Creative Australia has announced an investment of over $1.6m to support 10 projects in its Regional Performing Arts Touring program (Playing Australia).

The investment will bring quality performing arts to audiences in 79 locations, including regional and remote communities across Australia. The investment supports a broad range of performing arts, from contemporary dance to digital theatre and choir.

Among the organisations to receive funding are: Australian Dance Theatre, for its national tour of its latest work Marrow; Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre for a national tour of Melanie Tait’s play The Queen’s Nanny, and Opera Queensland, for a two-month national tour of Are You Lonesome Tonight, which draws on the history of opera and country music to tell a story about love, yearning and life on the road.

Ensemble Theatre’s The Queen’s Nanny. Photo © Phil Erbacher.

The Threshold Centre has also received support to tour its digital theatre experience Glow to parents and carers of newborns in regional Australia, as has Woodfordia Inc, to help bring its Festival of Small Halls tour to communities in rural Tasmania.

Central Australian Aboriginal Women’s Choir will present a series of concert performances across four States and the ACT, showcasing the...