Queensland Theatre Company will turn up the scale and ambition for its 2027 season, bringing David Wenham, Miss Fisher, Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd and the Australian premiere of Broadway hit Stereophonic to Queensland stages alongside new work by local artists.

The eight-production season is the second programmed by Artistic Director Daniel Evans, and ranges from the battlefields of Troy and an ancient world shaped by Country to a glamorous murder mystery, a 1970s recording studio and Victorian London.

Evans said the season was built around a simple challenge: to make every night at the theatre compelling.

“Our test for this season became very simple: swing even bigger, punch harder and make theatre irrefutable,” he said.

An Iliad. (David Wenham and Helen Svoboda). Photo © Daniel Boud

The season opens with Australian actor David Wenham reprising his acclaimed performance in An Iliad, which comes to Brisbane from 25 February to 14 March following a sold-out Sydney Theatre Company season and a run of five-star reviews, including one from Limelight.

Wenham plays the Poet in a contemporary reimagining of Homer’s epic, recounting the Trojan War and humanity’s continuing appetite for violence.

Running alongside it is the world premiere of Romeo + Juliet, in which QTC Head of First Nations Theatre Isaac Drandic and Kamarra Bell-Wykes reimagine Shakespeare’s tragedy through Turrbal language, song, movement and First Nations storytelling.

The production, featuring a local Blak ensemble and designers, imagines an ancestral world in which Country holds the memory of a people.

Death by Deck Chair: A Miss Fisher Murder Mystery. Photo © Queensland Theatre Company

In April, Australia’s most famous fictional private detective makes her stage debut in Death by Deck Chair: A Miss Fisher Murder Mystery. Created by Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries television series creators Deb Cox and Fiona Eagger, the original stage mystery reunites Phryne Fisher and Detective Inspector Jack Robinson aboard a glamorous cruise, where a jewel robbery takes a deadly turn.

May brings Stereophonic, David Adjmi’s backstage drama about a rock band recording the album that could make them superstars. The production marks the play’s Australian premiere and features original live music by Grammy Award winner Will Butler of Arcade Fire. Directed by Evans, it will be staged in a replica 1972 recording studio.

The original 2019 production of Counting and Cracking. Photo © Brett Boardman/Belvoir

Also in May, S. Shakthidharan’s Counting and Cracking makes its Queensland debut. First seen in the 2019 Sydney Festival and in the UK and New York since, this acclaimed Australian drama spans four generations and two countries, following a family shaped by love, political upheaval, exile and the ties between parents and children.

Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd takes over the Bille Brown Theatre from July, with Evans and Bridget Boyle directing an immersive production of the musical. QTC favourite Naomi Price plays Mrs Lovett, opposite Rockhampton-born musical theatre performer Andy Conaghan as the demon barber.

Later in the year, Queensland playwright and performer Alberto Di Troia brings My Roman Empire to the Bille Brown Theatre. The darkly comic work follows a young queer writer searching for his Italian roots – only to discover that his long-lost relatives are neo-fascists.

Little Women. Photo © Queensland Theatre Company

The season closes with the world premiere of Little Women, a new adaptation by Queensland playwrights Maxine Mellor and Kathryn Marquet. Led by Matilda Award-winner Courtney Cavallaro, the production revisits Louisa May Alcott’s March sisters through a Queensland lens, focusing on sisterhood, ambition and the determination of four young women to shape their own lives.

The season also marks a more ambitious national chapter for QTC, with partnerships involving Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Jones Theatrical Group, Belvoir St Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse and JUTE Theatre Cairns.

QTC Chief Executive Criena Gehrke said the program represented a significant investment in Queensland artists and theatre-making.

“We want QTC to be a place where major work is made and where Queensland artists have the opportunity to do some of the best work of their careers,” she said. More than 125 Queensland artists will be engaged across the 2027 season.

For Evans, the scale of the program is deliberate.

“Each play is event theatre,” he said. “These are shows to mark in your calendar as appointment viewing.”

QTC’s 2027 season goes on sale from 8 October. For bookings and information visit queenslandtheatre.com.au