Announcing their official 2026 season with new artistic director Petra Kalive at the helm, State Theatre Company South Australia are offering up a season filled with vivid theatre experiences.
Launching at the Adelaide Convention Centre on Wednesday, Kalive's inaugural season is a collection of world premieres, modern Australian masterworks, and new takes on classics.
"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," said Kalive.
"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."
First Nations talent is in the spotlight this year, particularly Jacob Boehme whose production LOGAN ST marks a significant milestone; the first mainstage premiere by a Kaurna playwright in the Company's history.
Set to land at Space Theatre in July, LOGAN ST is inspired by the Kaurna history behind Adelaide's own Logan Street and the Adelaide Mosque, Australia's oldest city Mosque.
An unlikely friendship takes root between Goolie, an Afghan cameleer and mosque caretaker, and Dulcie, a young Aboriginal woman. As war, racism and bureaucracy press in from all sides, their bond becomes an act of survival.
Woven through this tender contemporary narrative is the haunting story of Munarto, a Kaurna girl who lives through the devastation of colonisation in 1836. As past and present echo and collide, LOGAN ST reveals the resilience of culture, the cost of silence, and a quiet revolution of friendship that begins in a garden where nothing will grow.
The year 2026 will also plant the seed of new initiative Blak State, a bold and long-term commitment to First Nations theatre-making.
An investment in long-term cultural change, the program (supported by Create SA) 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.
"This program signals not just a project, but a way of working that will shape the company for years to come," said Kalive.
Kalive says she is excited to present her inaugural season and get to know South Australian audiences.
"What excites me most is the opportunities for SA Artists in this season and the range of works: from the intimate to the epic, the classical to the radical, the joyful to the tragic," she said.
"Each work asks us to gather, to think, to laugh, to be moved, and to walk back into the world seeing it just a little differently."
For more fashion, arts, culture and lifestyle news subscribe for free to the Style Up newsletter.
