“I’ve just realised,” says Victoria Falconer, co-artistic director, with Richard Carroll, of Hayes Theatre Co. “People are talking about the loneliness epidemic and this is a cure.”
“You want connection? You want humans? Come to the theatre. We can give you that. It’s here. Why am I not yelling about this more?”
Launching Hayes Theatre Co’s 2027 season, their final one as co-artistic directors, Falconer and Carroll have many thoughts about the power of theatre. As the arts industry grapples with the cost-of-living crisis, including recently curtailed seasons of several high-profile Australian musical theatre productions, new and original stage work remains vital.
“In the hope for humanity, in the hope for learning, in the hope of connection,” Falconer says. “All of that is why we make art in the first place.”
Falconer says parts of the sector, including financial support and opportunities for artists, have been broken for some time. But she sees hope.
“People have been struggling for ages,” she says. “People from non-privileged backgrounds find it very hard to get into the arts. That should have been the canary in the coal mine, always, but it’s not. Big things need to change.
“But I feel that is coming. Whether that’s the government finally giving artists a living wage, or from something more grassroots. That’s where Hayes came from, a bunch of indie producers with no money persuading the council to give them a building and to put some shows in it.
“That can never die. In the darkest times, for hundreds of years, people are drawn to theatre. Why would we be any different?”
Small but mighty, Hayes Theatre Co is known for a stream of successful new and reimagined musical theatre works and next year some of its shows will venture beyond the company’s Potts Point base. Under the banner Hayes in New Places, the soldout 2025 hit Phar Lap: The Electro-Swing Musical returns for an expanded production at Carriageworks and a multicity tour, including a Melbourne Theatre Company season.
In October, Mack the Knife, a new work by Falconer and Carroll, transforms the Foundry Theatre inside Sydney Lyric into a multiroom, immersive rock-cabaret musical based on The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay and The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill.
Carroll says Hayes Theatre Co’s Potts Point home remains integral to its identity but sharing work with wider audiences, in Sydney and beyond, has been a longtime aim.
“This season reflects the journey that we want to be taking Hayes on,” he says. “It is a massive thing for us to be transferring and touring Phar Lap, a new Australian work that’s such a Hayes show in terms of its invention and being silly, funny but also weirdly moving.
“And Mack the Knife, it’s important for us to make clear that although it’s based on The Threepenny Opera, it’s a whole new script with a new story and some different songs. It’s an original work with the first section a fully immersive [experience], where people will be making their own way through different spaces, before the show itself.”
The 2027 season also features new productions of the musical farce Lucky Stiff, folk epic Swept Away and Pulitzer Prize and three-time Tony Award-winning rock musical Next to Normal, an exploration of family and illness, loss and grief.
And then there’s a world premiere, Peter Allen: Not the Boy Next Door, a work honouring the acclaimed Australian singer-songwriter’s legacy and songs.
“It’s a new cabaret-concert celebration similar to Barbra, this year’s smash sellout Hayes hit,” Falconer says. “It’s high time we celebrated such an influential person across musical theatre and cabaret.”
Opera fans are catered for with director Matthew Barclay’s Bridgerton-style, reimagining of Mozart’s Così fan tutte: School for Lovers, before Sydney Theatre Award-winner Cameron Mitchell delivers coming-of-age sci-fi satire Be More Chill and Rachael Beck (Cluedo, Beauty and the Beast) stars in the Australian premiere of Flowers for Mrs Harris, based on the Paul Gallico novel which also inspired the 2022 feature film Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris.
House of Rot, starring Paul Capsis and Adam Noviello, returns as does the Festival of New Work, extended to three weeks, and the Winter Cabaret Festival now called Flare: Winter Cabaret Festival.
“We ask our audiences what they love about Hayes and they always say, ‘I see things here that I’ve never seen before’,” Carroll says. “Being able to surprise, that’s something we don’t take for granted.”
Falconer agrees.
“People really just want to come to a space and watch another human do some stuff,” she says. “And the more thrilling, the more inventive, the more skilful that is, the better.”
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