Carla Haynes, Helen Howard, and Greg Gesch, photographed by Barbara Lowing Ad Astra end their 2024 season with a poignant and thought-provoking drama asking big questions about life, death, and the space in between. Written by American novelist and playwright Don DeLillo, who also directed the 2005 premiere production at Boise Contemporary Theater, Love Lies... Continue Reading →
What’s On: Love Lies Bleeding (Ad Astra)
Love Lies Bleeding 31 October - 23 November 2024 Ad Astra, Misterton Street, Fortitude Valley This play concerns an artist named Alex Macklin in the last years of his life, and the effect his condition has on his son, Sean, and his second and fourth wives, Toinette and Lia, respectively. After a major second stroke,... Continue Reading →
What’s On: Speaking in Tongues (Ad Astra)
Speaking in Tongues 5 - 28 September 2024 Ad Astra, Fortitude Valley Nine lives weave together in ways known and unknown in Andrew Bovell’s piercing drama, Speaking in Tongues. Leon is married to Sonja, Jane is married to Pete. By chance, each spouse meets the other’s one night and wind up in motel rooms. Pete... Continue Reading →
What’s On: Merrily We Roll Along (Ad Astra)
Merrily We Roll Along 16 May - 8 June 2024 Ad Astra, Fortitude Valley Ad Astra presents Merrily We Roll Along, a 1981 American musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by George Furth. Merrily We Roll Along begins in the present and moves backwards, tracing the lives of wealthy, jaded... Continue Reading →
Review: Loot (Ad Astra)
(L to R) Liam Hartley, Fiona Kennedy, and Jett Robson in Loot. Ad Astra presents Joe Orton's fast-paced and razor-sharp dark farce Loot, directed by Jennifer Flowers with assistant direction and production management by Liam Wallis. Compulsive truth-teller Hal McLeavey (Jett Robson) and his lover Dennis (Liam Hartley), an undertaker, have robbed a bank and... Continue Reading →
Review: The Wolves (Ad Astra)
Tainika Kane-Potaka (left, back) as #13, Emily Marszalek (centre back) as #46, Madeline Armit (right, back) as #11, and Sharnee Tones (front) as #25. Image credit: Justin Harrison Ad Astra have kicked off 2024 with Sarah DeLappe’s drama The Wolves, transforming their black box theatre into an indoor soccer pitch where all the guts and... Continue Reading →
What’s On: The Wolves (Ad Astra)
The Wolves 15 February - 9 March 2024 Ad Astra, 57 Misterton Street, Fortitude Valley A girls indoor soccer team warms up. From the safety of their suburban stretch circle, the team navigate big questions and wage tiny battles with all the vigour of a pack of adolescent warriors. Written by Sarah DeLappe and directed for... Continue Reading →
Review: The Amateurs (Ad Astra)
The cast of The Amateurs at Ad Astra, photographed by Christopher Sharman Life, death, art, and the search for purpose twist together in Jordan Harrison's compelling tragic comedy The Amateurs, directed by Susan O’Toole Cridland and superbly performed at Ad Astra. Written by American playwright Jordan Harrison, The Amateurs premiered off-Broadway in 2018 and made... Continue Reading →
Review: Top Girls (Ad Astra)
Written by Caryl Churchill and first performed in 1982, Top Girls follows the lead character of Marlene as she strives for success in a male-dominated workplace. Ad Astra’s production is directed by Mikayla Hosking, with assistant direction by Samara Louise, and stars an excellent ensemble of character actors, led by Aurelie Roque as Marlene. In... Continue Reading →
What’s On: Top Girls (Ad Astra)
Top Girls 20 July - 6 August Ad Astra, 57 Misterton St, Fortitude Valley Set in the early 1980s, Top Girls depicts the lifestyle and life choices of its central character, Marlene. A successful career woman, who’s just received a major promotion, who indisputably fought her way to the top to get it - Marlene’s... Continue Reading →
What’s On: Proof (Ad Astra)
Proof 15 June - 8 July Ad Astra, Misterton Street, Fortitude Valley On the eve of her twenty-fifth birthday Catherine, a troubled young woman, has spent years caring for her brilliant but unstable father, a famous mathematician. Now, following his death, she must deal with her own volatile emotions; the arrival of her estranged sister,... Continue Reading →
Review: Bakersfield Mist (Ad Astra)
Steven Grives and Fiona Kennedy in Bakersfield Mist Content warnings: Use of herbal cigarettes, coarse language and sexual references, depictions of violence, mentions of suicide. The California sun is baking inside Ad Astra's black box theatre for Bakersfield Mist. Directed by Jennifer Flowers, the clash of character between Steven Grives’ sophisticated art expert and Fiona... Continue Reading →