Sydney Theatre Company has unveiled a 2027 season spanning 13 productions, including four world premieres, six Australian premieres and the return of one of its biggest international theatrical successes – Kip Williams’ cine-theatre adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray.
STC’s 2027 season – quick links
STC brings back The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Tony and Olivier Award-winning production comes home to Sydney in 2027, with Nikki Shiels stepping into the role that helped turn the show into an international sensation.
The return of Dorian Gray marks a new chapter in a production that has travelled from Sydney to the West End and Broadway since its original 2020 debut. Shiels was the alternate performer when Dorian Gray first played Sydney and Melbourne in 2022 starring Eryn Jean Norvill (who will also make a return to STC in 2027 – keep reading for details).
In 2027 Shiels will take the lead, playing Dorian and 25 other characters in Williams’ technically demanding solo production.
Mitchell Butel factors in STC’s financial future
The season is the second programmed by STC Artistic Director Mitchell Butel, who returned to his hometown after a decade at State Theatre Company South Australia to take the reins from Kip Williams.
His first season includes the world premiere of Whispering Jack: The John Farnham Musical, a co-production with Michael Cassel and Gaynor Wheatley. Ahead of the production’s first shows in November, Butel says the show is already drawing new audiences to STC, with bookings coming from postcodes outside its usual demographic.
‘The main thing is providing a platform for great Australian talent – whether it be writing, directing, acting or design – in works that speak to the cultural and political moment that we find ourselves in, and also deliver really edge-of-your-seat, unmissable entertainment for our audiences,’ Butel tells ArtsHub.
That balancing act is particularly significant given STC’s recent financial position. While the company’s 2025 annual report recorded an overall net surplus, its core theatre operations remained in deficit, reflecting the difficult economic conditions facing the performing arts sector.
Butel says financial sustainability was a consideration in programming the 2027 season.
‘We don’t program any loss-leading shows in terms of their forecast income, so we really try and focus on works that we think will do well, both artistically and in a financially sustainable way,’ he said.
That includes productions he hopes will reach beyond STC’s traditional audience, including a theatrical new addition to the world of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, and the Sydney premiere of a festive classic from the West End.
‘Providing new opportunities for people to come into the company feels really important,’ Butel said. ‘We’re doing what we’re supposed to do, which is being a theatre company for all of Sydney and a company that represents the depth and breadth of who we are.’
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If any theatre-going audiences are fearful that STC’s financially-forward approach will neglect new Australian writing and interesting, innovative productions, Butel does not seem to share those concerns.
‘There’s nothing in the season that I don’t think is interesting theatrically or from an innovation level,’ he says. ‘If the work is quality and is also pushing new artistic boundaries, then if it is commercial[ly sound] as well as being all those things, I think that’s a great thing.’
New Australian work takes the stage
Among the season’s four world premieres is The Palace Letters, Melanie Tait’s adaptation of historian Jenny Hocking’s account of the legal battle to access correspondence surrounding Gough Whitlam’s 1975 dismissal.
From the writer of The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race and directed by Priscilla Jackman (RBG: Of Many, One), the political thriller features stage and screen star Georgie Parker as Hocking and Jonathan Biggins (The Gospel According to Paul) as Whitlam, and will be presented at the Sydney Opera House.
The company will also premiere Amah and Nanna, the latest work from Disapol Savetsila, winner of the 2026 Patrick White Playwrights Award. Directed by Darren Yap (Miracle City, Letters to Lindy), it stars Annette Shun Wah (Floating Life, Eat Carpet) and Lynne McGranger (Home and Away) as two older women from very different backgrounds who form an unlikely friendship and embark on a road trip towards the Red Centre.
STC will reunite the creative team behind The Dictionary of Lost Words for a world premiere adaptation of Pip Williams’ The Bookbinder of Jericho. Playwright Verity Laughton adapts the novel, with Jessica Arthur (The Shiralee) directing the story of working-class twins Peggy and Maude, who work at Oxford University Press during the first world war.
The fourth world premiere is Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries: Death by Deckchair, written by Deb Cox, co-creator of the original television series, with Fiona Eagger. Amber McMahon (Accidental Death of an Anarchist) will play Phryne Fisher in the brand-new theatrical mystery, which finds the glamorous detective investigating murder, jewel theft and a possible curse aboard a 1929 cruise ship.
International hits and Australian premieres
The 2027 season is also stacked with Australian premieres. Richard Roxburgh and Heather Mitchell will reunite on the STC stage for the first time in 30 years in Robert Icke’s Oedipus, a contemporary political thriller based on Sophocles’ tragedy. The production, presented in partnership with Adelaide Festival, relocates the ancient story to election night.
Comedian Celeste Barber makes her STC debut in The Book of Liz, Amy and David Sedaris’ cult off-Broadway comedy about an Amish-like runaway who leaves her community after being forced to surrender her famous cheese-ball recipe.
Eryn Jean Norvill returns to STC for Simon Stephens’ Vanya, an Olivier Award-winning adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya written by Simon Stephens (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) to be performed by a single actor. Hailed as one of the most gifted actors of her generation, Norvill is matched by one of Australia’s greatest stage directors, Marion Potts (Doubt: A Parable).
Meanwhile, Andrea Demetriades stars in Becky Shaw, a dark comedy by two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee and screenwriter Gina Gionfriddo (House of Cards, Law and Order).
David Ireland’s The Fifth Step, starring Erik Thomson and Ashan Kumar, and Kimberly Belflower’s John Proctor Is the Villain, directed by Melbourne Theatre Company’s Artistic Director Anne-Louise Sarks, also receive Australian premieres.
The latter brings The Crucible into the social media age, following teenagers whose study of Arthur Miller’s play becomes entangled with their own experiences of sex, gossip, power and reputation.
The season also brings the acclaimed State Theatre Company South Australia production Logan St to Sydney. Written and directed by Jacob Boehme (Guuranda), the production follows the friendship that develops between an Afghan cameleer and a young First Nations woman in 1940s Adelaide, connecting themes of migration, Indigenous identity, family history and community.
Tim Minchin to star in festive classic
STC will also close out the year with a major festive production: the Sydney premiere of the Old Vic’s A Christmas Carol, with Tim Minchin returning to the STC stage to take up the mantle as Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ classic tale.
Adapted by Jack Thorne (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Netflix’s Adolescence) and directed by Matthew Warchus (Matilda The Musical), A Christmas Carol has become an annual tradition at Melbourne’s Comedy Theatre for four years running, with the Harbour City now getting a chance to see what the fuss is all about. The five-time Tony Award-winning production arrives with a cast of 17.
For all its mix of new commissions, international hits and audience-friendly titles, Butel says an unexpected theme emerged across the season: family and community.
‘Many of the plays speak to how families can hurt or heal, how we can choose new families, or how we can be redeemed through finding a new community,’ he says. ‘It’s often interesting what artists want to talk about at a particular moment, and that seems to be one of the themes they’re interested in this year.’
For STC, the 2027 season offers both a return to a proven international success and a substantial investment in new Australian stories – a combination that will be tested against the same economic pressures confronting theatres across the country.
And with The Picture of Dorian Gray returning to the stage where its global journey began, the season also gives Australian audiences the chance to revisit (or see for the first time) a production that has already conquered Broadway and the West End.
