Carlton's La Mama Theatre is back with a fresh season showcasing eight new Australian works.
LA MAMA PRESENTS kicks off the venue’s 2026 program, showcasing eight new Australian works from February to May across La Mama HQ and La Mama Courthouse. The season brings together comedy, drama, satire and gothic theatre, featuring some of the country’s most exciting emerging and established writers.
Each production promises to deliver urgent contemporary stories while maintaining the venue’s reputation for affordable tickets and welcoming atmosphere, complete with the famous La Mama raffle at every show.
LA MAMA PRESENTS
- 月を見る夜 Moongazing opens 5 February at La Mama HQ, 205 Faraday Street, Carlton
- S A I N T S opens 7 February at La Mama Courthouse, 349 Drummond Street, Carlton
- Some Secrets Should Be Kept Secret opens 11 March at La Mama HQ
- Back to Te Maunga opens 5 March at La Mama Courthouse
- Spare a Thought for Jana Wendt opens 9 April at La Mama HQ
- Head | Thorax | Abdomen opens 10 April at La Mama Courthouse
- STUCK opens 14 May at La Mama HQ
- GAG REFLEX opens 9 May at La Mama Courthouse
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
February
February opens with two contrasting productions. Maki Morita’s 月を見る夜 Moongazing, presented by Antipodes Theatre Company and directed by Ari Angkasa, draws from Noh theatre, Japanese folktales and the digital realm to examine spiritual connection in an increasingly atomised world.
S A I N T S, created by Elbow Room with playscript by Marcel Dorney and direction by Emily Tomlins and Marcel Dorney, takes audiences on a satirical tour through revolutionary England, posing questions about historical perspective and moral certainty.
March
View this post on Instagram
March features two significant works. Glenn Shea, winner of the 2025 Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting, completes his 30-year project An Indigenous Trilogy with the haunting gothic production Some Secrets Should Be Kept Secret, which he both writes and directs.
Joel Te Teira, an alumnus of La Mama Writing Intensive 2024 and Cybec Electric 2025, brings Back to Te Maunga to the stage through Antipodes Theatre Company, directed by Keegan Bragg. This riveting Maori dramedy tests the bonds of male friendship against the backdrop of a hunters cabin in Aotearoa New Zealand.
April
April delivers two dark comedies with distinctive voices. Nicola Watson’s Spare a Thought for Jana Wendt, shortlisted for the 2023 Patrick White Playwrights Award and directed by Margot Fenley, takes aim at privilege in an isolated posh Airbnb setting.
James Hazelden writes and directs Head | Thorax | Abdomen, a black comedy thriller that fragments narrative structure into a darkly mysterious experience designed to keep audiences guessing until the final moments.
May
View this post on Instagram
May closes LA MAMA PRESENTS with two powerful works examining contemporary social issues. STUCK, written by Megan Twycross and directed by Susie Dee, tackles the systems that keep women down through a fluorescent-lit battle of wit, will and survival.
The season concludes with GAG REFLEX by Flick, another La Mama Writing Intensive 2024 and Cybec Electric 2025 alumnus, directed by Tansy Gorman. This controversial comedy about three sexually inexperienced teenagers attempting to write erotica in year 12 promises to resonate with anyone who has raised a child or remembers being 16.
All eight productions in LA MAMA PRESENTS include Auslan interpreted performances and on-demand seasons running for one week following each show’s live run.
PLAY
Beyond the presenting season, La Mama’s 2026 program expands into two additional phases. PLAY runs from June to August, focusing on artistic development rather than polished productions.
This phase embraces risk and experimentation through three distinct initiatives: Scratch, a fast and electric live platform where performance makers test new ideas before peers and community; Explorations, the venue’s iconic season giving artists three nights of public presentation to push boundaries; and Immerse, a deeply focused 12-week practice-led program for 16 mid-career writers, split evenly between metro and regional participants.
PARTNERSHIPS
View this post on Instagram
September through December brings PARTNERSHIPS, a phase dedicated to collaborations that expand La Mama’s reach. September launches LA MAMA FESTIVALS, featuring the Hope Punk Climate Festival, which positions hope as a verb and punk as a culture while empowering independent creatives to contribute to national climate conversations through art.
The Melbourne Festival of Puppetry returns as a collaboration with Lemony S Puppet Theatre, offering a week of puppet entertainment for all ages.
October sees Melbourne Fringe at La Mama, presenting six new cutting-edge Australian works that challenge conventions. November features Cultural Conservation in Action, combining full seasons, one-off events and yarning circles to archive First Nations storytellers’ lived experiences within the Australian cultural canon.
December wraps the year with FaraDays, a celebration of summer nights creating a piazza pubblica in Carlton with street performance and one-off events, building on the legacy of La Mamica: Musica, Poetica and Cabaretica.
The 2026 program is supported by The Robert Salzer Foundation, with financial assistance from Creative Australia and Creative Victoria. La Mama will open applications for artists for the remainder of 2026 on 30 October.
For more information, head here.
