Belvoir is a great big ongoing unfinished story made up of all the stories we tell, have ever told, and are yet to tell. Every new show adds to this gargantuan decades-long group-improvisation. It is a tale told by thousands. An epic hundreds of episodes long. Full of heroism and feats of daring. Ever-changing. Full of unexpectedness and happy accident. Belonging to everyone and no one. Turning good capitalist dollars into vanishing acts of theatricality. A river of life. A celebration.

We need Belvoirs of all sorts. Anything that carries us through time, that connects us to people and worlds outside our own, that washes away at the silt of fear and uncertainty that can bung up a society, a city, a community. Ongoing undertakings, bigger than any of us, that carry the memories of what came before us and make space for future possibilities. When you come to Belvoir you’re not just seeing what I hope is a brilliant show, you’re also part of keeping the bigger undertaking going.

What do we have for you this year?

Judy Davis in Helen Garner’s The Spare Room.
Two exciting new First Nations plays from two exciting new writers.
Andrew Bovell’s new play, which has tempted the great Kerry Fox and Sarah Peirse back to Belvoir.
Shakthidharan’s first new play since Counting and Cracking went to New York.
Meow Meow. At Belvoir. At last.
A new adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s visionary novel Orlando.
The literary sensation Grief is the Thing with Feathers, performed by Toby Schmitz and directed by Simon Phillips, his first time at Belvoir in 25 years.
And Colin Friels as King Lear.

Plus Nayika – A Dancing Girl and Scenes from the Climate Era are hitting the road, and Angeline Penrith is curating a celebration of the legendary National Black Theatre.

And somewhere in the next year (there is disagreement on exactly when) Belvoir turns 40.