Be inspired: Geelong Arts Centre’s extraordinary SEASON 2025
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16.12.2024

Be inspired: Geelong Arts Centre’s extraordinary SEASON 2025

Words by Staff Writer

From Shakespeare to mayhem on a treadmill, there’s something for everyone to enjoy.

For as long as we’ve shared this vast planet together, humans have passed their stories down the ages – both recognisably similar and wildly different – hoping to grasp the mercurial spark that tells us who we were, who we are and who we want to be. 

Stay up to date with what’s happening within the region’s art scene here.

This epic adventure of knowing ourselves better is represented in the spectacular spread of shows presented by Geelong Arts Centre in 2025. Vibrantly alive with the magic of storytelling, they leap headlong from the oldest continuous culture in the world, spinning yarns for 65,000 years on these lands, through to Shakespeare’s most beloved romance, pirouetting past Puccini and on to contemporary Australian classics. 

As Geelong Art Centre CEO Rhys Holden puts it, “Stories shape our view of the world, our culture and our community. Sitting in a theatre with friends and strangers witnessing one of the oldest and most compelling forms of storytelling is an extremely profound experience.” 

With so much artistic ambition in this magnificent package, we’ve wrapped them all up in an easily digestible guide of what to catch throughout the year.  

EXPLORING EXTRAORDINARY STORIES 

Where better to begin our voyage into storytelling than by diving into the open pages of a book built for binding them? Transferring from its sold-out seasons in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne, The Dictionary of Lost Words (27-29 March) is a fabulously feminist exploration of language itself. Adapted from the Reese Witherspoon-recommended, New York Times best-selling Pip Williams novel by South Australian playwright Verity Laughton, it’s a decades-spanning epic that starts small then soars so tall.  

Young Esme sits at her father’s feet as he and his male colleagues begin assembling what will one day become the Oxford English Dictionary. Curiously, many of the words most relating to women’s experiences flutter to the floor unobserved. Gathering them up, she spies a pattern that will send her on a remarkable adventure through the Great War and on to the suffragette cause. As directed by Jessica Arthur (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall), this is one worldly wonder of words you won’t want to miss.  

One of the most exciting choreographers working in Australia today, Sydney Dance Company artistic director Rafael Bonachela has been wowing local audiences since he was borrowed from Spain. In newest work momenta (14-15 May), he crafts raw poetry from the human form in a magnetic work caught in the collision of space and time in a dazzling light storm. Set to a pulsing score by classical music/electronica-fusing whizz Nick Wales, it’s sublime stuff The Saturday Paper dubbed, “flawless, ingenious, compelling.” 

Addressing the climate crisis doesn’t have to mean a heavy night at the theatre. Especially not if zombie mice are involved. Yep, you read that right, Scenes from a Climate Era (29-31 May), the latest wild ride from the fevered imagination of 44 Sex Acts in One Week playwright David Finnigan, tackles our possible impending doom with a laugh-a-minute until you cry sketch show. Directed by Carissa Licciardello, it smashes through 65 scenes in under 90 minutes and might be the wildest thing you see all year. 

 

Did anyone find seagulls, crows and the like terrifying before they swarmed on poor Tippi Hedren? It’s hard to tell, but since thriller-meister Alfred Hitchcock’s classic horror movie, The Birds (11-14 Jun), they’ve swooped on our nightmares. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child star Paula Arundell’s in their beady-eye sights this time round, leading this one-woman show adapted from the Daphne Du Maurier novel by playwright Louise Fox and directed by Picnic at Hanging Rock’s Matthew Lutton. Heading straight to Geelong from Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre to Geelong, this eerily immersive show will make you squawk! 

If you’re looking for something a little calmer, wind your way towards Opera Australia’s latest breathtaking portrayal of Italian composer Giacomo Puccini’s soaring Parisian story, La Boheme (11-12 July). Because what’s more relaxing than a broke Bohemian poet in the 1830s falling for a beautiful young woman, getting swept up in the romance of it all only for them to be torn asunder through cruel fate? As directed by superstar Dean Bryan, it’s a tale as old as time, but it never gets stale.  

When Pia Miranda appeared as the teenaged hero of a generation of young women – Josie of Melina Marchetta’s treasured 1992 young adult novel Looking for Alibrandi– in Kate Woods’ big screen adaptation, it was pitch-perfect casting. As it is all over again with Samoan-Italian star Chanella Macri bringing the sassy pizazz in a brand-new stage adaptation (20-23 August) by playwright Vidya Rajan and garlanded director Stephen Nicolazzo (Loaded, Merciless Gods). It’s (tomato) saucy but nice.  

Stringing up ballet dancers from the rafters: what could possibly go wrong?? That’s the daredevil spirit at the heart of the latest death-defying work from Brisbane-based, world-conquering highwire act, Circa. As corralled by gifted director Yaron Lifschitz, the ensemble’s dazzling aerial work and grounded acrobatics will reshape Swan Lake into Duck Pond (12-13 September) whether they like it or not. As ArtsHub says, “This story is told joyously with a great deal of wit and humour,” so expect a fair few feathers to be ruffled! 

First Nations-led Bangarra Dance Theatre brings a contemporary beating heart to ceremonial tradition, creating something exhilaratingly new. Artistic director Frances Rings invited Māori powerhouse choreographer Moss Te Ururangi Patterson of the Ngāti Tūwharetoa tribe to collaborate with the company’s former senior dancer Deborah Brown, a proud descendent of the Wakaid Clan and Meriam people in the Torres Strait, to create The Light Inside (10-11 October), a joyous ode to the spirit of their Mother Countries.  

Geelong Arts Centre’s Extraordinary Stories program wraps with the unbound beauty of the Bard, care of Bell Shakespeare’s nimble new look at star-crossed lovers Romeo & Juliet (8-9 November). Helmed by Peter Evans, this luscious production introduces the marvellous Madeleine Li as the cloistered Capulet willing to throw it all away for the love of a handsome stranger in a gorgeously evocative new look Time Out heralded as, “Still managing to breathe fresh air into Romeo and Juliet’s dying breaths.” 

For more information on Geelong Arts Centre’s SEASON 2025 and to book tickets, visit here.

REWIRE REIMAGINED 

Dig deeper into Geelong Arts Centre’s 2025 feast for curious minds, diving headlong into their astonishing REWIRE program. It’s jam-packed with shows designed to challenge, excite and surprise. From navigating daddy issues to a topsy-turvy take on Jane Austen via chaos on gym treadmills, it’s a daring line-up of brilliantly bold choices celebrating joy in the performing arts in all its unconventional glory.  

Caught between worlds, queer Wiradjuri choreographer Joel Bray emerges from a fairy floss cloud at the start of Daddy (21-22 February) to explode the body beautiful myth, the clique-iness of gay culture and the heinous idea that he’s somehow not Black enough to be Aboriginal. But rather than talk (and dance) it all out as you sit passively observing, Bray’s gloriously generous show invites you to join him in a refreshingly honest form of audience participation that will leave you wanting more, not running for the door.  

M’ap Bulé (4-5 April), the title of Blithe Spirit star Nancy Denis’ debut solo show, means “I’m on fire” in Haitian Creole, and you’ll be burning with FOMO-induced angst if you miss it. Revelling in her ancestors fighting to free Haiti from colonial control, she’ll transport you to the first Black republic and on to her childhood in Australia and reconcile these identities with her queerness in a ferociously potent and snappy cabaret show. 

Prepare for mayhem set to an inexorable countdown as anarchic performance art collective Pony Cam (Grand Theft Theatre) attempt to fill out an application for arts funding in Burnout Paradise (27-28 June). Yes, we know that sounds about as exciting as stale bread, but trust us, this arduous admin task takes place on four speeding treadmills whilst the energetically chaotic ensemble conducts a raft of additional tasks like cooking dinner (hot oil and water included), performing a dance number or a Hamlet soliloquy. There will be mayhem, with Time Out noting, “It’s sheer bedlam in the most magnificent way.” 

Who isn’t a Jane Austen fan? But fair warning, if you’ve come to see Elizabeth Bennet work her stuff out in the traditional way, then you’re about to get a massive surprise as satirical theatre whipper-snappers Bloomshed bring Pride and Prejudice (15-16 August) crashing into the here and now with coarse language, cost of living and a housing crisis. Smashing gender roles, class and privilege, it’s irreverent in the very best way, Mr Darcy! 

Boldly go where cinema and theatre collide in Night Night (29-20 August), the latest awe-inspiring work from Perth’s medium-mashers The Last Great Hunt (Lé Nør [The Rain]). Combining puppets and models with real people armed with cameras and endless imagination, you’ll follow Pip on a quest to the Antarctic where she’ll be haunted by dreams of an albino penguin and a new plane of existence in this mesmerising adventure. 

For more information on the REWIRE program and to book tickets, visit here

AND THERE’S MORE… 

As if all the wonder above wasn’t enough, Geelong Arts Centre will also field two bonus curated programs, because we can never be too entertained.  

If nights are not your thing, mellifluous music takes centre stage in the Delightful Days & Matinees curation, with free tea, coffee and treats before each show. Moulin Rouge, West Side Story and Chicago star Alinta Chidzey takes on Dionne Warwick and the songs of Burt Bacharach (19 February) in a gorgeous show honouring one of the greatest creative pairings of all time. Australia’s sweethearts get the love they deserve in the capable hands of cabaret stars Amelia Ryan and Michael Griffiths in Livvy & Pete: The Songs of Olivia Newton-John and Peter Allen (9 April). 

All-singing, all-dancing Rohan Browne and his band The Big Noise will set toes a-tappin’ in Swingin’ (4 June) while soprano Giuseppina Grech and co bring some of the finest feelings to our stage in Songs from Grand Opera to London’s West End (27 August). Elvis is alive and kicking, as channelled by Zoy Frangos in Sun Rise: The Story of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll (1 October), then Anna-Lee Robertson and Gorgi Coghlan celebrate decades of working together through the music of Paul Simon, Cole Porter, Adele and more in show tune-belting Songbirds (26 November). 

If you’re searching for shows all the family can get on board, clap your hands for the funtastic Family Magic selection, including Junkyard Beat’s galaxy-spanning adventure into sustainability, Junklandia (5 March), in which kids make orchestra instruments out of recycled bits and bobs. Jackie French and Bruce Whatley’s adored kids’ book Josephine Wants to Dance (16-17 April) comes alive thanks to Monkey Baa Theatre Company.  

The Listies are 110% Ready (21 June), and Terrapin bring their large-scale puppetry to play with a little help from The Last Great Hunt in The Paper Escaper (4 August). Then the Wonder Children’s Festival brings First Nations story Proudfoot & Friends (16 September), abracadabra-waving Mario the Maker Magician (20-21 September) and Margery Williams’s beloved Velveteen Rabbit (23-24 September). 

For more information on the Delightful Days & Matinees program and to book tickets, visit hereFor Family Magic, head here

With all this and more to explore, it will be one heck of a year at Geelong Arts Centre and to make sure you never miss a beat or a story, sign up to their fortnightly What’s On e-newsletter.