Griffin Theatre Company has announced its 2025 Season, its first full year outside their beloved SBW Stables Theatre, presenting audiences with a collection of some of the best new Australian stories.
The 2025 Season includes a work from the celebrated Alana Valentine, a heartfelt writing debut from Michelle Lim Davidson, a special return season of Dylan Van Den Berg’s Whitefella Yella Tree, and an irreverent nudist comedy by Ang Collins to finish off the year.
Alongside the main season, Griffin’s artist development program Griffin Lookout will also include two incredible works: SISTREN by lolanthe and Birdsong of Tomorrow by Nathan Harrison.
“Looking back at the last 45 years of Griffin, I find myself marvelling at how our stage has predicted the future, over and over again,” said said Griffin’s Artistic Director, Declan Greene. “Unlike television and film, theatre is unburdened by months and years of post-production. It can be nimble, responsive.”
“2025 is a year which is all about playwrights as visionary artists, as agenda setters; playwrights who feel the pulse of our community who predict the next wave of social change before it even happens. The nuclear debate, climate change, generational conflict.”
“But amongst all these big ideas, just like in life itself, it’s also about tenderness, forgiveness and community. It’s going to be another big, ridiculous, beautiful year—and we can’t wait to embark on it with you,” said Greene.
For more information about Griffin Theatre Company’s 2025 Season, including subscription packages, visit: www.griffintheatre.com.au for details.
Images: Griffin 2025 – designed by Susu Studio with 3D art by Luca Dante | Paula Arundell – photo by Brett Boardman, designed by Susu Studio with 3D art by Luca Dante | Michelle Lim Davidson – photo by David Boon, designed by Susu Studio with 3D art by Luca Dante | Naturism – photo by Brett Boardman, designed by Susu Studio with 3D art by Luca Dante | Joseph Althouse – photo by Derek Henderson, designed by Susu Studio with 3D art by Luca Dante | Iolanthe and Janet Anderson – photo by Brett Boardman, designed by Susu Studio with 3D art by Luca Dante | Nathan Harrison – photo by Brett Boardman, designed by Susu Studio with 3D art by Luca Dante
Griffin Theatre Company’s 2025 Season:
Nucleus
Reginald Theatre – Seymour Centre: 14 February – 15 March
Gabriel is a nuclear engineer. Cassie is an anti-nuclear campaigner. For nearly 30 years their lives have collided and entwined, with Cassie’s cause dominating public opinion across the decades. But with political change rumbling underfoot, Cassie’s life’s work could yet be undone – and it’s all led to this explosive night.
Against the enflamed background of one of Australia’s most divisive environmental issues, Alana Valentine’s tender, surprising new play interrogates the intersection of personal ambition and global responsibility.
Nucleus welcomes two of Australia’s theatre greats back to Griffin – one of our most celebrated and awarded playwrights Alana Valentine (Ladies Day) and the great Paula Arundell (The Bleeding Tree). Directed by Griffin’s Associate Artistic Director Andrea James (Jailbaby, swim), Nucleus tears through long-drawn battle lines to reveal what’s at our core.
Koreaboo
Downstairs Theatre – Belvoir St Theatre: 14 June – 20 July
Hannah had her trip all planned out. Travel to Korea. Visit her birth mother. Spend a golden summer creating precious memories. But when she arrives in Seoul reality hits hard. Her Umma works in a convenience store day and night, barely taking a break. She seems more interested in stacking shelves and re-arranging the garden gnome display than connecting with a long-lost Australian daughter.
Hannah is Korean, yet in Umma’s mind, Hannah is a ‘Koreaboo’ – a foreigner captivated by K-pop, kimchi, and hanboks. Armed with only Google Translate and unrelenting optimism, Hannah must try to find a place within Umma’s world before the end of a sweltering summer.
Taking inspiration from real-life events, this profound and heartfelt play marks the writing debut of one of Australia’s most beloved performers – Michelle Lim Davidson (The Feather in the Web, The Newsreader). Michelle herself takes to the stage under the direction of Jessica Arthur (The Dictionary of Lost Words), in a reunion story that reaches across continents, cultures and Spotify® playlists.
Naturism
Wharf 2 Theatre – Sydney Theatre Company: 25 October – 15 November
No internet. No intruders. No clothes. Far from the trappings of civilisation, a group of nudist baby boomers have created their very own off-grid bush eco-paradise. An unseasonably hot summer approaches, but no worries! They’ve got enough preserves, pickles, and Fleetwood Mac to get them through it… probably.
Enter Evangeline – a Gen Z eco-influencer on the run from something terrible. She’s loud. She’s over-sensitive. And she wants to stay. Set in a time of unforgiving drought, with hot winds foretelling worse times ahead, an all-nude, all-legendary cast takes you on an hilarious journey of hope and delusion in the face of disaster.
Playwright Ang Collins (Blueberry Play, Spewy) makes her mainstage debut with a work of glittering comic absurdity. Teaming up with Artistic Director Declan Greene (The Lewis Trilogy, Sex Magick), Naturism takes an irreverent and deeply messy look at just how much heat our squishy, naked little bodies can take.
Whitefella Yella Tree
Various dates in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne
After a runaway premiere season at the SBW Stables Theatre in 2022, Whitefella Yella Tree is back to wow audiences in 2025.
Once in a blue moon, in the middle of nowhere, two teenage boys meet under a lemon tree. After a rough start, a fragile friendship fruits into a heady romance. If history would just unfurl a little differently, the boys might have a beautiful future ahead of them. But without knowing it, Ty and Neddy are poised on the brink of a world that is about to change forever.
Palawa playwright Dylan Van Den Berg has won most of Australia’s major playwriting awards – including the Griffin Award, the David Williamson Prize and the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for playwriting (twice!).
In Whitefella Yella Tree Dylan has penned a heart-warming and heart-breaking story about love, Country and Blak queerness through history. The extraordinary Joseph Althouse (Green Park) makes his return to Griffin, alongside the directing team of Griffin’s Declan Greene and Wiradjuri/Worimi theatremaker Amy Sole.
Griffin Lookout:
SISTREN
Old Fitz Theatre: 26 June – 12 July
Isla and Violet are a ‘lethal combination’. Their self-righteous headmaster thinks that’s an insult. They think it’s a cute name for a girl group. Too-smart, too precocious and way too outspoken, it’s no surprise when these self-proclaimed soulmates are ‘separated’ until the end of the year.
But the world outside their South London school is a divisive one for a cisgender Caribbean diva and her ‘Ethel Cain adjacent’ transgender bestie. As their cosmic connection is tested, one key question arises – will Isla and Violet be separated, or will they reign supreme.
The blazingly talented performer Iolanthe (seven methods of killing Kylie Jenner) makes her playwriting debut, sharing the stage with her IRL bestie, the extra-ordinary Janet Anderson (Overflow). The lines of fiction and friendship intertwine in this transcendent study of sisterhood across class, cultural and interdimensional boundaries.
Birdsong of Tomorrow
Old Fitz Theatre: 21 August – 6 September
The wandering albatross. The buff-breasted paradise kingfisher. The superb fairywren. Every day across this country, birds sing. Songs passed down through generations. Songs of a world that’s gone and a world that’s changing. Birds fill every part of the planet with melody and colour. They soar and swim and run. And a lot of them are chickens.
Nathan Harrison (Hottest 100 of Animals: A Countdown for the Anthropocene) is a professional theatre-maker and an amateur birdwatcher, who has seen roughly 150 varieties in the last year alone. Blending science, storytelling, music and video, Birdsong of Tomorrow is a playful and heartfelt look at our rapidly changing environment – and what birds might sing when we’re gone.