After delighting audiences in 2023, The Dictionary of Lost Words returns to Sydney then tours to Geelong, Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra and Wollongong. Verity Laughton’s loving adaptation of Pip Williams’ bestseller is directed by Jessica Arthur. Beginning in 1886, the story follows Esme Nicoll as she grows into adulthood at the height of the women’s suffrage movement and the beginning of World War I. Under the care of her father, a lexicographer helping to create the first Oxford English Dictionary, Esme spends her early days in the Scriptorium where she discovers words that have been discarded – mostly relating to women’s experiences and the working class – and begins to create her own collection. Shannen Alyce Quan plays Esme.

Limelight Editor’s Choice

Pip Williams’ award-winning New York Times bestseller is brought to vivid life in this wildly popular stage adaptation by Verity Laughton. “Filled with humour and historical awareness” (Broadway World) and expertly directed by Jessica Arthur (Grand Horizons, Wonnangatta), it’s no wonder this play has become a runaway success.

It’s 1886 and the very first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is being compiled. Four-year-old Esme Nicoll has a front row seat. Well, she’s hiding under the sorting table, anyway. As her father and his male colleagues decide which words stay and which go, Esme collects the discarded scraps to compile her own far more magical dictionary. A sweeping historical tale, The Dictionary of Lost Words follows Esme from her childhood in the 1880s, into adulthood at the height of the women’s suffrage movement and the beginning of the First World War.

This beloved modern classic, featuring Arkia Ashraf, Rachel Burke, Ksenja Logos, Brian Meegan, Johnny Nasser, Shannen Alyce Quan, James Smith and Angela Nica Sullen, is a beautiful and transportive reflection on the love between a daughter and her father and a spellbinding night of theatre.