What's On
Join us for a season of exciting and diverse theatre presented by one of Adelaide's oldest and most respected amateur theatre companies.
The Classic, The Comedy, The Contemporary - something for everybody in 2025.
THE WATSONS
By Laura Wade
Directed by Matthew Chapman
1 - 10 August 2025
Little Theatre
A Jane Austen novel you don't know the ending to? That's all right, neither did she.
The Watsons are in crisis. Cut off financially from her benefactor, the youngest, Emma, returns to her dying father and spinster sisters with the task of finding a husband - and finding one now. Matchmakers, match breakers, cads, stuffy clergymen and an overactive rumour mill all conspire as wedding bells ring in the distance and Emma eyes off a certain man…
…and that’s where we leave it.
See, Jane Austen never finished the story. So it’s up to Emma, with the help of modern-day Laura, a jaded playwright with a rapidly approaching deadline, to find her own happy ending…
And that’s where the fun really begins.
An Amateur Production by Arrangement with ORiGiN™ Theatrical, on behalf of Samuel French Inc. - A Concord Theatricals Company
$28 Full Price
$23 Concession
School groups: $15 per student (arranged via invoice)
Terms & Conditions
- All government issued Concession cards accepted, including seniors and students.
- Companion Cards accepted - please email theatreguild@adelaide.edu.au to confirm.
- Friends Of The Library are entitled to the Concession price.
- Schools/Teachers: please email theatreguild@adelaide.edu.au to arrange invoicing.
PERFORMANCE DATES
• Friday 1 August at 7:30pm
• Saturday 2 August at 3pm
• Sunday 3 August at 3pm
• Wednesday 6 August at 6:30pm
• Thursday 7 August at 7:30pm
• Friday 8 August at 7:30pm
• Saturday 9 August at 3pm
• Sunday 10 August at 3pm
DURATION
Approximately 2 hours
CONTENT
Occasional spicy language
VENUE
Little Theatre The Cloisters, Victoria Drive, University of Adelaide
AUDITIONS
THE (REAL) MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR (GARDENS)
5th & 19th July
𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗬
Margaret and Alice are wealthy, independent women. An unscrupulous noble, Falstaff, tries to seduce them both to get his hands on their money. The wives are smarter than him, and instead he’s humiliated. Their husbands think they know better too, but don’t. Anne’s parents try to arrange her marriage to two different men, but she outsmarts everyone and marries who she wants.
𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗗𝗨𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡
This production will present the Shakespeare comedy using the language from the First Folio but resetting the time and place to a 21st century Adelaide suburb, leaning into reality television. It’s a story to challenge preconceptions of gender, culture, class and influence – but always to entertain.
𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗔𝗨𝗗𝗜𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡
Group Auditions will be held over two Saturdays, book-ending the school holidays: 5th July & 19th July.
You will need to prepare a short Shakespearean monologue or soliloquy.
WUTHERING HEIGHTS
9 , 10, 11 July @ 7:30pm and 12 July @ 3pm & 7:30pm, Little Theatre
THE PENELOPIAD
By Margaret Atwood
Directed by Kristin Telfer
23 May to 1 June 2025
Little Theatre
Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad is an adaptation of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, told from the perspective of Odysseus' wife Penelope.
Penelope tells her story from the afterlife, from miraculous birth to marriage with the cunning Odysseus. When war erupts over her cousin Helen’s betrayal, Penelope is left to fend off relentless suitors, relying on her loyal maids to survive. But in death, those same maids return, not just to witness her story—but to remind her of the role she played in the tragic ending to theirs.
Featuring original music by Kristin Stefanoff
CONTENT WARNING
Stylised sexual violence and mild coarse language
$28 Full Price
$23 Concession
School groups: $15 per student (arranged via invoice)
Terms & Conditions
- All government issued Concession cards accepted, including seniors and students.
- Companion Cards accepted - please email theatreguild@adelaide.edu.au to confirm.
- Friends Of The Library members are entitled to the Concession price.
- Schools/Teachers: please email theatreguild@adelaide.edu.au to arrange invoicing.
PERFORMANCE DATES
Friday 23 May at 7:30pm
Saturday 24 May at 3pm
Sunday 25 May at 3pm
Wednesday 28 May at 6:30pm (with post-show Q&A)
Thursday 29 May at 7:30pm
Friday 30 May at 7:30pm
Saturday 31 May at 3pm
Sunday 1 June at 3pm
DURATION
Approximately 2 hours
VENUE
Little Theatre The Cloisters, Victoria Drive, University of Adelaide
MOSQUITOES
Written by Lucy Kirkwood
Directed by Bella Wheatland
Geneva, 2008. While Alice's work on the Large Hadron Collider threatens possible destruction of the universe, her family life is falling apart already. With a grieving Jenny’s sudden arrival back into Alice’s world in Geneva, both sisters are forced to reckon with their perceptions of what is order and what is chaos, what is knowable and what is uncertain.
Mosquitoes is a play about families and particle physics. Personal and cosmic tragedy. Our (lack of) belief in each other and in our universe.
23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th April 7:30pm at Little Theatre
Season 2025
- (May) The Penelopaid by Margaret Atwood, directed by Kristin Telfer (get tickets)
- (August) The Watsons by Laura Wade, directed by Matthew Chapman (get tickets)
- (November) The Whale by Samuel D. Hunter, directed by Geoff Brittain (get tickets)
Annual General Meeting
𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗱 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗱, 𝗥𝗦𝗩𝗣 𝘃𝗶𝗮 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸: http://www.trybooking.com/CWXCP
THE GLASS MENAGERIE
By Tennessee Williams
4 - 7 December - Little Theatre
The 39 Steps
25 October - 3 November 2024
Adapted by Patrick Barlow
From the novel by John Buchan
From the movie by Alfred Hitchcock
A whisky, two stubborn singletons bound by handcuffs, and a chase from London to the Scottish Highlands, The 39 Steps takes a Hitchcock masterpiece based on the ground-breaking spy novel by John Buchan and transforms it into a theatrical spectacle of comedy, action, romance, and fresh fish.
Adapted by Patrick Barlow for the West End and Broadway, this Olivier and two-time Tony award winning play has dozens of characters – all played by a ridiculously talented cast of four – with sound effects created live by an on-stage foley artist. The play is a pastiche of Hitchcock’s 1935 film (and his other works), creating laugh-out-loud comedy from witty dialogue – often unchanged from Hitchcock’s writers – and inventive stagecraft, on a stripped-back set in the intimate surroundings of University of Adelaide’s Little Theatre.
CONTENT WARNING
Mild violence, sexual tension, political ideology.
The performance may also contain an instance of flashing lights, simulations of gunshots, whisky drinking, and fish frying.
William Shakespeare's
KING LEAR
Directed by Brant Eustice
Reimagined in a post-apocalyptic setting, this Shakespearean epic unfolds amidst the madness of a world in ruins.
Some of Adelaide’s finest capture the instability of characters grappling with the collapse of civilization.
16th - 25th August
ANGELS IN AMERICA
A GAY FANTASIA ON NATIONAL THEMES
Part 1: MILLENNIUM APPROACHES & Part 2: PERESTROIKA
Written by Tony Kushner
Directed by Hayley Horton
An exciting, epic production in two parts, Angels in America is a complex, metaphorical and symbolic examination of sexuality in America in the 1980s by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning playwright Tony Kushner.
Full of humour and hope, these diverse characters captivate audiences in its contemplation of humanity and our progress towards a new millennium. It is intimate, yet spectacular. With some of Adelaide theatre’s most talented performers, Angels in America is a theatre event not to be missed.
2 - 25 May
Angels in America is a two-part play, presented in two halves over two separate performances.
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COVID-19 update
The Theatre Guild follows the advice of The University of Adelaide in staging its performances for the 2025 season.