To coincide with Limelight’s August 2025 issue – our 250th! – we want to shift our gaze forward toward our 500th issue, which would bring us close to the year 2050.

We asked some of Australia’s theatre creatives to imagine what what the Australian stage might look like in 2050 – and what they hope to be doing on it.

We invited them to think about what they would like to see change between now and then; how emerging technologies could affect the way they create, engage, collaborate and dream; what the existential challenges to a music career might be in the next couple of decades – and how those challenges might be faced.

Matthew Lutton, director

Where do I think we might be in regard to theatre in Australia in 2050? That’s an exciting question to consider.

With technology, I believe theatre will become more analogue in aesthetic over the next 25 years. Meaning, more focused on live performers and the body rather than technology. We will see immense leaps in technology in lighting and sound (lights that can locate actors onstage with motion capture, spatialised sound mixes that have never been possible before), but when considering form, I suspect the aesthetic...