Alison Croggon

This year’s Rising bows to economic realities with a sparser program, but the result is more intimate as it invites greater audience engagement.

Choreographer Florentina Holzinger, the 21st century’s premier artistic iconoclast, is returning to Rising, swapping body horror ballet for a bloody musical.

The Melbourne Theatre Company’s latest production of The Glass Menagerie is alive and faithful to Tennessee Williams’s melodrama of the real.

Matthew Lutton’s first Adelaide Festival survived an almost fatal scandal to deliver a clear message about the interrogative power of art.

Anne-Louise Sarks’ production of Daphne du Maurier’s subversive Rebecca swaps melodrama for an exploration of subjectivity.

The Australian Ballet’s latest production, Prism, is a triple bill that brings moments of austere beauty and pure joy.

Kirsty Marillier’s play Destiny captures both the menace of South Africa’s apartheid regime and the joyous energy it sought to stifle.

Grenfell: Uncovered is an unflinching account of the greed and political callousness that surrounded the 2017 London high-rise tragedy.

Rising’s first week is proof that the Melbourne festival is now fully grounded in the diversity of the city’s culture, with complementary international acts.

The new Malthouse adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s The Birds powerfully conveys the estrangement of the familiar that is the essence of horror.