Kalive’s inaugural season is a collection of world premieres, modern Australian masterworks and new takes on classics from the Western canon.
“The works in 2026 are each vital in their own way. They hold a mirror to our cultural and political present; you’ll squirm, laugh, and question in the same breath,” Kalive says.
This season celebrates the richness of voices shaping our stages today, the clarity of early-career writers breaking through with bold new perspectives, the craft of Australia’s most celebrated performers, the tender, necessary stories of South Australian artists weaving culture and memory into the present and the thrill of international works that bring the world to our doorstep.
Season 2026 opens with the cutting satire Trophy Boys, a whip smart and riotous takedown of toxic masculinity by award-winning young playwright Emmanuelle Mattana. Performed by a female and non-binary cast in drag, the show unfolds in real time as an all-boys private school debate team are locked in a classroom for their one-hour prep window and forced to argue that “feminism has failed women”.
Later in March, the brilliant Heather Mitchell revives her award-winning and critically acclaimed “virtuosic performance” (The Conversation) of U.S. Supreme Court Justice and feminist icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Suzie Miller’s RBG: Of Many, One. The Sydney Theatre Company production plays a 4-week season at Dunstan Playhouse.
In May, Adelaide powerhouse Carla Lippis and Prisoner’s Glenda Linscott star in a radically imagined and provocative new production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Also in May, Richard Roxburgh, Ryan Corr and Adelaide’s own Damon Herriman star in ART, Yasmina Reza’s internationally award-winning comedy about friendship, ego and the chaos a single opinion can cause. Winner of the Tony Award for Best Play and the Olivier Award for Best Comedy, ART plays for a strictly limited five-day season at Her Majesty’s Theatre.
As part of the Company’s new SPARK program, in July comes the groundbreaking and utterly unhinged Uncle Vanya – but there’s ASMR soap cutting videos playing in the bottom right corner, a deliriously overstimulating remix of Anton Chekhov’s classic play from the mind of local award-winning theatremaker Mary Angley and her creative team of collaborators.
Landing at Space Theatre in July is the world premiere of Kaurna and Narungga theatremaker Jacob Boehme’s LOGAN ST, inspired by the Kaurna history behind Adelaide’s own Logan Street and the Adelaide Mosque, Australia’s oldest city Mosque. In LOGAN ST, an unlikely friendship takes root between Goolie, an Afghan cameleer and mosque caretaker, and Dulcie, a young Aboriginal woman.
Another Australian premiere work follows with Commentary, a dark comedy from Helpmann Award nominated playwright Ash Flanders. Directed by Petra Kalive, Commentary stars Gyton Grantley (Underbelly, House Husbands) as Nick, a filmmaker-turned-film-lecturer whose successful, and controversial, film from 20 years ago is making a resurgence at a local International Film Festival.
This season celebrates the richness of voices shaping our stages today.
SA emerging playwright Anthony Nocera’s riotously funny Log Boy premieres in October, starring Chris Asimos and Elena Carapetis. From the 2025 Great Australian Bites to AC Arts in all its gory, leather-clad full-length form as part of the SPARK program, Log Boy is a camp, kinky collision of horror, humour and heartbreak from one of Australia’s most exciting new writers.
Season 2026 closes with the glorious The Heartbreak Choir, a tenderly funny ode to kindness, courage and community with an all-star SA cast including Libby O’Donovan, Genevieve Mooy and Emma Beech. The Heartbreak Choir is a gently funny, deeply moving celebration of connection and second chances.
The year 2026 will also plant the seed of new initiative Blak State, a bold and long-term commitment to First Nations theatre-making. Supported by Create SA, Blak State will begin with a statewide period of listening and consultation led by First Nations artists, Elders and cultural leaders, who will define the stories, structures and ways of working that reflect sovereignty, cultural futures and community priorities.
2026 Subscriptions are now on sale at statetheatrecompany.com.au
