Some of the most exciting theatre coming up in Melbourne in July includes a post-apocalyptic story about culture, survival and what makes us human, a one-woman version of Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet from an international comedian superstar, and a remounted adaptation of Chehov’s tragicomedy Uncle Vanya by one of Australia’s most celebrated and beloved contemporary playwrights.
Lots to chew on, theatre-lovers. Enjoy!
Melbourne theatre guide – quick links
Heartbreak Hotel
Heartbreak Hotel is a two-hander about – you guessed it – heartbreak, from New Zealand’s EBKM, a collaborative partnership between director Eleanor Bishop and writer and performer Karin McCracken. The show had a successful Edinburgh Fringe season at Summerhall in 2024 followed by a sell-out season during Melbourne’s RISING festival last year, and now returns for a short run this July at Arts Centre Melbourne.
Actor Karin McCracken leads the audience through an exploration of what breaking up does to our bodies, hearts and minds, diving into her own personal heartbreak journey, and drawing on physiology, psychology, art, science and music. The show features actor Simon Leary playing McCracken’s exes, as well as synthy covers of break-up anthems.
The show won Time Out’s Critic’s Choice Best Play Award last year, and was critically acclaimed for its humour, honesty and storytelling.
It sounds like it’s a top pick if you’re suffering from heartbreak and are in need of some catharsis – or one to drag a broken-hearted friend along to if they’ve been hiding under the doona this winter and need a reminder that their pain is temporary, and doctor theatre can help.
Heartbreak Hotel is at Arts Centre Melbourne from 14 to 19 July.
Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity
This upcoming production at Theatre Works will be the Australian premiere of the 2019 play written by American Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist Heather McDonald. It’s to be directed by celebrated and multi-award-winning Australian theatre and film director Nadia Tass – who also directed its US premiere at Signature Theatre in Washington DC.
The title comes from the list of 90 UNESCO-proclaimed masterpieces of living cultural expression and practices – such as rituals, traditional craftmaking and performing arts – which was established in 2001 to raise awareness of the need to safeguard the world’s cultural heritage.
It gives us a steer on the themes of the play, which is set in a post-apocalyptic near future, inside a war-ravaged museum that has been turned into a prison. The three characters forced together in this survival story are a soldier, a nurse and an art restorer, who all must decide what is really worth saving when civilisation collapses.
The experienced cast features actor, writer and theatre academic Jane Montgomery-Griffiths, Red Stitch founding member Kate Cole, and Laila Thaker (Super, Red Stitch Actors Theatre).
Given the subject matter, and the recent reports of the obliteration of irreplaceable and ancient UNESCO World Heritage Sites as well as other religious and cultural sites, this play seems aptly timed for us to consider the value of global cultural heritage, and what other intangible heritages are being destroyed as a result of war.
Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity is at Theatre Works, St Kilda from 21 July to 1 August, 2026.
Funeral Flowers
Funeral Flowers by British playwright Emma Dennis-Edwards was first performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2018, where it won the prestigious Scotsman Fringe First Award – an award that celebrates outstanding new writing, with an impressive lineage that includes Phoebe Waller-Bridge (who won it for Fleabag in 2013) and Richard Gadd (2019 winner, for Baby Reindeer).
The one-woman working-class coming-of-age story tackles societal issues through the story of a 17-year-old Black woman, whose dreams of becoming a florist provide an escape from the complicated realities of her life as a foster kid in the British care system, with a mum in prison and a dodgy gang-member boyfriend.
Dennis-Edwards’ play was originally written for the Tottenham festival and was inspired by the true story of Gina Moffatt, a Tottenham business-owner who spent time in prison for drug offences before deciding to turn her life around and become a florist.
The play deals with some heavy themes, but reviews have praised Dennis-Edwards’ writing for its ability to steer clear of moralising, while creating a powerfully moving play that is charming, challenging and necessary.
Red Stitch ensemble member Lucy Ansell (Super, Force of Nature: The Dry 2) takes on the play’s lead role of Angelique in Red Stitch’s upcoming production. With emerging talent Ansell in the lead, this is definitely one to catch.
Funeral Flowers plays from 23 July to 25 August at Red Stitch Actors Theatre.
Eddie Izzard performs Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Suzy Eddie Izzard is heading back to Melbourne (just a month after wrapping up the tour of her comedy special Remix), to perform her one-woman version of Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, adapted by her brother Mark Izzard. The show has already toured the US and UK, and opened earlier in the month in Sydney.
More well-known for her surreal comedy, involving absurdist, tangential, often partially improvised conversations with imaginary characters (such as the famous Death Star Canteen and Cake or Death sketches), the comedian and activist has also managed a parallel career as an actor since the 90s.
Tackling all the characters in a two-hour version of arguably Shakespeare’s most famous play feels like somewhat of a flex, but Izzard has previously toured her one-woman version of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations to the UK and US (also adapted by her brother, Mark Izzard) to great acclaim, and Izzard is certainly not a performer (or a human) to be underestimated.
I recently spoke with Izzard about her Hamlet, and she was quick to point out that Shakespeare did comedy and tragedy, so she’s just following in his footsteps. Touché.
Eddie Izzard performs Shakespeare’s Hamlet is at Arts Centre Melbourne from 30 June until 12 July.
Uncle Vanya
Melbourne Theatre Company is relaunching a new adaptation of Anton Chehov’s tragicomic classic Uncle Vanya by Joanna Murray-Smith as part of its 2026 season.
Australian playwright Murray-Smith is better known for her long list of mainstage Australian theatre company produced plays – from Honour in 1995, to The Female of the Species in 2006, Berlin in 2021 and Julia in 2023 – than her adaptations. Yet her flair for witty dialogue, deep psychological interest in the human condition and sense of the dramatic within the domestic make her a natural choice for the task of adapting Chehov’s satirical masterpiece about change, suffering, heartbreak and hope.
Murray-Smith’s adaptation was commissioned by Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre and first performed in 2024, receiving five-star reviews and critical praise for maintaining the sense of the farcical absurdity and pathos of the Russian classic, while updating the language for a contemporary audience.
Having cut her teeth on adaptations of classics as an indie theatre maker, and with a clear passion (and talent) for directing ensemble comedies, MTC’s artistic director Anne-Louise Sarks has bagsed directorial duties on this one, pulling together a top-tier cast of comedy and theatre legends, peppered with some fast-rising stars.
We’ve got Shaun Micallef as the retired, pompous professor Serebryakov, who returns to his country estate with his much younger new wife, Yelena (Catherine Văn-Davies). Don Bridges is the poor landowner Telyeghin, a small role, but one where his comic talents are certain to shine.
AACTA Award-winning Daniel Henshell (Snowtown) plays the titular Uncle Vanya, whose life is upended by the return of the professor, while recent Logie Award nominee Philippa Northeast (ABC’s The Family Next Door, Netflix’s My Brilliant Career) is the professor’s daughter from his first marriage, Sonya. The AACTA Award-winning television, film and stage actor Fayssal Bazzi plays the doctor Astrov, and the object of Sonya’s unrequited affections.
It’s a recipe for a juicily dramatic night at the theatre, full of sharp dialogue, laughs and the ache of pathos that will satisfy theatre-lovers while also beckoning in the theatre fence-sitters.
Melbourne Theatre Company’s production of Uncle Vanya is at Arts Centre Melbourne from 21 July until 22 August.
More Melbourne theatre highlights for the calendar
Rabbit & Watson by Shane Woon is on at Northcote Town Hall, presented by Darebin Arts Speakeasy, from 15 to 26 July, promising a ‘celestial love story’ mixing ‘Chinese fantasy cinema, Boy Love drama and the AFL’. I mean, what a Venn diagram, who wouldn’t want to check that one out?
And What Will People Say by poet and writer Amani Mahmoud won two Sydney Fringe awards in 2025 and will be on at fortyfive downstairs from 9 to 12 July. This immersive theatre work blends Indian dance, music and spoken word poetry, and confronts the realities of domestic violence and generational silence in Indian migrant communities – inviting an important conversation about intersectionality and the silence that enables domestic violence to thrive in our country.
