PODCAST · arts
The Stage Show
by ABC
In-depth conversations with the world's top directors, performers and writers for the stage.
Episodes
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Best of The Stage Show
The Stage Show with Michael Cathcart has wound up after eight years on air. In this highlights of 2025 episode: Playwright Andrea James researched a story from the 1840s, in which colonial newspapers suggested that a 'white woman' – maybe the survivor of a shipwreck – had been taken captive by...
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Best of The Stage Show: Pamela Rabe + a kid's point of view on stage
It’s one of those roles which great actors have on their to-do list: Winnie in the play Happy Days by Samuel Beckett. Winnie starts the play buried up to her waist in dirt. In Act 2 she’s buried up to her neck! Acclaimed actor Pamela Rabe tell us what makes this such an iconic play and how she...
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Best of The Stage Show: How Anais Mitchell wrote Hadestown
The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is retold in the hit folk musical Hadestown. It's won Tonys, Grammys and is now in Australia. We speak to the singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell, who wrote Hadestown as a concept album, before touring it around in an old bus and then turning it into a remarkable…
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Best of The Stage Show: Stephen Rea + the soul of Butoh
More highlights from The Stage Show. We meet Irish screen and theatre actor Stephen Rea, who talks about meeting Samuel Beckett early in his career. Rea so wanted to perform Beckett's play Krapp's Last Tape, he had the foresight to record his youthful self reading it. In his production at…
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Best of The Stage Show: Robyn Nevin and Patricia Cornelius
In 2025 Australian theatre legend Robyn Nevin directed And Then There Were None, a classic murder mystery by Agatha Christie. She talks to Michael about the darkness in Christie's stories, her view on changing acting styles and how Robyn finds her 'inner clown'. Playwright Patricia Cornelius...
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Farewell friends: Denise Scott, Bernadette Robinson and Love Actually? the musical
Michael Cathcart and the team farewell you from The Stage Show. In front of a studio audience, Michael interviews the remarkable Denise Scott, who's about to tour her new comedy show ; songstress Bernadette Robinson (with pianist Mark Jones) gives us a taste of the grand dames who sang at…
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A look back at Michael Cathcart's 25 years on air
For 25 years Michael Cathcart has been presenting arts and culture shows on Radio National, bringing listeners stories and conversations with writers, performers, musicians, poets and playwrights, from across Australia and the world. On our second-final ever Stage Show, Michael revisits some of…
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West End's Alfie Boe + Meow Meow puts on The Red Shoes
Cabaret star Meow Meow interprets Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales in inimitable style. Returning with her brilliant show The Red Shoes, about a girl possessed by a pair of vivid red shoes that won't stop dancing. Meow Meow explains why the story resonated with Andersen and discusses some of...
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Three moods of William Shakespeare hit our stages
On this episode it’s all about Shakespeare. A comedy. A tragedy. And a tale of utter savagery. The many moods of William Shakespeare – starting in a happy place with actors Alison Bell and Faysal Bazzi, and Shakespeare specialist Mark Wilson, who directs them in a tale of love and mischief – Much...
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Danielle de Niese's journey to the heart of Carmen
Danielle de Niese started life in suburban Melbourne, appearing on Young Talent Time at the age of nine before pursuing singing in the US. She is now a star soprano, performing many of opera's most famous roles and married into a famous opera-loving family — with their own opera house! She's back...
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The couple performing theatre's worst marriage + Lamine Sonko
Why would two actors, who are married in real life, pretend to eviscerate each other night after night in the emotionally brutal play Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? Kat Stewart and David Whitely first performed this Edward Albee classic on the small, indy stage of Melbourne's Red Stitch Theatre…
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Why Eddie Perfect wrote a musical for his alma mater
The new musical Tivoli Lovely is Eddie Perfect’s return to the grand days of what was known across Australia as the Tivoli Theatre circuit. He's written it especially for second and third year music theatre students at WAAPA, his alma mater. He joins Michael along with director Dean Bryant, who's...
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Broadway star Bernadette Peters + reviving The Shiralee
Bernadette Peters is the Tony award winning actress who has reigned on Broadway for decades. She is famous for originating roles in Stephen Sondheim musicals -- like the witch in Into The Woods and she's coming to Brisbane for the Melt Festival of Queer arts and culture. The Shiralee is the story...
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Shining a new light on 'Rebecca', a gothic tale of infatuation
Rebecca is a 1938 gothic suspense story by Daphne Du Maurier that's never been out of print. It's also a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock. Now it's a play starring Nikki Shiels as the unnamed Young Woman and Pamela Rabe, in the iconic role of Mrs Danvers. How does this story of dark infatuation...
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A Filipino-Australian story in the shadow of a revolution
In 1986, Filipinos launched a peaceful revolution to overthrow their president, Ferdinand Marcos. In the new play Malacañang Made Us, these events live on in the memories of two brothers who were in the crowd that flooded the palace. Jordan Shea is the playwright behind this show, which won the…
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Suzie Miller's new play 'Inter Alia' delves into uncomfortable truths
The Stage Show is back from sabbatical! On this episode, star playwright Suzie Miller speaks to Michael about Inter Alia, her gripping new play that takes you into the mind of a feminist judge, who’s also a mother, forced to confront a terrible reality. It’s just wound up a big season at London’s...
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The Stage Show
Your guide to what's happening on stages across the country and beyond.
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Jazz Legends: Keith Jarrett
Pianist Keith Jarrett is one of the most captivating and controversial musicians of the last 50 years. He's a rare breed - a musician who has mastered the art of jazz improvisation and a fine classical player too. It’s been 50 years since the Köln Concert, which became the best-selling piano and...
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Jazz Legends: Charles Mingus
Much like Duke Ellington before him, Charles Mingus' output was prolific. Over his near four-decade career, Mingus was behind a number of jazz firsts: he composed and recorded arguably the first jazz ballet - labelling his iconic LP 'The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady' as "ethnic folk-dance...
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Jazz Legends: Billie Holiday
This week we're honouring the late, great Billie Holiday. From her early ascendancy as a weaver of song in the 30s to her outspoken truth telling with records like 'Strange Fruit' to her downfall and decline in the 1950s, her tale is one of the more captivating in jazz. Across this episode, we...
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Jazz Legends: Quincy Jones
If you were to put together a list of jazz’s most influential names, then it’d be hard to look past Quincy Jones’s contributions. He was a giant of the music industry, with an influence that spanned from the bop era right up to modern music today.
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Jazz Legends: Joni Mitchell
In the '70s, Joni Mitchell looked to jazz to inform her creative style. She would collaborate with many of the genre's leaders, but as we'll discover, jazz also was key in her formation right from the start. This episode was presented by bass player and ABC Jazz host, Eric Ajaye, and written and...
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Jazz Legends: Sonny Rollins
With over 70 years of playing jazz under his belt, Sonny Rollins has seen a thing or two. He was present at so many turning points in the music: from bebop to modal jazz, post bop to fusion... and beyond. Now days at the age of 93, Sonny Rollins is one of the last of his generation and a true…
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Jazz Legends: Nina Simone
The name Nina Simone can mean many things to many people. Casual fans of her music will no doubt remember her hits like 'I Loves You Porgy', or 'My Baby Just Cares For Me'. For others, though, Nina Simone was one of the most defiant and outspoken performers in the jazz field for much of her…
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Stephen Sondheim — taking a razor to conventions (Part II)
We continue our journey into the life and work of Stephen Sondheim, the composer and lyricist of some of the most well-regarded musical theatre ever made. We are joined by performer Philip Quast, authors Joanne Gordon and Robert L McLaughlin, directors of several Sondheim productions Dean Bryant...
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Stephen Sondheim — taking a razor to conventions (Part I)
Stephen Sondheim is the composer and lyricist of some of the most well-regarded musical theatre ever made. We delve into his life, work and impact on the form. We hear archival interviews with Sondheim himself and are joined by performer Philip Quast, author Joanne Gordon (Art Isn't Easy: The...
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Dancing with life and death + the spooky joy of Beetlejuice
Choreographer Stephanie Lake and composer Robin Fox are partners in work and life, though they come from 'different worlds' artistically. Their latest collaboration is the joyful The Chronicles, which follows the rhythms of a life cycle, from birth to death — or is it renewal? Eddie Perfect's...
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Pamela Rabe tackles an iconic role + a kid's point of view on stage
It’s one of those roles which great actors have on their to-do list: Winnie in the play Happy Days by Samuel Beckett. Winnie starts the play buried up to her waist in dirt. In Act 2 she’s buried up to her neck! Acclaimed actor Pamela Rabe tell us what makes this such an iconic play and how she...
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How to make it on Broadway, plus a twisted tale challenges these actors
What does it take to write a Tony-winning musical? Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty are the friends and songwriting team behind big Broadway musicals like Ragtime and Anastasia. They're also voting members for New York City's famous theatre industry prize, the Tony Awards. They join us as Tony...
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Getting under the skin of Edith Piaf with Nathalie Lermitte
Legendary French singer Edith Piaf was a firecracker of emotion. Gutsy and seductive, while underneath -- an intense fragility. That’s the legend. But what’s it like to play a legend, show after show, year after year? Cabaret singer Nathalie Lermitte has been inhabiting the icon Piaf for well…
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Meet Margo Kane, a legend of Canadian theatre + a hit Spanish movie on stage
When Cree-Salteaux theatre-maker Margo Kane started trying out for theatre gigs in Canada in the 1970s, there were so few roles for Indigenous actors, she ended up auditioning for the same part more than once. That all changed when she wrote her own one woman show, Moonlodge that became a classic...
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The Black Woman of Gippsland flips the script on a Victorian mystery
Playwright Andrea James has researched a story from the 1840s, in which colonial newspapers suggested that a 'white woman' – maybe the survivor of a shipwreck – had been taken captive by Gunaikurnai people in what is now eastern Victoria. Andrea interrogates the legend in a riveting new play…
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The Wrong Gods weighs the cost of 'progress' on a mother and daughter
S. Shakthidharan's last play Counting and Cracking was a massive hit, an epic tale of one Sri Lankan Tamil family and their involvement in world-change events. Now he returns with The Wrong Gods, a story about a mother and daughter in India whose lives are about to be ripped apart by industrial...
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100 years of La Boite: a little theatre with big ambitions
We mark the 100th Birthday of Australia's oldest continuously run theatre — Brisbane's iconic La Boite. A little theatre that's had a huge influence on the theatre and politics of Brisbane and on building a theatre culture which is distinctively Australian. La Boite's Artistic Director Courtney...
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'We're very scared when we're on stage': comedy sisters Flo & Joan
The Melbourne International Comedy Festival has taken over the city. Comedians from across Australia and around the world are here including the UK's Nicola And Rosie Dempsey, as dead-pan singing sisters Flo and Joan. This year they're also presenting One Man Musical – a musical take-down of…
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In 'Lazarus', a playwright resurrects a living legend
John Harding, a founder of Ilbijerri Theatre Company and veteran playwright, recorded 20 hours of Taungurung elder Uncle Larry Walsh recounting his life story. The result is Lazarus, a sold-out theatre show telling a life of tragic beginnings as a stolen child, survival in institutions and…
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Ruby Wax dives deep (with whales) in her comedy + Eliza Scanlen on Oscar Wilde
Comedian and writer Ruby Wax tells Michael about how she recently found herself in a mental health clinic, after searching for transformative experiences (like swimming with whales). So what drives her to go public about her experiences, and stay funny? Two thousand years ago and the Roman poet...
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How Anaïs Mitchell wrote the hit musical Hadestown
This episode of The Stage Show is about love that doesn't end well! The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is retold in a hit folk musical called Hadestown. It's won Tonys, Grammys and is now in Australia. We speak to the singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell, who wrote Hadestown as a concept album, before...
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The story that brought Leah Purcell back to the stage
Actor, director and writer Leah Purcell has been telling us her own stories and the stories of people close to her since the 1990s. Now Leah’s back – as the adaptor and director of the true tale of Aunty Ruth Hegarty, which take us into the heart of Australia’s post-colonial history, a powerful...
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Actor Stephen Rea in Krapp's Last Tape + the soul of Butoh
We meet Irish screen and theatre actor Stephen Rea, who talks about meeting Samuel Beckett early in his career. Rea so wanted to perform Beckett's play Krapp's Last Tape, he had the foresight to record his youthful self reading it. In his new production at Adelaide Festival, the audience gets to...
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Turning the late Ryuichi Sakamoto into mixed reality
Shortly before he died, Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto performed a piano concert called Kagami – which was filmed and recorded with mixed reality technology. Thanks to that, the audience can see and hear Sakamoto play on a level of reality which pushes the boundaries of what a concert can be....
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Dancing in the street with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
As a teenager in Belgium, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui grew up dancing with his friends in the street. He’s now a renowned choreographer with his own company and the director of the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, choreographing everything from pop music videos to the new show MANIFEST at Perth…
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Robyn Nevin on Agatha Christie's 'dark side' + a play about Julian Assange
Australian theatre legend Robyn Nevin is directing And Then There Were None, a classic murder mystery by Agatha Christie. She talks to Michael about the darkness in Christie's stories, her view on changing acting styles and how Robyn finds her 'inner clown'. Playwright Patricia Cornelius explains...
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Emma Rice's dark, rollicking Wuthering Heights
UK director Emma Rice thinks the classic novel Wuthering Heights has many contemporary resonances, particularly around the origins of the character Heathcliff. Rice turned the story into a rollicking play after successfully adapting other English folktales and films for the stage. She tells us...
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How do you tell the world's longest tale 'Mahabharata', in five hours?
The Hindu epic Mahabharata is the longest poem in the world, a tale where gods and mortals dance around each other in stories about creation, sex, death and destruction. But can it be told in under nine hours? That was the duration of Peter Brooks’ famous 1988 production of The Mahabharata at the...
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'I think the rock swallowed them up': Ian Michael takes on an Australian classic
When director and actor Ian Michael first saw the stage play of Picnic at Hanging Rock, adapted by playwright Tom Wright, it was as a theatre attendant. Now, he is directing it at the Opera House for the Sydney Theatre Company. The Noongar theatre-maker has forged an exciting career performing...
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The surprising history of Shakespeare in a divided America
Over the past 200 years, theatre has often been a lightning rod for social and political upheaval in the United States. Even the plays of William Shakespeare have been the subject of violent debate. This surprising history is examined in two recent books by James Shapiro: Shakespeare in a Divided...
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Why Eric Idle always looks on the bright side of life
Death is not a very funny subject. Yet, comedian, writer and musician Eric Idle has spent 60 years showing us the funny side of our all-too-fleeting lives. The Monty Python member has toured Australia with his show Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, Live! He's also written a book about the...
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The story of the groundbreaking Warumpi Band
In the desert town of Papunya in 1981, four blackfellas and a whitefella bonded over rock 'n' roll and became the history-making Warumpi Band. The Warumpis were the first rock band to sing in Aboriginal languages. Big Name, No Blankets from Ilbijerri Theatre Company tells their story on stage....
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Giacomo Puccini 100 years on
It's been 100 years since the death of the Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini. From La Bohème to Turandot, Puccini's operas remain some of the most popular around the world. To explore Puccini's life and legacy, we're joined by musicologist Dr Linda Fairtile and hear performances from two…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
In-depth conversations with the world's top directors, performers and writers for the stage.
HOSTED BY
ABC
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Stage Show have?
The Stage Show currently has 247 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Stage Show about?
In-depth conversations with the world's top directors, performers and writers for the stage.
How often does The Stage Show release new episodes?
The Stage Show publishes regularly with 247 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to The Stage Show?
You can listen to The Stage Show on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Stage Show?
The Stage Show is created and hosted by ABC.
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