Autumn is serving up thrills, chills, glitz and glamour with NIDA alumni bringing us some of the most exciting productions this March. Get your calendars out for blockbuster premieres, a harbour-side musical favourite and season 2 of a hit Aussie series with a few familiar faces.
The action-packed spectacle with enough firepower to rattle your remote: War Machine is streaming on Netflix from 6 March. This sci-fi thriller follows elite military candidates during their final selection exercise which quickly turns to a fight for survival against an otherworldly threat. Flying the NIDA flag are actor Jack Patten (Acting, 2023), Supervising Art Director Kate Saunders (Technical Production, 1984), Set Designer Iz Sperling (Design, 2021) and Dialect Coach (pre-production) Jennifer White (Voice Studies, 1998).
Keep an eye out for Rob Collins (Acting, 2013) in the new comedy-thriller Cold Storage coming to cinemas on 12 March. When a deadly fungus escapes a secret lab a former bioterrorism agent is pulled back into action, teaming up with two employees to stop the spreading threat. It’s a high-stakes adrenaline-rush and the laughs are contagious – you’ve been warned.
Deadloch season 2 turns up the heat, returning to Prime Video from 20 March. Set against the sweltering Northern Territory, two female detectives take on a brand-new mystery with deep secrets, high stakes and crocodiles. Kate Box (Acting, 2003) is back on scene as Senior Sergeant Dulcie Collins, joined this season by Steve Bisley (Acting, 1997) and Shari Sebbens (Acting, 2009).
Our favourite SLTS are back and getting top marks in season 3 of Heartbreak High. The series finale drops 25 March on Netflix, but before graduation, students and staff must face the drama of a muck-up day gone wrong. Chika Ikogwe (Acting, 2018) is back as SLTS teacher, Jojo, and Brodie Townsend (Stage and Screen Performance, 2018) reprises his role as Anthony ‘Ant’ Vaughn. Working behind the scenes to bring you all the teenage romance, angst and laughs are Dramaturg & Ep 7 Shadow Director Paige Rattray (Directing, 2009), Art Director Meiko Wong (Design for Performance, 2019), Design Assistant Ruby Jenkins (Design for Performance, 2022), Buyer/Dresser Hayden Relf (Design for Performance, 2021), Assistant Standby Costume Lucy Jauristo (Costume, 2021) and Design Assistant Benedict Janeczko-Taylor (Design for Performance, 2022).
Hear ‘The Music of the Night’ as it drifts across Sydney Harbour with the outdoor staging of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart’s, The Phantom of the Opera from 27 March – 3 May. Returning for its 40th anniversary this larger-than-life production features dazzling set and costume design by Gabriela Tylesova (Design, 1999), with James MacAlpine (Musical Theatre, 2018) in the ensemble and Rachel Breeze (Musical Theatre, 2015) as swing.
Celebrating another 40th – Almost 40 years after its Australian premiere, Larry Kramer’s Tony and Olivier Award-winning play, The Normal Heart, returns to Sydney Theatre Company (STC). Revisiting New York at the height of the AIDS crisis, this is a timeless story of love, activism and defiant hope. Directed by STC Artistic Director Mitchell Butel, the production stars Nicholas Brown (Acting, 2000), with Lighting Designer Jeremy Allen (Design, 2015) and Assistant Designer Hailley Hunt (Design for Performance, 2022) shaping its powerfully visual world. The Normal Heartis on stage now until 14 March.
Class is in session at KXT on Broadway with the gripping production of Duncan Macmillan’s Monster, on stage 6 – 21 March. When a teacher is tasked with saving a troubled teenage boy on the brink of expulsion, a seemingly ordinary conversation spirals into an intense battle of wills with devastating consequences. NIDA alum Albert Mwangi (Acting, 2021) appears on stage, with co-star and Voice and Dialect Coach Linda Nicholls-Gidley (Voice, 1998), and behind-the-scenes, Lighting Designer Topaz Marley-Cole (Technical Theatre and Stage Management, 2024) illuminates the tension of this provocative and urgent production.
Adelaide Festival is running until 15 March bringing international theatre, music, opera, dance and more to venues across the city. With NIDA alumni on stage and behind the scenes of some of these events, we’re thrilled to see such a diverse program.
Header Image: L-R Madeleine Sami, Kate Box, Kate McLennan, Kate McCartney, Nina Oyama, Alicia Gardiner in Deadloch Season 2. Copyright Amazon MGM Studios. Photo credit Kane Skennar/Prime Video.