State Theatre Company South Australia presents Brink Productions’ stage adaptation of Melina Marchetta’s best-selling novel and beloved Australian cult film, Looking for Alibrandi at the Dunstan Playhouse – Adelaide Festival Centre from 22 May ahead of an Australian tour.
It’s the last year of school and 17-year-old Josephine Alibrandi can’t wait for her future to begin – if only she can get past the world of her Nonna, holding onto the values of the old country and the world of her Mum, full of care and secrets. It’s time to take her place in the real world, beyond her family, beyond being an Alibrandi.
But this is the year Josie gets to know her father. This is the year she falls in love. And this is the year she uncovers the truth – and finds the Alibrandi she has been searching for.
Three generations of women. The Italian-Australian experience. A trip back into the 1990s. Directed by the new Artistic Director of Brink Productions, Stephen Nicolazzo, there’s a new Josie coming this way!
“It is an immense honour to bring Looking for Alibrandi to Adelaide and have the chance to revisit this very special production with new blood on the stage, new audiences and thousands of tomatoes,” says Nicolazzo.
“This is my first work as Artistic Director of Brink- and it is also the most personal and emotionally vulnerable of my career. This is a story about sharing; sharing family rituals, history, music, suffering and laughter- aspects of Italian cultural identity I used to be afraid of.”
“Like Josie Alibrandi, I was afraid to be a wog in Australia, but all that changed when I met this beloved character in Melina Marchetta’s novel as a young boy. My favourite thing to do with my mother was watch the film adaptation and dance around the house to the song Tinterella di Luna.”
“This story, like for so many, brought my family together- it taught us more about each other and for me, helped me start to reconcile my ethnicity.”
“That to me is why Looking for Alibrandi is such an important part of Australian popular culture. This work is a chance to celebrate being a wog in Australia, being a human being in Australia, being different in Australia – and I cannot wait to share it with everyone at STCSA.”
Chanella Macri (Josie), Lucia Mastrantone (Josie’s Mother Christina) and Jennifer Vuletic (Nonna Katia) all return from the Melbourne and Sydney seasons as the trio of Alibrandi women. Chris Asimos, Ashton Malcolm and Riley Warner round out the cast of Melina Marchetta’s iconic 1992 novel come to life!
“I’m thrilled State Theatre is bringing this show to audiences. I was swept away – Stephen Nicolazzo and writer, Vidya Rajan deliver a radiant, heartfelt story of family, identity, and the courage to be yourself. It pulses with heart,” said Artistic Director Petra Kalive.
Catch the antics of three generations of Alibrandi women in a passionate, heart wrenching and unmissable rendering of an Australian classic in Vidya Rajan’s AWGIE nominated adaptation.
“Rajan’s play probes deeply into the generational triptych at the centre: three women, three lives, one heartbeat” – The Guardian
Looking for Alibrandi
Dunstan Playhouse – Adelaide Festival Centre, Festival Drive, Adelaide
Season: 22 – 31 May 2025
Information and Bookings: www.statetheatrecompany.com.au
Following the Adelaide season, Looking for Alibrandi will be presented at Riverside Theatres, Parramatta (11 – 15 June), HOTA, Gold Coast (19 – 21 June), Geelong Arts Centre (20 – 23 August), Theatre Royal, Hobart (27 – 29 August), Middleback Arts Centre, Whyalla (2 – 3 September), Northern Festival Centre, Port Pirie (5 September), Sir Robert Helpmann Theatre, Mt Gambier (9 – 10 September), Chaffey Theatre, Renmark (12 September), Her Majesty’s Theatre, Ballarat (17 – 18 September), Orange Civic Theatre (25 September). For more information, visit: www.brinkproductions.com for details.
Image: Chanella Macri and Lucia Mastrantone to star in Looking For Alibrandi (supplied)