Theatre in Australia will blossom in 2023 following the lockdown years with their constriction on artists and performances. We, the audience, will play our part. Belvoir’s Artistic Director Eamon Flack reminds us that merely going to the theatre is “one of life’s great acts of optimism”.

The 2023 season heralds change. Unveiling her inaugural program as Artistic Director of Melbourne Theatre Company, Anne-Louise Sarks aims to examine no less than “how we make theatre and who we have in the room”, while Griffin Theatre Company’s Artistic Director Declan Greene is embracing a “messy, expansive, joyously chaotic” final season before a major expansion and renovation of the SBW Stables Theatre in Sydney’s Kings Cross. 

The MTC season opens with Anthony Weigh’s Sunday, an “audacious fantasy” starring Nikki Shiels and Matt Day, based on the story of arts patron Sunday Reed, who mentored the likes of artists Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker and Joy Hester. Sarks will direct Theresa Rebeck’s Bernhardt/Hamlet, a comedy starring her regular collaborator Kate Mulvany as both Sarah Bernhardt and Hamlet, leading a cast of 10.

Four productions developed or commissioned through the company’s NEXT STAGE Writers’ Program will take to the mainstage, including Declan Furber Gillick’s Jacky,...