Transformer
Transformer explores ideas relating to liminal space through the transformation of well known Australian landscape paintings.
Events List
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The Anniversary
Multi award-winning creators of Die Roten Punkte, Clare Bartholomew and Daniel Tobias are back with a brand new murderously funny physical farce.
3000 Streets
3000 Streets is the photographic trace of Mike Reed’s near and far wanderings in the worlds’ arteries, always with a lean towards the unusual and quirky.
RUNT
A play about the runts of the world: the lesser, the unwanted, the weak, those without clout, the insignificant; all the unders.
SHORT STORIES
With a great love for books, Lisa Sewards explored short stories during Melbourne’s 2020 COVID-19 restrictions. Each book turned into a capsule of reflection and hope and has led to this new series of printmaking and painting works that celebrates the short story genre in Australian literature.
all / most / some / none
Utilizing a system whereby the ruled grid becomes the vessel for a lexicon of hand-drawn symbols, the principal theme in Madeleine Joy Dawes' work is the utilization of iterative mark making as a temporal site to record measured and psychological time.
Playreading: June by Patrick McCarthy
Following their critically acclaimed productions Grief and the Lullaby (2015) and The Sky Is Well Designed (2017), Fabricated Rooms present a work-in-progress reading of their third project, June.
Playreading: Underneath Ms Archer
A reading of a new play by Louise Siversen and Peter Houghton.
Trouble in a Monochromatic Town
A lush and gritty program inspired by a palette of shifting drones, acid house, electronics, Dada and silk scarves
Franz Liszt: The Complete Hungarian Rhapsodies for Piano Four Hands
The first complete Australian performance of this dazzlingly virtuosic set of pieces, known for their fiendish technical demands
The Trauma Project by Elizabeth Walley
An immersive composition for theatre crafted by Elizabeth Walley in response to her eyewitness experience of a homicide in her suburban street.
elemental
A collection of new paintings exploring facets of landscape and abstraction by Joan Blond, Aliki K, Bev Plowman and Jo Carroll.
Travels With My Wife: Painting Hong Kong from the Water and Air
A new series of small paintings exploring bustling harbour and airport scenes in Hong Kong.
Old Friends | New Beginnings
Luke Severn and Elyane Laussade will make their triumphant return to performing as a duo with a concert of some of their favourite works for cello and piano.
A Pilgrim’s Progress
A series of paintings and digital collage works exploring the discarded and lost clothes that crossed the artist's path on the pilgrimage trails she has covered throughout Europe, especially Spain.
Iteration
Iteration presents two series of Margaret Manchee’s recent work: etchings using Spirograph; and mixed-media paintings and collages.
Kavisha Mazzella with Irine Vela
LIVE AT VENUE OR LIVESTREAM AT HOME
Kavisha Mazzella returns briefly to Melbourne for an intimate concert at fortyfivedownstairs with guitarist Irine Vela
Zoe Knighton/Pia Johnson Bach Project
LIVE AT VENUE OR LIVESTREAM AT HOME
Two iconic Melbourne artists join forces for a unique and magical collaboration
From Don Giovanni to Peking Opera
LIVE AT VENUE OR LIVESTREAM AT HOME
Virtuoso pianist Yiyun Gu plays brilliant program of music from the stage by Liszt, Goossens and young female Chinese composer Wang A Mao
Making Nonsense
An unapologetic, wildly exaggerated, absurdist conflagration of installation, large- and small-scale paintings, paper works, textiles and hand-sewn soft sculptures with bold explosions of colour.
Electric Loneliness
A strange and mysterious seaside cabaret told through vaudeville, puppetry, fairy tale, and 80s synth-inspired song.
Don’t Make Me Play Piano Man
After his acclaimed and hilarious debut cabaret ‘I Sing Songs’, join Steven Kramer on a journey through all the great piano hits across the ages.
Michael Griffiths: Greatest Hits
Helpmann Award winner and fortyfivedownstairs repeat offender Michael Griffiths returns with his greatest hits.
cCORDA
cCORDA represents a journey through the meditative motion of cutting and consequently assembling cardboard, jute and hexcel paper within a confined, framed space. The essence of the composition is fully revealed when finally embalmed with chosen encaustic colour.
Voyage
In the midst of convict ships arriving each week from Britain, a different cargo leaves for Australia. On board are 287 immigrant women enticed by promises of a better life.
Retreat
An exhibition of paintings exploring local landscapes and private domestic environments which have become increasingly important spaces of both refuge and of tension over the last year.
Greedy Pixiu
Greedy Pixiu are a pan Asian chimera to accompany us back from a difficult pandemic year.
RUNT | Return Season
RUNT to return to our theatre after a sold-out premiere season
Emerging Artist Award 2021
2021 submissions open!
Still by Jen Silverman
Written by one of the hottest young playwrights from New York City, Jen Silverman’s award-winning play will make you laugh, cry and reflect, often all at the same time.
King & Wood Mallesons Contemporary First Nations Art Award
In its second season, the Award is a biennial competition established by KWM to promote and encourage the highest standard of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art practice in Australia.
Fantastique! The Life and Loves of Hector Berlioz
LIVE AT VENUE OR LIVESTREAM AT HOME
Created using journal entries, letters and articles from Berlioz’s life, combined with a selection of his songs, and transcriptions of his orchestral works
Silence #1.6: The Beauty in Death
Silence #1.6 is a philosophical study of mindfulness that all metaphysical conditions co-exist, and that death can provide a beautiful insight to understand and appreciate life.
King Lear Online
A moving contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy
Just a Boy, Standing in Front of a Girl | POSTPONED |
From the creators of 'The Yellow Wave' and 'Cuckoo' comes a Medea for our times.