Adelaide Festival Centre lights up autumn with the opening of Children’s artspace, play in the plaza and hit musicals!

The opening of the new Children’s Artspace gallery, hit musicals and live concerts are among highlights of Adelaide Festival Centre’s Autumn 2022 season, with free events at Festival Theatre’s grand new entrances lighting up the Riverbank precinct in coming weeks.

Adelaide Festival Centre’s wondrous new interactive Children’s Artspace art gallery will open with a bang on March 12 alongside the unveiling of public areas of the new Festival Plaza precinct. To celebrate, Adelaide Festival Centre will present Play In The Plaza from March 12-14, programmed by the creative team behind Families at Adelaide Festival Centre. The weekend will feature family workshops, roving performances, interactive installations, the popular Bowerbird Market, and the inaugural Kidtrepreneur Markets, featuring young movers and shakers creating and selling their wares.

Each weekend until the end of March, live music, free entertainment and an outdoor bar will be on offer at the new Festival Plaza Entrance with a frequently updated schedule of events available here as part of the Welcome Back To Festival Theatre program.  

Tickets to the popular Adelaide Cabaret Festival Variety Gala are almost sold out. This year the extravaganza is being held earlier on March 25, for a one night only show at Festival Theatre celebrating the launch of the full festival program, with tickets going on sale that day.

Adelaide Cabaret Festival proper will be held from June 10-25, led by Artistic Director and iconic Australian performer Tina Arena and starring outstanding artists including Lior, Wendy Matthews, Thando and many more.

Also presented by Adelaide Festival Centre, local creatives will perform their works in development through the inSPACE Development Program which celebrates its 20th Anniversary in April. And the all-female force Women in Jazz Adelaide Big Band will take to the Space Theatre stage for a world-class performance to celebrate UNESCO International Jazz Day on April 30.  

Musical fans are in for a treat with hit Broadway production Frozen taking over Festival Theatre from May and throughout the winter months, with tickets on sale from Thursday, March 3. While the Queens of SIX The Musical are aptly making their way to Her Majesty’s Theatre from May 21, ready to reclaim their crowns to remix five hundred years of historical heartbreak into a high-octane 75-minute global pop musical phenomenon! Tickets on sale now. And Sitcom fans can celebrate the iconic TV hit, with Friends! The Musical Parody at Dunstan Playhouse from May 4.

Throughout March, Adelaide Festival brings some captivating performances and contemporary dance works to Adelaide Festival Centre including The Golden Cockerel,The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Wudjang: Not The Past by Bangarra Dance Theatre plus much more!

This Autumn will also see South Australian Home Companies present exciting performances on Adelaide Festival Centre’s stages for adults and families alike, including Girl From The North Country featuring the songs of Bob Dylan and starring Lisa McCune, Helen Dallimore, Zahra Newman, Terence Crawford and Peter Carroll plus theatre production Cathedral by State Theatre Company South Australia. Adelaide Symphony Orchestra will perform Last Night of the Proms with conductor Guy Noble and Restless Dance Theatre present a new work called Exposed, which will explore vulnerability, uncertainty and risk. The Turn of the Screw directed by Stuart Maunder and VOSS will be presented by State Opera South Australia while families can enjoy the reinvention of a classic in the show Rella by Windmill Theatre Co.

Also this Autumn iconic music artists will heat up the stage with Jessica Mauboy, Human Nature, Jon Stevens, Archie Roach and Rock The House scheduled to perform at Adelaide Festival Centre.

Before and after performances, patrons can wander the many stunning artworks and exhibitions on display at The Galleries and foyer of Festival Theatre. The popular photography exhibition Rock ‘n’ Roll City, which captures SA’s pub rock scene through the live concert photographs of Eric Algra, is also on show at the Ian & Pamela Wall Gallery at Her Majesty’s Theatre until May 20.