookmark this page and come back to it soon – we’ll be updating this list on a regular basis.
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NOVEMBER
Merrigong Theatre Company
“Our local artists’ program is the strongest it’s ever been and getting the best audiences it’s ever had. So I guess, in a way, in terms of scale, the big things and the smaller, connected community works are what we’re really focusing on in our programming. And that means, actually yes, 2025 is our biggest season,” says Merrigong Theatre Company’s Artistic Director and CEO, Simon Hinton.
Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre
Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre will be celebrating its silver jubilee in 2026. That may be a couple of years away, but the beloved St Kilda-based ensemble company is getting in the mood of looking back in order to look forward with its first production for the 2025 season. Introducing the season, Artistic Director Ella Caldwell announced the return of company board member Joanna Murray-Smith’s 1995 play Honour, first performed at the Malthouse (then Playbox) in November 1995. “I am very proud that we will be producing the 30th anniversary season of this superb and biting, electric play with four terrific roles for actors that I just can’t wait to see in our little space,” she said. The season also includes new Australian plays by Kezia Warner and Emilie Collyer, and US playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ The Comeuppance, which premiered in Washington DC’s Signature Theatre in 2023.
Opera Queensland
“In putting our 2025 season together we set out to explore how we connect with each other in ways that are born of kindness and empathy. What might we learn if we open ourselves to the beauty and wonder of opera? Be it the majesty of La bohème or the grand horizons of the Outback, 2025 invites us to look for moments of connection through the music and stories we experience together,” says Opera Queensland CEO and Artistic Director, Patrick Nolan.
Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre
Announcing that the company will be kicking off its 2025 season with a revival of Joanna Murray-Smith’s 1995 play Honour, Artistic Director Ella Caldwell said, “I am very proud that we will be producing the 30th anniversary season of this superb and biting, electric play with four terrific roles for actors that I just can’t wait to see in our little space.” Other plays in the line-up include Job, Super, What’s Yours and The Comeuppance, while Monument will embark on a tour.
OCTOBER
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s 2025 season marks the inaugural year for new Chief Conductor Mark Wigglesworth, who is a strong believer in the transformative power of music. “Music releases us to connect with very deep emotions within ourselves, and shows us how connected these emotions are with other people’s. Music brings us together in an unshakeable way, generating extraordinary empathy towards each other,” Wigglesworth said. Season highlights include a three-part concert series celebrating the cultural significance of the Austrian capital, Vienna – a city associated with many great composers through the centuries, including Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven; a deep dive into the four symphonies of Johannes Brahms; and the two-part concert series Light-Song, focused on the works of women composers and presented in partnership with the 2025 Adelaide Festival.
Black Swan State Theatre Company
The six plays and one musical production featured in Black Swan’s 2025 season combine to offer audiences a tasty theatrical treat, according to Artistic Director Kate Champion. “Planning a season is like creating a meal. We aim for a mix of flavours and textures, undeniable substance, diverse nutrition and a sprinkling of surprising spices. Our 2025 season is designed to challenge, delight and nourish our audiences,” she says. Season highlights include Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County, the winner of the 2007 Tony Award for Best Play and the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and two new West Australian works: Raised in Big Spirit Country, a musical celebration of the Broome sound that shaped such past Black Swan productions as Bran Nue Dae, curated by Black Swan’s Broome-based Artistic Associate Naomi Pigram-Mitchell, and Carol, the latest work by Donnybrook-born comedian and performer Andrea Gibbs.
Flinders Quartet
Comprising Elizabeth Sellers and Wilma Smith on violin and the chamber music ensemble’s founder members Helen Ireland on viola and Zoe Knighton on cello, the Victoria-based Flinders Quartet is celebrating its silver anniversary next year. The chamber quartet’s 2025 season has now been announced and the line-up has been curated to mark the journey from 2000 so far.
La Boite Theatre
To celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2025, Brisbane’s La Boite Theatre has announced a three-month play-reading series featuring some of the most significant works staged by the company over the last 10 decades. The La Boite Encores series will showcase 10 significant past productions, taking “a deep dive into the archives and a look at the plays that really shaped the history of the company,” Artistic Director Courtney Stewart says. Four mainstage productions, including the world premiere of Dead Puppet Society’s We’re All Gonna Die! and an international collaboration between La Boite, Singapore Repertory Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company, will also be presented in the company’s 2025 season.
Malthouse Theatre
Malthouse Artistic Director Matthew Lutton says the overall tone of the company’s 2025 season is “really about trying to step outside of your own reality … into an alternative world of a fantasy or a nightmare or the joys of others”. Exploring the slippery nature of truth in a new play about Julian Assange, in which the Wikileaks founder is played by five separate actors; a theatrical nightmare utilising sophisticated sound design to immerse audience members in the world of Daphne du Maurier’s short story The Birds; and the mainstage debut of Melbourne indie theatre collective Pony Cam, featuring the unpredictable cohort taking a chainsaw to Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, are among the season’s highlights.
Musica Viva Australia
“Much has changed in the eight decades since Musica Viva Australia’s founders, Central European refugees Richard Goldner and Walter Dullo, first pulled together an ensemble of displaced musicians to perform Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge by the light of car headlamps. One thing, however, remains constant: a desire to build a community around a deep love of music. 2025 is a year of innovation and tradition, of collaborations between brilliant international artists and their Australian confrères – we are delighted to share it with you,” says Musica Viva Australia’s Artistic Director Paul Kildea. The 2025 season features eight national tours led by some of chamber music’s finest artists, including the Colorado-based Takács Quartet, Polish-Hungarian pianist Piotr Anderszewski, Swedish-Norwegian violinist Johan Dalene, the London-based Trio Isimsiz and Indigenous Australian singer-songwriter Jess Hitchcock with the award-winning Penny Quartet.
Orchestra Victoria
“When I began my role earlier this year, one of my key priorities was to reintroduce a full concert season that not only celebrates the incredible work our musicians do, but also highlights our broader contributions to the arts in Victoria. We have an outstanding reputation for our work in the pit, but our impact extends far beyond that. Season 2025 is about bringing all that we do to a wider audience,” says Orchestra Victoria’s Artistic Adviser Jessica Gethin. The season includes a brand new program at Orchestra Victoria’s North Melbourne home in the Meat Market, as well as three concerts as part of the ongoing Southbank Series at the Ian Potter Southbank Centre.
Sydney Dance Company
“I’m delighted to reveal the exciting journey we have in store for 2025 – an incredibly beautifully crafted blend of new creations, powerful collaborations, and national and international tours,’ says Sydney Dance Company Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela. Highlights for the Company’s 2025 program include Unungkati Yantatja – one with the other, the first ever collaboration between choreographer Stephen Page AO and yidaki player and composer William Barton; a national tour of the 2024 production momenta; and the 12th year of New Breed, Sydney Dance Company’s annual showcase of emerging choreographic voices.
State Theatre Company South Australia
Launched on 31 October, Mitchell Butel’s final season as the Artistic Director of State Theatre Company South Australia (STCSA) includes the South Australian premiere of Melina Marchetta’s much loved coming of age novel, Looking for Alibrandi, adapted for the stage by Vidya Rajan; a brand new black comedy set in Parliament House, Canberra; the Tony Award-winning musical Kimberly Akimbo, and a festival of new Australian plays. “It’s a season that’s full of works about making a change and making a difference,” Butel says.
Victorian Opera
The company’s 2025 season includes the first-ever fully staged Australian production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Follies, Czech composer Leoš Janáček’s 1921 opera Katya Kabanova (aka Káťa Kabanová), English composer Jonathan Dove’s chamber opera adaptation of Jane Austen’s Regency-era novel Mansfield Park, and a revival of the Lewis Carroll-inspired Australian opera Boojum!, which premiered at the 1986 Adelaide Festival. The semi-staged production of Boojum! will feature members of the VO Emerges (Emerging Artists) program, and according to Artistic Director Stuart Maunder is “quirky, fun and strangely moving in places… It deserves to be seen, and it showcases these young singers at their absolute best”.
West Australian Ballet
“Season 2025 embodies the spirit of Western Australia, showcasing its wild beauty and unique stories. I’m thrilled to bring this extraordinary program to our audiences as we move toward our 75th anniversary in 2027,” says David McAllister AC, Guest Artistic Director of West Australian Ballet. The season, launched on Wednesday 9 September, features works old and new, including the world premiere of Butterfly Effect, a contemporary reimagining of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly by Australian choreographer Alice Topp, her first full-length ballet, and Don Quixote, choreographed by the late Dame Lucette Aldous AC after Marius Petipa’s 19th century original.
SEPTEMBER
Australian Brandenburg Orchestra
Featuring Handel and Bach alongside new collaborations and commissions, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra’s 2025 season promises to excite and delight. “From a male soprano who will dazzle you with energy and colour, to the Brandenburg soloists showcasing their virtuosity, to the raw power of the entire orchestra, to the interplay between musical and physical storytelling in collaboration with Circa, and to the profound depths and heights of the Brandenburg Choir, Season 2025 promises a powerful and moving journey through the Baroque,” says the Brandenburg’s co-founder and Artistic Director, Paul Dyer.
Bell Shakespeare
Rarely staged in Australia, Shakespeare’s Coriolanus is one of three major productions presented by Bell Shakespeare in 2025, the company’s 35th year. “Certainly in Australia it’s always hard to program the lesser known [Shakespeare] works, and it’s been a mission of mine to try and get a run for those and try and build enough trust with the audience to be able to do that, which is kind of an ongoing project for me,” Artistic Director Peter Evans tells ArtsHub. Alongside its mainstage programming, Bell Shakespeare will continue to stage its extensive national outreach and education program in schools, communities and Juvenile Justice centres across Australia in 2025.
Belvoir
“Belvoir is a great big ongoing unfinished story made up of all the stories we tell, have ever told, and are yet to tell. Every new show adds to this gargantuan decades-long group-improvisation. It is a tale told by thousands. An epic hundreds of episodes long… We’d love you to join us – again or for the first time – for another year of keeping the whole shebang going,’ Belvoir’s Artistic Director Eamon Flack said of the company’s 2025 season, which includes a mix of new Australian plays, an acclaimed First Nations work, adaptations of Helen Garner and Virginia Woolf, and more.
Griffin Theatre Company
Griffin’s 2025 season “is all about playwrights as visionary artists, as agenda setters – playwrights who feel the pulse of our community who predict the next wave of social change before it even happens. The nuclear debate, climate change, generational conflict. But among all these big ideas, just like in life itself, it’s also about tenderness, forgiveness and community,” says Artistic Director Declan Greene. Season highlights include Nucleus, a new play by Alana Valentine about the nuclear debate and finding common ground, and Ang Collins’ irreverent Naturism, directed by Greene and exploring climate change and intergenerational conflict – and did we mention it’s performed in the nude?
Hayes Theatre Co
The co-Artistic Directors of Hayes Theatre Company, Richard Carroll and Victoria Falconer, have announced a 2025 season that includes two world premieres: Phar Lap: The Electro-Swing Musical, written by Steven Kramer and directed by Sheridan Harbridge, and Merry & Bright, a play with music that stars stage icon Nancye Hayes in a role crafted especially for her by award-winning playwright Jordan Shea. “This season is all about joy, irreverence, surprises, glamour, humour, insight and warmth,” say Carroll and Falconer. “Our audiences are more and more keen on shows that provide the experience of a GREAT NIGHT OUT, and that’s exactly what we plan to give you throughout 2025.” Also featured in Hayes Theatre Co’s 2025 season are Being Alive: The Music of Stephen Sondheim, a celebration of the late, great musical theatre mastermind directed by Sonya Suares (Chair of Australia’s first and only Sondheim repertory company, Watch This), and the Australian premiere of the Tony and Olivier Award-nominated musical Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, based on the film by Pedro Almodóvar.
Melbourne Theatre Company
Brave programming and resonant stories are central to Anne-Louise Sarks’ third MTC season as Artistic Director. “There’s a common idea that classic plays are the plays that will draw the most audiences, but actually, our new Australian work is taking off, and I think that’s really important – to put new Australian work front and centre. So I’m really excited by that, I want to honour that and follow that instinct, so that’s absolutely what we’re doing,” Sarks says, of a season that features everything from David Williamson’s 1971 classic The Removalists and the hottest new works from Broadway and the West End to new Australian plays by the likes of Andrea James (Sunshine Super Girl) and S. Shakthidharan (Counting and Cracking).
Opera Australia
The national opera company’s 2025 season features a mix of accessible and canonical works, including four musicals and a significant focus on home-grown talent both on and off stage. “We’re very excited about the 2025 season; it’s a great representation of the breadth and depth of the operatic canon and includes some of the finest operas ever written, to be brought to life by the finest Australian talent,” says OA Chief Executive Fiona Allan.
Queensland Theatre
“As a state theatre company, we owe it to our state, to our very diverse population, to tell a whole suite of stories,” says Daniel Evans, Queensland Theatre’s Associate Artistic Director (Programming), who has co-curated the Company’s 2025 season with colleagues Fiona MacDonald, the Associate Artistic Director (Education and Youth) and Isaac Drandic, Associate Artistic Director (First Nations). The new season includes the world premiere of Malacañang Made Us (Jordan Shea’s Queensland Premier’s Drama Award-winning play spanning generations and nations) and the mainstage premiere of Belloo Creative’s Back to Bilo (a verbatim piece about the grassroots community effort to get the Nadesalingam family out of immigration detention and home to Biloela) alongside a musical, a political bio-drama, a David Williamson classic and more.
Queensland Symphony Orchestra
“In the annual programs of many orchestras, there’s always variety, but it can be hard to find a uniting theme to tie everything together; it’s more attractive for the audience to follow a path,” says Umberto Clerici, Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s Chief Conductor, “which is why next year’s QSO repertoire has a leitmotif of spirituality and the world beyond.” Focused on works from the 20th and 21st centuries, the QSO’s 2025 season includes a collaborations with contemporary circus company Circa, as well as Bell Shakespeare founder and actor John Bell in a celebration of the Bard’s final play, The Tempest, which has influenced and inspired more composers throughout history than any of Shakespeare’s other legendary works.
Sydney Theatre Company
Kip Williams, the outgoing Artistic Director of Sydney Theatre Company (STC) announced the line-up for his eighth and final season of plays with the Company in early September, saying of the 2025 season: “I am so thankful for the opportunity to program and present eight seasons of theatre in my time as Artistic Director. This is by no means the end of my connection with this Company that I love so much, but for now, please accept my heartfelt gratitude for this special time we have shared in the theatre together.” Featuring Pulitzer-winning and nominated US dramatists, the season also includes Joanna Murray-Smith’s new adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley, Tom Wright’s version of Picnic at Hanging Rock directed by Ian Michael, and Kate Mulvany’s adaptation of another Australian classic, The Shiralee by D’Arcy Niland.
AUGUST
The Australian Ballet
With the impact of Oscar’s world premiere fresh in audience’s minds, The Australian Ballet’s 2025 season promises further athletic, aesthetic and perfectly poised delights. Artistic Director David Hallberg says, “I wanted our 2025 season to show our audiences the power of storytelling and the beauty of movement. These curated programs demonstrate some of the greatest ballets, balanced by our continued commitment to create new work… Alongside the grand ballets of the 19th century, we will present two world premieres, enriching our repertoire and deepening the audience’s passion for ballet through both tradition and innovation.” The season opens with the return of Nijinsky, John Neumeier’s tribute to the legendary dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky, pirouettes into Prism, a triple bill, featuring works by three of the world’s most creative choreographers, William Forsythe, Jerome Robbins and The Australian Ballet’s Resident Choreographer, Stephanie Lake; and concludes in Sydney with the return of David McAllister’s reimagining of The Sleeping Beauty, 10 years after its opulent premiere.
Australian Chamber Orchestra
In 2025, the Australian Chamber Orchestra celebrates 50 years of marvellous music-making, simultaneously celebrating tradition and redefining the very nature of classical music. “For our 50th anniversary season, I am delighted that we will be embarking on new collaborations with friends from around the world, alongside celebrating the remarkable talents of my colleagues in the ACO – some of the finest string players on the globe,” says Artistic Director Richard Tognetti. The season includes guest artists such as South African cello sensation Abel Selaocoe and cabaret and drag phenomenon Le Gateau Chocolat; five world premieres, including commissions from Nigel Westlake, Holly Harrison, Valentin Silvestrov and David Lang; and the return of the critically acclaimed film, Mountain, a cinematic and musical collaboration between the ACO and BAFTA-nominated Sherpa director, Jennifer Peedom, narrated by two-time Academy Award nominated actor Willem Dafoe.
Canberra Symphony Orchestra
“For me, in creating a program – and this has certainly been the case in previous years with the CSO and with much of my programming around the world as well – is that when I sit down with a blank piece of paper, there will always be one key work that I then build the rest of the program around. And in this season, the idea was ‘stories’,” explains Jessica Cottis, the Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of Canberra Symphony Orchestra. Her harmonic approach to programming is evident throughout the CSO’s 75th anniversary season, which juxtaposes canonical works by Beethoven, Mozart and Tchaikovsky alongside a range of new commissions, including works by First Nations composers Nardi Simpson and Dr Christopher Sainsbury which honour Indigenous language, lore and culture.
Ensemble Theatre Company
Ensemble Artistic Director, Mark Kilmurry, says, “In 2025, we’re thrilled to present 10 exceptional plays. We have three world premieres from Ensemble heavyweights: David Williamson couldn’t resist picking up his pen once again to give us Aria [a darkly comedic exploration of the rivalries inherent in every family], Melanie Tait brings us How to Plot a Hit in Two Days [dramatising the work of a television writers’ room when they have to kill off a beloved character], and comedy duo Genevieve Hegney and Catherine Moore return with the true story of the world’s oldest commercial female pilot, Deborah Lawrie, in Fly Girl.” Ensemble’s 2025 season also features classics by Sam Shepard and Harold Pinter, a dramatic whodunnit, and a Pulitzer Prize-winner about finding the courage to change.
Selby & Friends
In 2025, Selby & Friends presents five concerts celebrating the ensemble’s deep love of melody, innovation and inspiration, ranging from the Australian premiere of a recent work by the Austrian-American composer, conductor and concert pianist Lera Auerbach, to a celebration of the 150th anniversary of Ravel’s birth. “Having lived most of my life within the beautiful and limitless boundaries of chamber music, it is a truly wonderful privilege to have access to, and be constantly exploring, original music from both beloved old masters and exciting new composers and to share this all in our 2025 Season with my friends,” says Kathryn Selby AM, pianist and Artistic Director of Selby & Friends.
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
“Music is all about connection. In 2025, we invite you to delve deeper into this extraordinary music as we reconnect with great works and great artists and make new connections with rising stars and less familiar masterpieces. 2025 promises to be a year of extraordinary excitement and richness,” said the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s Chief Conductor Simone Young of next year’s season – her fourth as Chief Conductor. Featuring 11 Sydney Symphony debuts, 10 programs showcasing Australian works and seven world premieres, program highlights include an exploration of lesser-known works by great composers including Elgar and Vaughan Williams; a performance of Wagner’s Siegfried, the third part of Sydney Symphony’s multi-year Ring Cycle in concert series; the premiere of a new commission by acclaimed First Nations composer William Barton, and more.
JULY
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Presenting 170 events across the year, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s season 2025 features 35 Australian works in its mainstage program, and the world premieres of 16 new commissions and co-commissions, including six works by female composers and six by First Nations artists. MSO Chief Conductor and Artistic Adviser Jaime Martín has invited audiences to “a year of musical journeys and adventures, including the celebration of Maurice Ravel in his 150th anniversary year, the continuation of the MSO’s exploration of Mahler and Dvořák, and an exciting and varied program of classical and contemporary music for Victorian music lovers.” After recent turmoil, the Orchestra is doubtless looking forward to focusing on what it does best: playing beautiful music.
Willoughby Symphony Orchestra
Nine concerts encompassing classical masterpieces, heart-stopping film presentations and festive programs have been programmed for Willoughby Symphony Orchestra’s 2025 season, which opens with one of Beethoven’s most remarkable creations, his Triple Concerto, performed by the award-winning Estivo Trio. Elsewhere in the season, principal trombonist of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Australian musician Jonathon Ramsay, will perform a concerto by Italian composer Nino Rota (best known for scoring Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather), as well as appearing in a specially designed children’s concert, designed to spark a lifelong love of orchestral music in young audiences.
The article was originally published on Friday 27 September 2024.
