Melbourne Fringe Festival is back, and La Mama is throwing open its doors for six brand new theatrical adventures.
Spread across La Mama HQ and La Mama Courthouse, the season runs from 29 September to 18 October and covers everything from post-apocalyptic puppetry to a fairytale gone rogue. Melbourne Fringe Festival regulars will know La Mama as one of the neighbourhood’s most reliable homes for weird, wonderful and occasionally unhinged new work, and this year’s lineup is no exception.
Kicking things off at HQ is Extraterrestrial’s dark comedy Trash Wizard, followed by Emma J Hawkins and Leisa Prowd’s genre-bending Exhibit at the Courthouse.
From there the season moves through grief, internet fame, midlife crises and a reimagined fairytale, before wrapping up in mid-October. Here’s the full rundown of what’s on, where, and when.
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
Trash Wizard
- 29 September to 4 October
- La Mama HQ
- Tickets here
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Trash Wizard is a camp, absurdist dark comedy following two best friends – a chip packet and a seagull – on a quest to remember what they even are after humanity’s extinction.
Written by Charlie Star and directed by Em Tambree, it’s billed as equal parts Wizard of Oz and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, filtered through a distinctly Gen Z lens on the climate crisis.
Expect puppetry, kitsch and a slow collapse into tragedy, all inside one tight hour.
Exhibit
- 30 September to 4 October
- La Mama Courthouse
- Tickets here
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Created and performed by Emma J Hawkins and Leisa Prowd, Exhibit turns the audience into accidental participants in a shape-shifting blend of dance and comedy.
Two women lean into the chaos of being seen, mis-seen and underestimated, with the performers acting as both curator and specimen.
It’s a physical theatre work that pokes at the awkward and the absurd, and asks who really gets to decide what counts as ‘normal’.
Toto’s Song
- 6 to 11 October
- La Mama HQ
- Tickets here
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Emma Fawcett’s Toto’s Song is a darkly funny new Australian play about a struggling performer returning home to his fiercely unconventional mother, who is facing the end of her life on her own terms.
Directed by Kate Fryer, it’s an offbeat look at grief, care and the ways families fail each other and try again.
Parasocial
- 6 to 11 October
- La Mama Courthouse
- Tickets here
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Political satirist and self-described floppy-haired goofball Emerson Brophy brings Parasocial, a one-man musical comedy about the strange, one-sided relationships fans build with the people they watch online – minus the actual like, comment and subscribe.
Wrong Way Grow Back
- 13 to 18 October
- La Mama HQ
- Tickets here
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Ben Grant’s Wrong Way Grow Back is a solo storytelling piece about arriving at the middle of life and wondering whether there’s a way to hit reverse.
Directed by Christian Leavesley, it’s a comedy built for anyone who’s ever felt like they missed a memo somewhere along the way.
RED
- 14 to 18 October
- La Mama Courthouse
- Tickets here
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RED is a bold reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood from Rollercoaster Theatre, Australia’s largest ensemble of professional actors with intellectual disabilities.
Featuring 16 performers, RED digs into power and survival inside a story that knows it’s being watched – and isn’t afraid to unravel.
With Trades Hall Hub just around the corner, La Mama’s corner of Melbourne Fringe Festival is shaping up as one of the neighbourhood’s busiest and strangest stretches of the festival calendar.
For more information, head here.
This article was made in partnership with La Mama.
