Given that Sydney is home to one of the world’s most iconic performance venues, it’s no surprise that our city’s stage and theatre scene is also world-class — and going from strength to strength, too. Sydney’s cultural calendar for 2025 is already looking stacked, with a year-round programme featuring Australian premieres, creative reimaginings, returning favourites and everything in between. Here are the show’s we’re excited about for 2025.
Theatre in Sydney 2025
1. Hadestown
Seen by three million, streamed by over 350 million, winner of eight Tony awards and a Grammy to boot — Hadestown is the very definition of a modern-day blockbuster. And after dazzling audiences on Broadway and West End since its premiere in 2019, the genre-defying musical that began life as an indie theatre project by singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and her artistic collaborator Rachel Chavkin will be making its Australian debut at Theatre Royal in February 2025, with a stellar antipodean cast headlined by multiple ARIA award-winner Christine Anu.
Blending modern American folk music with New Orleans-style jazz, Hadestown is a contemporary reimagining of the intertwining ancient love stories of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and King Hades and his wife Persephone, promising a captivating journey to the underworld and back. Find out more here.
📍 Theatre Royal Sydney, from February 2025
2. Candide
This year, Leonard Bernstein’s wild and witty operetta returns to the Sydney Opera House for the first time since 2018 with an all-new production. Starring musical theatre legend Eddie Perfect and Hamilton star Lyndon Watts, this bold post-apocalyptic retelling of the multiple Tony and Olivier-winning show was a critical and audience hit when it opened in Melbourne last year. This new staging helmezd by award-winning director Dean Bryant brings a new perspective to Bernstein’s cult classic, which takes the audience on a satirical journey through a world gone mad, from the jungles of South America to the salons of Paris. Find out more here.
📍 Sydney Opera House, from February 2025
3. MJ the Musical
It only debuted in 2022, but this jukebox musical featuring the hits of Michael Jackson is already one of the highest-grossing musical theatre productions of all time. And this February, Sydney gets to find out firsthand why, with the Australian debut of this multiple Tony award-winning musical at Sydney Lyric. Created by Tony award-winning director and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage, MJ the Musical goes beyond the megastar’s signature sound and moves to look at his fascinating creative process in the lead-up to his groundbreaking 1992 Dangerous World Tour. Find out more at the website.
📍 Sydney Lyric Theatre, from February 2025
4. Guys & Dolls
Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour is bringing one of the 20th century’s best-loved musicals to Mrs Macquarie’s Point this autumn. With a stacked cast starring Cody Simpson, Annie Aitken, Angelina Thomson and Hamilton star Jason Arrow, this new production of Guys & Dolls brings the colourful world of gangsters and showgirls (and missionaries) of 1950s New York City to the shores of Sydney Harbour for a month-long run. Find out more and get your tickets here.
📍 Mrs Macquaries Point, from March 2025
5. And Then There Were None
The best-selling crime novel of all time will keep Sydney theatre-goers on the edge of their seats this year. The classic tale by Agatha Christie sees ten strangers lured to the a solitary mansion on the mysterious Soldier Island, where each of them is accused of a terrible crime — and, as the true reason for their presence on the island is made terrifyingly clear, they realise a murderer is hidden among them. This new production is helmed by legend of stage and screen Robyn Niven, with a cast that includes Peter O’Brien, Nicholas Hammond, Anthony Phelan and Grant Piro. For more info, head to the website.
📍 Theatre Royal Sydney, from May 2025
6. The Play That Goes Wrong
A corpse that can’t play dead. An unconscious leading lady. Actors forgetting their lines, and a set that’s falling apart. No, it’s not a well-intentioned yet ill-fated amateur production. It’s The Play That Goes Wrong, a Tony and Olivier award-winning — and critically acclaimed — comedy that’s been described as Sherlock Holmes meets Monty Python. It takes place during opening night of the (fictitious) Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society’s production of (the also fictitious) The Murder at Haversham Manor, a 1920s murder mystery in the same vein as The Mousetrap — except, as the name of the real play suggests, things don’t quite go according to plan. The Play That Goes Wrong lands in Sydney this winter — find out more here.
📍 Sydney Opera House, from June 2025
7. Cats
In July 1985, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ground-breaking Cats had its Australian premiere at Theatre Royal Sydney. Forty years on, the pioneering megamusical, which remains as beloved as it was since it debuted, returns to Theatre Royal for a special anniversary run. Whether you’re watching it for the first or the forty-first time, don’t miss your chance to make memories with the the Jellicle cat tribe on this thrilling new run.
📍 Theatre Royal Sydney, from June 2025
8. The Book of Mormon
Hello again! Nine-time Tony Award-winning musical The Book of Mormon is returning to Sydney this year for the first time since 2018. The no-holds-barred musical by South Park co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker is as raucous as you’d expect, telling the story of a pair of mismatched Mormon boys sent on a mission to a remote Ugandan village as they attempt to share their faith with the local community. Find out more here.
📍 Capitol Theatre, from July 2025
9. Back to the Future: The Musical
Forty years after the release of the original film, Marty McFly and Doc Brown will be riding their DeLorean Down Under for the very first time as Back to the Future: The Musical makes its Australian debut at the Sydney Lyric this September. Since its global debut in March 2020, the musical has captivated nearly 3 million spectators worldwide, while also picking up the Oliver Award in 2022 for Best New Musical. Find out more here.
📍 Sydney Lyric Theatre, from September 2025
10. Rent
There are less than 525,600 minutes until the moving musical Rent returns to Sydney. This celebration of love, life and the human spirit takes its audience to the colourful streets of New York City’s East Village in 1991, rife with both gentrification and disease. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll likely be singing along to Johnathan Larson’s Pulitzer and multiple Tony award-winning musical when it lands at the Opera House this spring. Find out more here.
11. Bright Star
Love and redemption in the American South are the themes of Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin) and Edie Brickell’s critically celebrated musical. Set across the 1920s and the 1940s, Bright Star tells the story of literary editor Alice Murphy and her journey to confront her past after meeting an ambitious young soldier who has just returned home from WWII. For more details on the uplifting Tony and Grammy-nominated musical, head to the Hayes website.
📍 Hayes Theatre Co., from September 2025