Brisbane’s stages are set for lively and imaginative new theatre productions this year. Suzie Miller (Prima Facie and Inter Alia) will debut her latest play about the birth of AFLW; La Boite takes us to Mars in their world-premiere dark comedy; and Leah Purcell’s spirited Molly Johnson story is transformed into an epic Australian opera. 

There are heaps of remixes too, including three riotous musical adaptations of 1980s movies. The Bard’s words are brought into the modern world with a clickbait take on Macbeth. Plus, Queensland Theatre Company’s Matilda Award-winning version of Pride & Prejudice, a hit last year, gets a re-run. 

Here – in chronological order – are the best upcoming stage shows in Brisbane.  

The Last Ship

Musical icon Sting is the writer, composer and star of The Last Ship – a theatrical tribute to the people and the place that shaped his childhood in Wallsend, UK. Sting gets personal playing the leading role of Jackie White. The story explores what happens when a shipyard closes in a small community. The score features original arrangements, as well as songs borrowed from his back catalogue.

The Last Ship runs from April 9 to May 3 at Glasshouse Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre. Tickets are available online.

Footloose The Musical

Kick off your Sunday shoes at this brand-new production of Footloose: The Musical featuring Queensland’s Gabriel Tiller as outsider Ren who brings the beat back to the town of Bomont, where dancing has been outlawed. It’s a big ol’ excuse to sing along to 1980s classics, including Holding Out for a Hero and Let’s Hear It for the Boy, as well as the title track. Whether you’re a fan of the 1984 movie, or just want an uplifting night out, this popular musical has been known to get the whole theatre moving. 

Footloose The Musical runs from April 24 to May 3 at the Royal International Convention Centre. Tickets are on sale now.

The Sapphires

The Sapphires by Tony Briggs is back. The latest production of this iconic play features next-gen First Nations stars, including Aurora Liddle-Christie and Taeg Twist, and is directed by former Queensland Theatre Company artistic director Wesley Enoch. There’s still plenty of sequins and a soundtrack to match the story’s ’60s mood – even if you’ve seen it on screen, it’s worth checking it out again.

The Sapphires runs from April 28 to May 24 at Bille Brown Theatre. Tickets are available online.

Steel Magnolias

Director Lee Lewis (Prima Facie, The Bleeding Tree, Rice) is reviving Steel Magnolias for a 2026 audience. Heavy on sass and Southern charm, the production plays out in Truvy’s beauty salon, as six women share in the highs and lows of life.  The cast includes Blue Heelers’ Lisa McCune and Mandy Bishop, Home & Away’s Belinda Giblin, Debra Lawrance and Jessica Redmayne, and Lotte Beckett from The Election Monologues. It’s a reminder of the unbreakable bonds of friendship. 

Steel Magnolias runs from April 30 to May 10 at Playhouse Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre. Tickets are available online.

Duck Pond

Circa’s ever-impressive ensemble is back with an exhilarating 2023 circus production that combines Swan Lake and The Ugly Duckling, featuring a burlesque-style black swan and a cute parade of waddling (human) ducks. It’s got daring aerials and acrobatics, and, of course, an entertaining storyline about finding your place in the flock.

Duck Pond runs from May 13 to 16 at Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre. Tickets are on sale now.

The Drover’s Wife – The Opera

Leah Purcell’s spirited story of Molly Johnson – a lone pregnant mother in the Snowy Mountains, holding down the fort – was first a play, then a film and a book. Now it’s been transformed into an opera. Award-winning First Nations soprano Nina Korbe is in the lead role, with Marcus Corowa (Bran Nue Dae) as Yadaka, the Aboriginal man who finds himself hiding out on Molly’s property. 

The Drover’s Wife – The Opera runs from May 13 to 22 at Glasshouse Theatre. Tickets are on sale now. 

Eat Slay Zombie

Described as “a darkly comic First Nations work,” Eat Slay Zombie is brought to life by playwright, multidisciplinary artist and Githabul–Migunberri–Yugumbeh woman Alinta McGrady, alongside co-director Lisa Fa’alafi. Turning a zombie apocalypse into a story of friendship, resistance and found family is no easy feat, but somehow these two manage it. The play takes place in a world where Tiktok is the only form of communication, and follows the story of two Blak women navigating a doomsday reality, bunking down in a bowling alley without even a flamethrower.

Eat Slay Zombie runs from May 14 to 30 at La Boite Theatre. Tickets are available online.

Macbeth

The Scottish play gets a thoroughly modern update from Shake and Stir Theatre Company, who have reimagined Shakespeare’s tragic general as a rising war hero of contemporary times. He’s a public figure in the age of clickbait and doomscrolling, and his ruthlessly ambitious partner is poised and polished in the knowledge that perception is power. But, as we all know from year 9 English, that power can be short-lived. 

Macbeth runs from June 6 to 21 at Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre. Tickets are on sale now.

Beetlejuice The Musical

Shake, shake, shake, Senora and get your body in line for a riotous time with Eddie Perfect, who plays the lovable demon Betelgeuse in this musical adaptation of Tim Burton’s 1988 film. It’s loyal to the original with striped suits, crude jokes and a ghoulish set. Perfect wrote the music and lyrics, and his performance has been celebrated for being even more vulgar than Michael Keaton’s. Those two calypso songs, Banana Boat Song (Day-O) and Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora), are guaranteed, as is a suitably sulky teenage Lydia, played by Karis Oka. 

Beetlejuice The Musical runs from June 7 to July 19 at Lyric Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre. Tickets are on sale now.

Pride & Prejudice

Queensland Theatre Company’s retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice is returning for a second season. Elizabeth Bennet is once again at odds with her husband-hunting sisters and dithery mother as she seeks to find her own path in life. The talented Queensland cast includes Gael Ballantyne, Maddison Burridge, William Carseldine, Courtney Cavallaro, Daphne Chenl, Chenoa Deemal and more. The creative team – co-adaptors Wendy Mocke and Lewis Treston and co-directors Bridget Boyle and Daniel Evans – had the audience on their feet in 2025, and their second spin around the block is set to be just as good.

Pride & Prejudice runs from July 10 to 26 at Playhouse Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre. Tickets are available online.

Assembly

Find it hard to sit through a two-hour play? La Boite Theatre has the solution for depleting attention spans. In two performances, seven brand-new bite-sized works of theatre will be shown – with each story lasting only 10 minutes. It’s an opportunity for fresh-faced writers, directors and actors to showcase their skills, all while keeping things fast-paced and entertaining for the audience.

Assembly runs on June 19 & 20 at Roundhouse Theatre. Tickets are on sale now.

Heathers The Musical

Heathers walked so that Clueless and Mean Girls could run. If you haven’t seen the 1988 film, starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, the dark comedy satirises teen movies of the time. The off-Broadway version, which debuted in 2014, has been touring for over a decade with minor tweaks. It has a pop-rock score by screenwriter Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe, behind the music of Legally Blonde: The Musical. Veronica Sawyer is played by newcomer Emma Caporaso, and New Zealand-born Calista Nelmes – who was a finalist on The Voice – is queen bee Heather Chandler. 

Heathers The Musical runs from July 30 to August 9 at Hota, Gold Coast. Tickets are on sale now.

Second Coming

If our time on Earth is running out, where next? This La Boite production boards us on an enterprising mission to start over again on Mars, with a cargo of two of every kind of creature. Sound familiar? The spaceship is named Ark Mark II, and the year is 2065. Geneticist Evie and her crew are humanity’s last hope, but their mission is funded by a corporate superpower. What could possibly go wrong? Written by Kathryn Marquet and director Ian Lawson, the dark but funny play looks at who we’re entrusting to make decisions and, asks if we are going to save the world, shouldn’t we make it better?

Second Coming runs from August 6 to 22 at Roundhouse Theatre. Tickets are on sale now.

Do Not Go Gentle

Melbourne playwright Patricia Cornelius looks at the dignity and defiance of ageing in her 2010 play about aged care residents who imagine themselves in an icy, barren landscape, as if they are South Pole explorers. Not just any explorers, but the 1911 expedition led by British Captain Robert Falcon Scott, who never returned from the trip. In the two-hour play, the harsh landscape becomes a metaphor for ageing bodies and minds, all desperately trying to keep going in as spirited a way as they can. 

Do Not Go Gentle runs from August 11 to 30 at Bille Brown Theatre. Tickets are on sale now.

Strong is the New Pretty

Suzie Miller – the mastermind behind RBG: Of Many, One and Prima Facie – explores the world of the AFLW in this premiere production. In Strong is the New Pretty, Miller tells the story of the people who took the Aussie Rules women’s league from pipe dream to reality. Directed by Lee Lewis, the cast includes Sheridan Harbridge, Lucy Bell and Amy Ingram. Not just for footy fans, this play is an exploration of determination, legacy and pride.

Strong is the New Pretty runs from September 1 to 19 at Playhouse Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre. Tickets are available online.

Koreaboo

Actor-turned-playwright Michelle Lim Davidson (The Feather in the Web, The Newsreader) leaves it all on the stage in this deeply personal, funny and moving production, which explores themes of identity, belonging and the search for family. Davidson tells the story of Hannah, who was adopted from Korea by Australian parents, as she returns to Seoul to meet her birth mother. A reunion story powered by Google Translate, K-Pop and kimchi, Koreaboo was originally produced in 2025 by Sydney’s Griffin Theatre Company at Belvoir St Theatre.

Koreaboo runs from September 2 to 19 at La Boite Theatre. Tickets are available online.

Bangarra Dance Theatre – Horizon

Consider this your advance warning. This November, Bangarra Dance Theatre is coming to Hota for one night only with its cross-cultural collaboration, created by Māori choreographer Moss Te Ururangi Patterson and Bangarra alum Deborah Brown. It’s an ensemble dance work about the forces that bind us across waters and across time. Before the main piece, audiences will also be treated to a dance by another Bangarra alum, Sani Townson, called Kulka, exploring his Torres Strait heritage. 

Bangarra Dance Theatre – Horizon takes place on November 21 at Hota. Tickets are on sale now. 

Past Events

Antigone 

How does an Athenian tragedy written by Sophocles in 440 BC play in contemporary theatre? If you ask La Boite’s Courtney Stewart and Nigel Poulton, the story of Antigone is as relevant today as it ever was. Starring Maddison Burridge, their interpretation centres on a fearless young woman who refuses to stay silent. The play explores themes of protest, conscience and defiance. You’ll be left asking: Who gets to decide what is just? Where does loyalty lie? And what price are we prepared to pay for the truth?

Antigone runs from March 5 to 21 at La Boite Theatre. Tickets are available online.

Art

Richard Roxburgh (Rake, The Correspondent, Elvis), Damon Herriman (Better Man, Mr Inbetween, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) and Toby Schmitz unite on stage to bring French play Art to Australian stages. It’s a comedy about friendship, ego and the chaos that a single opinion can cause – the production is lauded for its biting wit and pitch-perfect timing.

Art runs from March 11 to 22 at Playhouse Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre. Tickets are available online.

Editor's note: This article was originally published on December 11, 2025 but was substantially updated on April 22, 2026 to include new musicals and plays in Queensland in 2026.