The Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) has launched its 2026 program – marking the start of a new era – as WAAPA opens its doors to the Minderoo Centre for Performance Excellence at ECU City!
A brand new performance space and state of the art facility that will ensure WAAPA continues its place at the forefront of performing arts training, nationally and internationally. This year’s program will see over three hundred performances of great dramas, musicals, concerts, workshops and dance.
Highlights include the mid-year production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet at the Heath Ledger Theatre starring the graduating Acting students, while the musical theatre students will return to the Regal Theatre to present the Broadway hit musical, & Juliet.
Tickets are now on sale! For more information about the 2026 acting and musical theatre productions, visit: www.waapa.ecu.edu.au for details.
Images: A performer outside ECU City – photo by Stephen Heath | The Crucible – photo by Stephen Heath | Renascence – photo by Stephen Heath
WAAPA’s 2026 Acting and Musical Theatre Programs:
ACTING
REPERTORY SEASON
Subiaco Arts Centre: 26 – 31 March
WAAPA’s 3rd Acting cohort kick-start their final year of study with two plays performed in repertory at the Subiaco Arts Centre. Presented with distinct casts, each play allows the students to shine in an intimate ensemble, delivering audiences two richly crafted dramatic experiences.
THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE
Who did in Mad Padraic’s beloved cat on a lonely road on the island of Inishmore – and was it an accident? He’ll want to know when he gets back from a stint of torture and chip-shop bombing in Northern Ireland: he loves his cat more than life itself. Martin McDonagh’s pitch-black comedy The Lieutenant of Inishmore is a ferocious satire on political violence and the absurd extremes of devotion, gleefully dismantling the romanticism of terror with shocking humour and blood-soaked wit.
DANCE NATION
Somewhere in America, a group of pre-teen competitive dancers are plotting world domination. One routine at a time, all the way to the national titles. Blazingly original, Dance Nation explores the wild forces of adolescence and the tangled magic of female friendships, with all its funny, fierce and feral moves. This is a play about ambition, growing up, and growing into ourselves.
ROMEO AND JULIET
Heath Ledger Theatre – State Theatre Centre of WA: 12 – 17 June
Desire, dreams and destiny collide in the world’s most famous story of love at first sight. Romeo and Juliet risk everything to be together. In defiance of their feuding families, this pair of star-cross’d lovers chase a future of joy and passion as violence erupts around them. Don’t miss WAAPA’s graduating students perform Shakespeare’s timeless romantic tragedy.
THE CRUCIBLE
Flex Theatre: 12 – 17 September
A witch hunt is beginning in Salem. Raised to be seen and not heard, a group of young women suddenly find their words have a terrible power. As a climate of fear spreads through the community, private vendettas fuel public accusations and soon the truth itself is on trial. Arthur Miller’s 1953 historical drama used the Salem witch trials of centuries before as an allegory for the communist witch-hunts of Miller’s own day. A cautionary tale of power and its abuse, there has never been a time when this scorching indictment of intolerance was not relevant.
MUSICAL THEATRE:
RENASCENCE
Studio Underground- State Theatre Centre of WA: 27 March – 1 April
WAAPA proudly presents the Australian premiere performance of Renascence, with music by our very own alum Carmel Dean (music director for If/Then and American Idiot on Broadway). This award-winning musical follows the early years of the radical Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, using the artist’s poetry as lyrics. At 19, Millay wrote a profoundly powerful poem, Renascence, that catapulted her from her humble, rural beginnings into a wildly bohemian, celebrity lifestyle. Named Best New Musical at the 2018 Off-Broadway Alliance Awards, this is a theatrical exploration of identity and artistry.
COMPANY
Studio Underground- State Theatre Centre of WA: 6 – 11 June
Over half a century after Company premiered on Broadway and blitzed the Tony Awards, Sondheim’s groundbreaking 1970 musical about relationships is still remarkably relevant – as proven by the hit 2022 Broadway revival. A series of comedic vignettes tells the story of Bobby, a single Manhattanite who’s about to turn 35 and is dogged by coupled friends to meet a mate. Punctuated by classic Sondheim anthems such as The Ladies Who Lunch and Being Alive, this witty insight on marriage and commitment will make you laugh and cry at the same time.
& JULIET
Regal Theatre: 11 – 17 September
This coming-of-age jukebox musical flips the script on the greatest love story ever told. & Juliet asks: what would happen next if Juliet didn’t end it all over Romeo? This is a Juliet who ditches her famous ending for a fresh beginning and a second chance at life and love – her way. Juliet’s new story bursts to life through a playlist of pop anthems, including Since U Been Gone, Roar, Baby One More Time, Larger Than Life, That’s The Way It Is, and Can’t Stop the Feeling! This romantic comedy proves there’s life after Romeo … the only thing tragic would be missing it!
IRVING BERLIN’S HOLIDAY INN
Playhouse Theatre: 13 – 18 November
Ring in the Christmas season with this classic song-and-dance musical about putting on a show and falling in love. Crooner Jim Hardy leaves behind the bright lights of showbiz for a quiet life on a Connecticut farm. Jim’s agrarian efforts are a disaster, but things start looking up when he falls for talented schoolteacher Linda, and together they infuse their sleepy rural setting with some Broadway razzle-dazzle. Based on the beloved Bing Crosby/Fred Astaire film, Holiday Inn features a hit parade of Irving Berlin songs, including Blue Skies, Easter Parade, Steppin’ Out With My Baby, Heat Wave, Cheek to Cheek, and White Christmas – it’s a guaranteed toe-tapping good time for audiences of all ages.