Richard Watts

Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the 2019 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize. In 2021 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association. Most recently, Richard received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts

Richard Watts's Latest Articles

The lights of a bus down a dark street at night leave a trail of light to indicate rapid movement in this photograph, which illustrates ArtsHub's weekly On the move column, a round-up of the week's Australian arts sector appointments.
News

On the move: latest Australian arts sector appointments

Your weekly round-up of comings and goings across the Australian arts sector.

Richard Watts

Jul 22, 2025
A sinister figure wearing a half-mask over his face and 19th Century clothes, including a long, black, cloak-like coat, gestures dramatically as he sings. He stands in front of a large statue of an angel playing the violin in the scene from Opera Australia's Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour 2022 production, 'Phantom of the Opera'.
News

The Phantom of the Opera returns to haunt Sydney Harbour in 2026

Opera Australia’s 2026 Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour kicks off a global celebration of Phantom’s 40th anniversary.

Richard Watts

Jul 18, 2025
a group of performers including some bare-chested circus performers on stage in a scene from Opera Queensland and Circa's world premiere production of 'Orpheus & Eurydice', 2019. The back white wall has THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE in red scrawled across it.
News

Opera Queensland and Circa’s Orpheus & Eurydice set for European premiere at Edinburgh International Festival

The critically acclaimed production, created by Opera Queensland and Circa and presented by Edinburgh International Festival and Opera Australia, unites…

Richard Watts

Jul 16, 2025
a group of performers including some bare-chested circus performers on stage in a scene from Opera Queensland and Circa's world premiere production of 'Orpheus & Eurydice', 2019. The back white wall has THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE in red scrawled across it.
News

Opera Queensland and Circa’s Orpheus & Eurydice set for European premiere at Edinburgh International Festival

The critically acclaimed production, created by Opera Queensland and Circa and presented by Edinburgh International Festival and Opera Australia, unites…

Richard Watts

Jul 16, 2025
Columbian-Australian violinist Natalya Bing, a Queenstown resident, plays her instrument in front of a seven-metre-diameter reproduction of the moon as part of 'Earthshine' at The Unconformity, 2023.
News

The Unconformity returns for 2025

Taking place in Queenstown on palawa Country, on lutruwita/Tasmania’s remote West Coast, The Unconformity has announced its October dates for…

Richard Watts

Jul 16, 2025
Wesley Enoch, a highly respected cultural leader and First Nations man, smiles at the camera. He is wearing black and a QUT sign is visible behind him.
News

Wesley Enoch AM appointed as the Australia Council Board’s new Chair

Enoch, a Quandamooka man, is the first practising artist and first First Nations person to serve as the Board's Chair.

Richard Watts

Jul 15, 2025
Two people stand behind the glass wall of an external elevator in this photograph, taken at a distance, which also shows the horizontal lines of the building's cladding, and the sharp lines of the building's edge against a cloudy sky. The photo illustrates ArtsHub's On the mov column, a weekly round-up of arts sector appointments across Australia.
News

On the move: latest arts sector appointments

ArtsHub’s weekly round-up of arts sector comings and goings across Australia.

Richard Watts

Jul 15, 2025
Guests assemble at the cake-cutting ceremony for Canberra Theatre Centre's 60th anniversary. Three fair-skinned men in suits, flanked by two ballerinas from The Australian Ballet, stand in a semi-circle around a white cake which has the decorative words 'Canberra Theatre Centre' displayed upon it, and a golden number 60 on top.
News

Cake and Carmen as Canberra Theatre Centre celebrates its 60th anniversary

Canberra Theatre Centre opened in 1965, and more than 10 million people have attended its productions in the six decades…

Richard Watts

Jun 27, 2025
A older man wearing a black hat and black jacket holding a laptop and looking at a concave screen depicting a landscape with green shrubs.
Sponsored

New dedicated gallery celebrates the power of the moving image

Gosford Regional Gallery’s new Moving Image Gallery opens next week, with the premiere of John Power’s ever-changing artwork, ‘Wander and…

Richard Watts

Jun 26, 2025
Four dancers stand poised on a gree-lit stage as a DJ plays at stage front. An audience looks on. This is a sequence from 'Cortex' by the Kianí del Valle Performance Group, which has been programmed alongside cutting edge sound works and DJs at Melbourne Town Hall for Now or Never.
Features

How winter festival Now or Never celebrates technology while remaining carbon-neutral

Artistic Director Elise Peyronnet describes Melbourne’s newest major festival – now in its third edition – as 'a festival like…

Richard Watts

Jun 24, 2025
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