Things to do in Sydney this week

[Content note: this review discusses themes of suicide and mental health issues. If you need support, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14, or find more options at healthdirect.gov.au.] I suspect anyone reading this is either a huge fan of Dear Evan Hansen, or you’re not. The middle ground is sparsely populated. If you’re part of the former cohort, it’s because the show is beloved in musical theatre circles and revered by critics. It’s a new classic in the canon, and we don’t get those too often. Premiering on Broadway in 2016, it was an instant hit, and at the 71st Tony Awards it handily scooped up six out of nine nominations, including Best Musical, Best Book for Steven Levenson, Best Score for Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, Best Actor for Ben Platt, and Best Featured Actress for Rachel Bay Jones. It’s now making its Australian debut at the Roslyn Packer Theatre ahead of a national tour, and its reputation ensures an audience is built in – expect tickets to go fast. If you’re part of the latter, that’s probably down to the widely derided 2021 screen adaptation, which saw Platt, at the age of 27, reprise the title role, a move that drew scathing criticism – largely because he very much did not look like a teenager, especially alongside his age-appropriate co-stars. The film tanked, and the play closed shortly thereafter (in fairness, the pandemic didn’t help). Perfectly cast, perfectly mounted, perfectly polished...and surprisingly complex in its themes I was in the latter group.

This dazzling production of Yentl opens with a command: “Once you say ‘A’, you must say ‘B’”. It’s not said by our eponymous lead (the effervescent Amy Hack as Yentl), but maybe it should be. They are the bookish one, after all. Forbidden to study the Talmud as a woman, they’ve spent years prying the occasional theology lesson out of their father and reading the Torah on the sly. They know the near-divine power of language more than most; the way it obliges us to participate in it to understand and express ourselves, to worship, or to love.  The Yentl we encounter in this mystical adaptation at Sydney Opera House from Kadmiah Yiddish Theatre (presented with Monstrous Theatre and Neil Gooding Productions) seeks out a new language, or rather finds something new in an old language; a way of understanding Jewishness and Jewish womanhood that embraces the liminal, the inexpressible, and the ancient. And they begin by giving themselves a new name, a male name that will allow them to become a scholar of the Talmud: Anshl.  What they’ve accomplished is nothing short of magic – an explicitly queer retelling of a story made famous by a Barbara Streisand-led 1983 film Rather than overstate the novelty of these ideas, co-writers Gary Abrahams, Elise Esther Hearst and Galit Klas show just how deeply rooted they already are in Jewish lore, theology and myth. What they’ve accomplished is nothing short of magic – an explicitly queer retelling of a story made famous by a Barbara Streisand-le

The cost of living crisis in Sydney isn’t going anywhere, and since it’s easy to blow your weekly budget at the city’s sky-high bars when the sun is shining, it’s always a delight to hear about new free ways to have fun during silly season. In excellent news for CBD-dwellers, the list of free things to do this summer just got a boost – with The Rocks precinct announcing a packed program featuring free yoga classes, community picnics and open-air film screenings. If you’re up for an active morning, join The Rocks’ free run club which meets at First Fleet Park at 7.15am every Tuesday for an all-levels jog around the harbour.Want something a little slower? Free yoga classes will run all summer long, taking place at Dawes Point Park (under the shadow of the Harbour Bridge) every Sunday at 8.30am and 9.30am.Keen to hang around? Join the community picnic, popping up at Dawes Point Park Saturday and Sunday between 10am and 5pm. Picnic rugs, cushions and blankets are provided, but you’ll need to BYO food and drinks (The Rocks Markets have got you covered). If you’re in the mood for an open-air movie, The Rocks’ free Laneway Cinema is back this summer – bringing magical alfresco film screenings to an historic sandstone laneway every Wednesday evening. Tickets are free, and are available to book on the Monday before the screening.  You can learn more about all the free events popping up throughout The Rocks this summer over here.Stay in the loop: sign up for our free Time Out Sydney ne

Do you know the one about the love triangle behind one of Australia’s most famous artistic exports? And the remarkable woman, who many argue was the guiding hand behind Sidney Nolan’s iconic Ned Kelly paintings? Get down to the Sydney Opera House to see how the paint and passion plays out in Sunday. Under the guidance of acclaimed director Sarah Goodes (Julia), this is playwright Anthony Weigh’s tribute to the late patron of the arts and Melbourne icon, Sunday Reed.  The extraordinary Nikki Shiels reprises her role in this Melbourne Theatre Company production, which is brought to the Harbour City with the helping hand of Sydney Theatre Company. A woman ahead of her time, Sunday Reed helped shape Australian modernism by co-founding the Heide artistic commune with her husband John Reed (played by Matt Day) on Melbourne’s then-rural edges in the 1930s.  The play focuses on the passionate love triangle between the Reeds and the Heide Circle’s most notable member, Sidney Nolan (James O’Connell). They are joined by Ratidzo Mambo as celebrated modernist painter Joy Hester, and Jude Hyland as Sweeney Reed.As attested by critic Stephen A Russell in his three-star review of Sunday’s debut in Melbourne, there is brilliance to be discovered amidst the play’s somewhat dreary staging and drawn-out runtime. Especially when Shiels – who “shines as bright as the dappled Melbourne sunlight” – is given space to shine. After all, she is an actor of such high calibre that she swung in for Eryn-Je

Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived… and now, live in concert! Holy numerical, the Six pack is back in action. (But the question remains, was it ever out of action?) This pop-powered global phenomenon has already had multiple record-breaking seasons across the country, and now due to popular demand, the disgraced wives of King Henry VIII are back at the Theatre Royal in ye olde Sydneytown following an enthusiastic welcome in Melbourne.  “What if the Spice Girls did a concept album about King Henry VIII’s wives, and Baz Luhrmann directed the concert video?” – Six the Musical has perhaps never been better summarised than in these words, directly quoted from critic Travis Johnson’s review of the production that hit The Studio at the Sydney Opera House between lockdowns in 2020. For the uninitiated, this unconventional pop-rock musical takes a dry historical topic, and turns it into a rowdy 80-minute concert primed to rival the world’s biggest pop groups.  Everyone knows that King Henry VIII had not four, not five, but six wives – enough to require a mnemonic technique to keep track. History (aka “his story”) has reduced the legacies of these ladies to little more than singular words in a rhyme that details their fearsome fates, but what if we carved out space to remember them as real, three-dimensional women?  Six the Musical takes on this noble task by embracing a far-fetched premise: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, Katherine H

It was always inevitable that Hamilton would make its way Down Under. It’s been almost three years since Lin-Manuel Miranda’s game-changing musical made its five-star Sydney debut in March 2021, and was met with overwhelming audience and critical acclaim. Remarkably, this was also the first production of the Broadway mega-hit to open anywhere in the world, following global pandemic lockdowns. A roaring success, the show went on to tour to Melbourne, Brisbane, New Zealand, and across Asia. Now, Hamilton’s back for round two. The Sydney Lyric Theatre’s exclusive return season reuniting some of the original Australasian cast with mind-boggling new talents, some of whom are making their professional theatre debut (not that you’d even guess).  So, in the year 2024, does the pop-culture hype around Hamilton maintain its heat? And can the live production withstand the test of time, especially when you can stream the original Broadway cast recording on Disney+ for $13.99? The simple answer to both questions is: yes. Although, anyone who is unfamiliar with the Hamilton lore might benefit from reading up on it beforehand (we’ve explained it briefly over here). For Australian audiences, the draw of Hamilton is not really the plot, which holds many contradictions (even Miranda himself admits to that). But if you know anything about the show, you know that the true ingenuity (aside from the game-changing race-reverse casting) lies in Miranda’s magical, genre-defying score – and by bringin

Summer is setting in, and while us Surry Hills-based office workers are forced to seek our weekday sunshine in Prince Alfred Park (no terrible fate, especially if you can fit in a swim), those based in the harbour-front precinct of Barangaroo can get active with a series of free community activities.  On Wednesday lunchtimes (up until Wednesday, December 18), Barangaroo Reserve will play host to a series of free-to-attend First Nations-inspired yoga classes. Led by proud Dharawal and Gumbaynggirr woman Jacqui Jarrett, Yoga on Country takes place on Stargazer Lawn at 12.30pm every Wednesday, and is a magical way to connect with the land and waters that we see and touch every day. The 60-minute classes celebrate First Nations cultural beliefs, inviting participants to listen, learn and breathe. You’ll need to register if you’re keen to join, and you can do that over here. If you’re looking for a less introspective lunchtime activity, there’s a free Pickleball tournament going down at Harbour Park Community Recreation Space every Tuesday and Wednesday lunchtime. The 20-minute games take place between 12pm and 2pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays – you can register (either as a two-person team, or solo to be paired up with another player) over here.  Keen to get moving on the last day of the working week? Barangaroo Run Club meets every Friday morning, with runners meeting at Hickson Park at 7.15am. The hour-long sessions range from slow-paced jogs to high-impact training drills, depen

Due to huge demand, Coldplay has announced two additional shows for the Sydney leg of their upcoming tour. In November 2024, the global superstars will take over Sydney’s Accor Stadium for four spectacular shows – complete with power-generating kinetic floors, solar-powered glow sticks, and support from British alt-pop princess PinkPantheress and X Factor’s Emmanuel Kelly. The Music of the Spheres tour kicked off in Costa Rica in March 2022, and has taken the global superstars across the world in a series of sell-out shows. After releasing details for their second Antipodean leg just days after their sell-out shows in Western Australia, the British alternative soft rockers almost immediately added a bunch more dates to meet the needs of eager Australian fans. In-keeping with the ethos of the tour – which aims to achieve net zero through the use of green technology and renewable energy – each ticket holder for Coldplay’s Sydney shows will be responsible for the planting of a tree as part of their carbon offset measures. If the sustainable ethos and the promise of belting out 'Yellow' at the top of your lungs wasn’t enough to get you over the line – the critical acclaim might be. The Music of the Spheres won Tour of The Year at the 2023 iHeartRadio Awards, and the band was voted as the Favourite Touring Artist in the 2022 AMAs.Coldplay will be performing at Sydney's Accor Stadium on November 6, 7, 9 and 10 in 2024. Though general release tickets have sold out, you can register

When the seven-time women’s world champion cliff diver, one of the most decorated cliff diving pros in the world, is an Aussie, it stands to reason that their home country should host the sport’s biggest annual event. Which is exactly the reason why Sydney Harbour will be transformed into an adrenaline-junkie haven from November 8. Homegrown diving star, Rhiannan Iffland, will be returning home to an anticipated 50,000 person crowd in the Royal Botanic Garden after taking out a King Kahekili trophy earlier this year in Türkiye. If there’s one thing Aussie spectators know how to do, it’s how to get behind one of our hometown heroes with enough whoops and whistles to carry them to victory. The divers will be hurling themselves at speeds of 85 kilometres an hour into the waters of Sydney Harbour. Since the only cliffs high enough to suit the event look out of the headland waters that are not only choppy but active shipping lanes, a purpose-built platform will be constructed by the waters off Bennelong Point, in view of both the Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House. If you want to get in on the action, spectating is free and you can nab a scenic spot at the Botanic Gardens nearby. Iffland shared her excitement at the chance to show the folks back home why she’s the leading female cliff diver in the world. “I’m extremely proud of my journey so far and the final being held in Sydney has kept me motivated all season long,' she said. "I can’t wait to put on the best show I can

Jaws were on the floor earlier this year when the Art Gallery of New South Wales announced that it had secured Australia’s biggest and first-ever retrospective exhibition dedicated to the one and only René Magritte. Opening at the end of October, and sticking around until February 2025, consider Sydney art fiends' summer plans settled.  The exhibition titled ‘Magritte’ is part of Sydney’s International Art Series spanning 2024 and 2025. Getting in on the action are the state gallery’s Cao Fei: My City is Yours, and the MCA's Julie Mehretu exhibitions.  You could consider Magritte the master of symbols, and you’ve likely seen his plastered all over the place: clouds, bowler hats, pipes… well, *not* pipes, to be precise. The exhibition takes art lovers and history fanatics through 20 years worth of Magritte’s paintings, starting from the 1920s in the height of the surrealist movement. More than 100 works make up the showing, and they’ve been flown in from all over the world including from the MoMA in New York, the Musée Magritte in Brussels, Washington DC’s National Gallery of Art, plus other museums and even some private collections too.  Magritte opens at the Art Gallery of NSW in the South Building’s Lower Level 2 on October 26 and will be there until February 9, 2025. The exhibition is a ticketed event, and prices start from, $30 for members and $35 for adults, or you can save some pennies by purchasing two for one tickets on Wednesday nights or this ultra pass to all three