Skip to main content

The Shiralee By D’Arcy Niland
Adapted for the stage by Kate Mulvany
Directed by Jessica Arthur

6 October – 22 November 2025

In the Drama Theatre

Sydney Theatre Company

Theatre

Bathed in the golden light of an outback sunset, audiences will be swept away into a story as beautiful as the landscape in this adaptation of a classic Australian story. 

Useful information:

A love song to the open road

The Australian epic The Shiralee comes to the stage for the first time, adapted by Kate Mulvany, in a ranging and poetic story of life and love on the margins. 

Macauley is a rugged swagman who roams the highways and byways of mid-century Australia, while Macauley’s young daughter Buster lives with her separated mother in a neglectful home in Sydney. When Macauley discovers Buster’s circumstances he takes her on the road with him, despite his hesitations around fatherhood. 

Hot on the heels of the national sensation The Dictionary of Lost Words, director Jessica Arthur returns with a spectacular cast featuring Mulvany herself, Josh McConville, Aaron Pedersen and Ziggy Resnick, in this new play about a father-daughter bond that blooms in a harsh and unforgiving world.

A Sydney Theatre Company production
 

Director Jessica Arthur
Designer Jeremy Allen
Composer & Sound Designer Clemence Williams
Dramaturg Kip Williams 

With
Josh McConville 
Kate Mulvany 
Aaron Pedersen 
Ziggy Resnick

Plan your visit

You may also like

James Nguyen and Guadalupe Maravilla

27 Jan 2025

Focusing on art, ritual and activism, Australian-Vietnamese artist James Nguyen and American-El Salvadorian Guadalupe Maravilla delve into how ancestral knowledge can be channelled to heal the body, mind and spirit of trauma.

  • Talks and Ideas

Picnic at Hanging Rock

17 Feb – 5 Apr 2025

One of the most famous Australian mysteries in a heartstopping, inventive and dreamlike theatre experience like no other.

  • Theatre

Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen

5 – 23 Feb 2025

After years of swiping, a permanently single, professionally neurotic stand-up finally meets Mr Right – and then does everything wrong. But is Mr Right quite what he seems? And how far will the comedian go to get a laugh?

  • Theatre
  • Comedy
A man in a blue shirt stands confidently while holding a microphone, ready to speak or perform.

Checking availability