Simon Phillips talks about meeting Tom Stoppard, how The Real Thing is beautiful as well as brilliant, and why Australian actors need to understand that for Stoppard the brain is sexy.

From Virginia Woolf and Caryl Churchill to brand new works by Michelle Law and S. Shakthidharan, Eamon Flack’s latest season seeks to make sense of the “bewilderment and insanity” of 2020.

This issue includes features on streaming classical music, the life of Tchaikovsky, English actor Maxine Peake, Kronos Quartet, Tom Stoppard and more.

Explore your classical streaming options, learn more about Tchaikovsky through his symphonies, and meet Maxine Peake as she makes her Australian debut.

Maxine Peake gives a beautifully calibrated performance in this frank, one-woman play about IVF.

How SUDS created James, Greer, Beresford, Hughes et al.

It might not be the greatest musical ever written, but high-octane dance numbers and gravity-defying stunts see the cast really fly.

Elenoa Rokobaro gives an incredible, soulful performance in an eloquent production directed by Mitchell Butel.

In its 30th year the company revisits Hamlet, the first play it ever staged, this time with a female actor in the title role, and The Comedy of Errors.

English actor Maxine Peake is known for portraying tough, complex women. She talks to Justine Nguyen about making her Australian stage debut in a play about a woman undergoing IVF, and the toll it takes on her, before presenting an immersive performance piece about the Velvet Underground’s Nico.

Natalie Bassingthwaighte and the stunning ensemble are drop-dead gorgeous in a musical that could have been written yesterday.

Lee Lewis introduces five mainstage plays by Kendall Feaver, David Williamson, Matthew Whittet, Mark Rogers and Alma de Groen.