Never heard of Nellie Small? Honestly, neither had we until we learned that playwright Alana Valentine would be celebrating Nellie’s life in a new show premiering in next month’s Sydney Festival.

One of Sydney’s best-known entertainers for three decades, the cross-dressing, jazz-singing raconteur Nellie Small was a trailblazing star in the 1930s, 40s and 50s and in Send for Nellie, Valentine is about to put this showbiz legend back into the spotlight. In our cover feature this month, she talks to Elissa Blake about a story that wouldn’t let her go until it was told.

A rather better-known name is also celebrated this month, that of Galileo. Already made into a classic film, namechecked in Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody and commemorated in LEGO, the life of the great polymath is about to be explored once more in a new Australian opera. Limelight Editor-at-Large Clive Paget speaks to composer Richard Mills about what will be his farewell to the Victorian Opera after a decade at its helm.

Also this month, arts journalist Deborah Jones talks to musical theatre star Lucy Maunder about playing one of her long-awaited dream roles (that...