The Melbourne Theatre Company gets its first female director

Anne-Louise Sarks is starting as she means to go on. Her debut program for Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC) sets out her manifesto on its first page – theatre is for everyone. As the company’s first female artistic director, she’s been working hard to bring new voices and talent to Melbourne stages.

Sarks hopes her first season will give our city a chance to come together and share its stories after a couple of incredibly difficult years.

“I think that shared experience is what theatre has to offer all the time, but it’s never been as important as it feels now,” Sarks says. “I think we make sense of ourselves through storytelling, and that’s why there’s so much new Australian work in this season. We’re asking questions about who we are and where we’ve come from.”

The 2023 season is bookended by two brand new and very Melbourne stories. The first, Sunday, is an audacious fantasy inspired by the myths surrounding Heide founder Sunday Reed. At the other end of the year is A Very Jewish Christmas Carol, in which Caulfield baker Elysheva Scroogeavitz is determined not to let Chrismukkah get in the way of fulfilling customer demand for her famous Polish gingerbread. Sarks says this crowd-pleasing and culture-clashing twist on the Dickens classic sums up her desire to fuse tradition with innovation.

“It’s bringing another perspective to a story we know and love. We’re all grappling with how to unite these different traditions that we have, particularly at that time of year.”

An eagerness to welcome new perspectives into the company is reflected throughout the program, most notably with Is God Is from American playwright Aleshea Harris. A revenge tale featuring two African-American sisters heading out to kill their father, the play is co-directed by Zindzi Okenyo and Shari Sebbens, whose previous collaboration, seven methods of killing kylie jenner, has been a smash hit in theatres around Australia.

“Is God Is just feels like a kind of bold, fresh, theatrical event,” Sarks says. “I really want to open up the company and create an invitation for everyone to come and be a part of it. My ambition is for theatre to be at the centre of the cultural life of this city and for everyone to feel some ownership of Melbourne Theatre Company and the stories that we tell.”

While she can’t talk about them yet, there is a range of soon-to-be-announced programs and initiatives that are designed to help promote new voices within the company. Sarks knows the importance of these programs firsthand – one of them kick-started her theatrical career with MTC several decades ago.

“I really wouldn’t be here if that opportunity hadn’t been provided to me, so I’m determined to give that opportunity to the next generation of artists.”

This inclusiveness also means welcoming in audiences who might previously have thought theatre wasn’t for them, perhaps seeing it as too middle-class, too white, or too elitist. Is there a show in the new program recommended for someone who has never seen a play? 

Sarks narrows it down to two: Is God Is and Bloom, a new Melbourne musical about aged care from the Working Dog team. Again, she sees Bloom as a great example of her approach to MTC – bringing the city together to tell new stories.

“It’s a really special show about how the younger and older generations can enrich each other’s lives and asks some important questions about aging in our society. And it’s a musical! For me, it does everything.”