When Freeze Frame Opera’s new production of Dead Man Walking opens on 18 September, audiences will find themselves confronted not just by the questions raised in Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally’s searing operatic exploration of the morality of capital punishment, but by the physical reality of watching it unfold inside the walls of Fremantle Prison.

“It’s very difficult not to reflect on … the ongoing concerns of deaths in custody,” says the production’s director Adam Mitchell. “Even though we are clearly talking about the death penalty in America, it’s very hard not to connect that to the systemic injustice here in Western Australia, especially that experienced by First Nations people.”

Mitchell, best known for his work in theatre (he was the Associate Director for Black Swan State Theatre Company and directed nearly 20 productions there), is steering this highly immersive staging for Freeze Frame Opera with music director Tommaso Pollio, designer Rhiannon Walker and lighting designer Jerry Reinhardt.

The cast includes Lachlan Higgins as death-row inmate Joseph De Rocher, Hattie Marshall (Sister Helen Prejean), Sara Macliver (Sister Rose) and Lisa Harper-Brown as De Rocher’s mother.