Caroline Guiela Nguyen’s lavishly staged, three-hour drama Lacrima moves from Sydney Festival to Perth where it is a highlight of Anna Reece’s festival program. Inventive Western Australian collective The Last Great Hunt gives a live performance of a faux foreign film Lé Nør [the rain], while WA Youth Theatre Company presents Scenes from the Climate Era, which unfolds across 66 short scenes, blending the comic, tragic and surreal. Other theatre shows include Jaha Koo’s Haribo Kimchi, a moving reflection on migration and home, and Meow Meow’s bold reimagining of The Red Shoes. Meanwhile, Broadway classics meet ‘yacht rock’ in Marney McQueen’s new cabaret show Songs About Boats!

Limelight Editor’s Choice

From a Parisian haute couture fashion house to an embroidery workshop in Mumbai, to a lace atelier in Alençon, invisible hands labour in silence, stitching threads of ambition, sacrifice and survival. All for a dress that will spend mere minutes in the spotlight.

Renowned French director and filmmaker Caroline Guiela Nguyen pulls back the velvet curtain on the world of haute couture in LACRIMA. This is theatre as sharp as a needle – dazzling in its spectacle, unflinching in its humanity, unforgettable in its emotional impact. Following five-star, sell-out seasons across Europe, this extraordinary production now premieres in Australia.

LACRIMA unfolds like a cinematic thriller. With its shifting plots and intersecting characters, it has the grip of a Netflix binge – layered, suspenseful and impossible to stop watching.