A decade ago, William Shakespeare was the most performed playwright in Australia. In 2024 not one mainstage theatre company in Australia will perform Shakespeare. The only exception will be Bell Shakespeare.

This shift has been a long time coming. Theatre makers such as Lachlan Philpott, Nakkiah Lui and Andrew Bovell have been calling for less Shakespeare and more new work since the mid-2010s.

Today, their advocacy is bearing fruit.

Of the 79 plays being performed in 2024, 68 (87%) were written after 2000, 60 (76%) were written after 2014, and 23 (29%) will have their world premiere in 2024. Only three were written prior to the 20th century – and that’s if you count Kip Williams’ new adaptation of Dracula, alongside Bell Shakespeare’s two plays.

New work is important. A truly rich cultural conversation must include a variety of voices and fresh perspectives. But alongside new work and new voices, nuanced engagement with the past is needed.

A forum for conversations

Shakespeare is important, not just because he wrote great plays, and definitely not because he is perfect. He is important because we have, for 400 years, made him important, using his work to have rich...