F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, set during the Jazz Age, continues to fire artists’ imagination with everything from Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 movie to Elevator Repair Service’s landmark, six-hour stage production Gatz, which premiered in 2004. The US theatre company returns to Australia to perform Gatz at this year’s Adelaide Festival (13–15 March). Meanwhile, Craig Ilott’s cabaret-burlesque extravaganza, Gatsby at the Green Light, has an encore season at the Sydney Opera House Studio, where it plays until 1 March. A new adaptation by Queensland Theatre Company Artistic Director Daniel Evans and Shake & Stir Co-Artistic Director Nelle Lee invites Brisbane audiences to enter the gin-soaked fever dream. Moving to Long Island in the summer of 1922, Nick Carraway is fascinated by the enigmatic playboy who throws decadent parties next door. Jay Gatsby, it turns out, has everything he wants – except Daisy Buchanan, the only woman he’s ever loved. Evans and Shake & Stir’s Nick Skubij direct.

Limelight Editor’s Choice

Welcome to The Jazz Age: a fever dream of dizzying excess where love, lies and liquor are in hot supply. Late to this glittering party arrives Nick Carraway, a blow-in from the mid-West, who’s immediately drawn to the enigmatic playboy next door: Jay Gatsby. Every Saturday night New York’s Flappers, Freeloaders and Pleasure Seekers swill from Gatsby’s generosity while rumours swirl about their mysterious host. Is he a racketeer? A mobster? A bootlegger? A saint? Nick soon discovers the forlorn Gatsby is a man who has everything he wants – except the only woman he’s ever loved … Daisy.

Considered to be one of the greatest novels ever written, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s literary masterpiece comes roaring to the stage in a stylish and scintillating adaptation where dreams shimmer then shatter, hearts beat achingly out of time and everyone’s chasing their own green light.