Red Stitch: The Actors' Theatre

"Your Name Means Dream is that rare thing in theatre: a production in which all the parts create a cohesive, compelling and totally creatively successful and satisfying whole." - Kate Herbert.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​First reviews are pouring in and we're thrilled. Book your tickets for Your Name Means Dream now!

🎟️ Link in bio or at redstitch.net

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Congratulations to the team of Your Name Means Dream on a fabulous opening night last night! ❤️❤️ A monumental effort from all involved.

Don’t miss our brilliant last show of the year, showing till the 24th of November.

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5 places remain! Snap ‘em up!

We’re stoked to be offering a new workshop with multi-award-winning playwright and librettist Tom Holloway this November!

Inspired by the concept of a playwright being someone who makes or builds through entertaining activities, Play Writing With Tom is run over four, three-hour sessions designed to remind creatives of both the fun that can be had, and discipline needed to pursue character, story and structure on the stage.

The workshops are made up of constant, focussed,time writing games, and participants will be shocked how quickly they build entire lives of characters and whole stories.

The sessions also look at the fundamentals needed in playwriting, the tools playwrights can use to express themselves on the page, the importance of finding the right structure for your play, and also, just how mind-blowing and awe-inspiring a play can be.

And although playwriting is the method being explored, it is for all creatives, freeing the mind from over-thinking, breaking through the early, daunting stages of creativity and getting the ideas out of us and recorded for remodelling.

Tom strongly believes that the best creativity comes from safe, welcoming, inclusive environments where everyone is welcome no matter their age, identity, or experience level.

For more info about the workshop including pricing, head to our website or click the link in our bio!

Thanks for naming us one of the 15 best arts and culture venues in Melbourne for 2024. We’re thrilled to be included! ❤️❤️

Red Stitch, Melbourne’s BIG Little Theatre since 2001. 🎉

Tonight is our final preview of Your Name Means Dream by José Rivera! This is your last chance to snap up a cheap ticket, and only a handful of seats remain!

🎟️ Book at redstitch.net or through the link in our bio!

Your Name means Dream runs until the 24th of November at Red Stitch, Melbourne’s BIG little theatre.

Two more previews remain for Your Name Means Dream. Here’s a little taste of some production shots by the fabulous .media

Aislin is getting older in a world that is becoming increasingly unfamiliar to her. Her caregiver Stacy is perfectly toned, ageless, and utterly in control. She’s also a robot. While Aislin suffers the inevitable indignities of being human, Stacy wonders what she’s missing out on.
“Five ladies quit on me in the last year. So they send the machines. The fu***ng, soulless, plastic f**kin’ machines.”
Oscar nominee and Obie-winning José Rivera (The Motorcycle Diaries) examines how we live, die, and form our sense of self in a world where the line between humanity and machine is blurring by the second.

26 OCT - 24 NOV. For tickets, head to the link in our bio!

Season 2025 coming very, very soon… ❤️❤️❤️

Is your wallet hurting from seeing a lot of shows at fringe? No stress! We’ve got multiple cheap ticket options, including our preview shows which start from 28 bucks!

A few are still available, snap them up before they’re gone. Link in bio.

Red Stitch. The home of BIG little theatre.

We are thrilled to announce that Angus Cameron and Emmanuelle Mattana will be joining Red Stitch as our 2024 INK writers. We’re incredibly excited to begin developing their work.

A heartfelt thank you to all the talented playwrights who applied to INK this year, we were hugely impressed by all the work submitted.
Keep an eye out for updates as these exciting works take shape.

Red Stitch - The Home of BIG little theatre.

We are excited to announce that applications for our 2025 Graduate Program are now open. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Established in 2008, this program is designed to guide and enrich the transition from training institutions by providing a professional platform for artists to work in the industry. We we offer position across Acting, Directing, Dramaturgy, Design or Stage Management to join Red Stitch as full ensemble members for a year.

If you are interested in applying, head to the link in our bio.

Applications close at 6pm on Friday the 25th of October 2024.

Red Stitch. the home of BIG little theatre.

“In Your Name Means Dream I’m asking questions about the idea of the soul. What is it? Is it the thing that makes us who we are? Do only humans have it? Buddhists would probably say, “There’s a soul in that rock, a soul in that tree. There is a living essence that animates those things.” I’m not going to argue with that. But I do think there is something that makes this difference in us, that animates us” - José Rivera.

Tickets to Your Name Means Dream are selling fast! Book now at the link in our bio.

Red Stitch. The home of BIG little theatre.

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Ensemble member Caroline Lee plays Aislin in Your Name Means Dream.

Caroline has worked professionally as a theatre,
television, film and voice actress for over thirty years. She has worked with the Malthouse, Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Bell Shakespeare, Back to Back Theatre, Red Stitch Actors Theatre, Chamber Made Opera, MKA, Finucane and Smith, HeLD Productions, Hildegard, Playbox and La Mama, as well as developing a strong reputation for her work in one-woman shows.

Caroline has received four Green Room Awards for her work in the theatre. Caroline has narrated over 150 audiobooks, including a number of best-selling titles, for example Big Little Lies and Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty, and The Shifting Fog and The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. She has received three AudioFile Earphones Awards, including Best Audiobook of the Year 2021 for Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty.

Film and television appearances include a supporting cast role in The Newsreader andThe Newsreader 2, a main cast role in Bogan Pride, and roles in Miss Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries, The Dressmaker, Tangle, Winners and Losers, Satisfaction, Stingers, MDA, Halifax fp, Blue Heelers, Neighbours, Holidays on the River Yarra and Dogs in Space, as well as a number of smaller film projects with independent producers.

Your Name Means Dream by José Rivera is playing at Red Stitch at the end of this month! For more info, and tickets, head to the link in our bio.

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We are so excited to welcome guest actor Lucy Ansell to Red Stitch for the first time, playing Stacey in Your Name Means Dream.

Lucy is an Afro-Caribbean, interdisciplinary artist working and living on unceded Wurundjeri land. She trained at the Victorian College of the Arts and graduated in 2018. Recently, she was in Robert Connolly’s The Dry 2: Force of Nature and Binge Original Series: Strife. She’s worked on many live productions across Naarm including Hour of the Wolf (dir. Matthew Sutton, Malthouse Theatre), Escaped Alone/What If If Only (dir. Anne-Louise Sarks, Melbourne Theatre Company) and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Melbourne (Michael Cassel Group). Other theatre credits include Wild Cherries (dir. Beng Oh), Patalog Theatre’s Tusk Tusk (dir. Ruby Rees) and She Is Vigilante (written by Chanella Macri and co-dir. by Krystalla Pearce and Bridget Balodis) which she later received a Green Room award for. In her own works, Lu likes to interrogate imagined constructs and explore the nexus between art and therapy particularly for historically marginalised folk.

Catch her in Your Name Means Dream at the end of October! Tickets on sale now!

The creative team behind our next play Your Name Means Dream started rehearsals this week… they’re crafting something truly beautiful to round out our incredible year.

Starring ensemble member Caroline Lee and guest actor Lucy Ansell, this evocative new play by Academy Award nominee José Rivera provides an intimate and often funny peek into the relationship between an elderly woman and her caregiver… who just so happens to be an artificial intelligence.

26 October - 24 November 2024

More to come.

And just like that, Iphigenia in Splott is gone! Thanks to all who came to the show, we hope is getting some much needed rest.

Stay tuned for updates about our next production, Your Name Means Dream, which has started rehearsals this week!

Red Stitch. The home of BIG little theatre.

Play: Spending time doing an enjoyable or entertaining activity (Cambridge Dictionary)
Wright: A person who makes or builds things (Cambridge Dictionary)

We’re stoked to be offering a new workshop with multi-award-winning playwright and librettist Tom Holloway this November!

Inspired by the concept of a playwright being someone who makes or builds through entertaining activities, Play Writing With Tom is run over four, three-hour sessions designed to remind creatives of both the fun that can be had, and discipline needed to pursue character, story and structure on the stage.

The workshops are made up of constant, focussed,time writing games, and participants will be shocked how quickly they build entire lives of characters and whole stories.

The sessions also look at the fundamentals needed in playwriting, the tools playwrights can use to express themselves on the page, the importance of finding the right structure for your play, and also, just how mind-blowing and awe-inspiring a play can be.

And although playwriting is the method being explored, it is for all creatives, freeing the mind from over-thinking, breaking through the early, daunting stages of creativity and getting the ideas out of us and recorded for remodelling.

Tom strongly believes that the best creativity comes from safe, welcoming, inclusive environments where everyone is welcome no matter their age, identity, or experience level.

For more info about the workshop including pricing, head to our website or click the link in our bio!

🎉🎉

Wishing the Iphigenia in Splott team a fabulous final weekend with our three final shows sold out!

Yep, just 4 tickets left for our Saturday matinee and then this season of Iphigenia in Splott is SOLD OUT. Snap ‘em up quick!

Here’s a snap from our Q+A for Iphigenia in Splott a few days ago. Effie leaves our stage for the final time this Sunday, never to return, but you can still snap up a ticket to see her. There are a few seats left for tomorrow’s show, the 17th, and a handful spread out over the rest of the week. Grab them before they’re gone!

★★★★★ - thetheatre.au
★★★★★ - It’s On The House
★★★★ - Timeout
★★★★1/2 - The Age
★★★★1/2 - Artshub
★★★★ - Limelight

Meet the fabulous team of Your Name Means Dream, our final production of 2024! Directed by Kat Henry and featuring Green Room Award winning actors Caroline Lee and Lucy Ansell, this breathtaking new play about aging and artificial intelligence is hitting the Red Stitch stage at the end of October. We can’t wait 🦾

Join us for our final production of 2024: Your Name Means Dream by José Rivera, directed by Kat Henry and starring Caroline Lee and Lucy Ansell.

“Shine(s) a light on the mysteries of the human heart and the human-generated machine...” - Broadway Worlds

Aislin is getting older in a world that is becoming increasingly unfamiliar to her. Her caregiver Stacy is perfectly toned, ageless, and utterly in control. She’s also a robot. While Aislin suffers the inevitable indignities of being human, Stacy wonders what she’s missing out on.

“Five ladies quit on me in the last year. So they send the machines. The fu***ng, soulless, plastic f**kin’ machines.”

Oscar nominee and Obie-winning José Rivera (The
Motorcycle Diaries) examines how we live, die, and form our sense of self in a world where the line between humanity and machine is blurring by the second.

26 Oct - 24 November. Tickets on sale NOW.

“Do not miss Iphigenia in Splott. We’re fortunate this show has returned. Every time I walk into a show, I want the show to be great. It’s such a blessing when it’s this extraordinary.“ - Keith Gow, Theatre First

Next weeks shows are selling fast, after tonight there’s only TWO WEEKS left to see this brilliant production.

Head to our website for tickets!

Red Stitch - The home of BIG little theatre

"Director Gary Abrahams imbues the telling with expressive physicality on the confined Red Stitch stage, ringing all the story’s changes, its light and shade, in movement and stillness, so that we are swept along with Effie’s tale, carried from a joke to wonder to tenderness and back again.... Ms Clarke has us leaning forward... hanging on her every word." - Stage Whispers.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​★★★★1/2 - THE AGE
★★★★ - “Magnificent” - Timeout Melbourne

🎟️ 3-22 September. TICKETS SELLING FAST. Link in bio!

"If you are looking for one of the most incredible performances on the local scene, make sure you see Red Stitch Theatre’s Iphigenia in Splott." - Lilithia Reviews​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Don't miss out. Tickets selling fast.

Iphigenia in Splott. 3-22 September.

🎟️ Link in Bio