The Javeenbah Theatre Company, based in Nerang on the Gold Coast, has announced its 2027 season, including musicals, Australian drama, new creative works, horror, sing-along events, and an adults-only Christmas pantomime.
The season begins in February with Nerdy Prudes Must Die, the teen slasher comedy produced by the same people behind The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals and Black Friday. The show will run from 13th to 27th February 2027 and will be directed by Jocelyn Moore-Carter, with musical direction provided by Jake Goodall and choreography by Georgia Ogge.
Set at Hatchetfield High, Nerdy Prudes Must Die follows a group of social outcasts who accidentally complete an ancient ritual and unleash an angry supernatural spirit with a grudge against nerds. Stephanie Lauter, Grace Chasity and their fellow students are subsequently forced to fight for their survival. Auditions are scheduled for 27 September, with further information to be announced.
Australian history takes focus from 10 to 24 April with Children of the Black Skirt, directed by Bryce Berrell. The play follows three lost children who discover an abandoned orphanage in the Australian bush, where the spirits of former residents introduce them to periods of the country’s history. The stories span convict times through the Second World War, the Stolen Generation, and beyond.
Starting on 7 and 8 May, the Javeenbah Theatre will be focusing on new Australian creative work as part of the jBah Launchpad. The event will include readings of original scripts by emerging and established playwrights, along with performances of new opera pieces produced by students from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music.
The play The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh will run from 5 to 19 June, with Reagan Warner in the role of director. It is a thriller which focuses on Katurian, a writer who ends up in an interrogation cell without knowing exactly why she has been detained, and whose writings later become an important part of the investigation when two police officers and her sister enter the plot.
On 9 and 10 July the theatre will be adopting a more participatory format with an event called Sip & Sing: A Leading Ladies of Broadway Sing-Along. The event, which is produced by Mia MacDonald, will ask the audience to take part in singing some of the songs associated with the female characters from Broadway, mixing in the musical theatre favourites with a social sing-along format.
From 14 to 28 August a more sombre version of Nosferatu is shown, it being directed by Hunter Wall. The story is set in Bluewater, a mining town in a position removed from Tasmania’s western highway. People who want to revitalize the town place their trust in a strange investor, as a result of which new vineyards are established and a large amount of money flows into the area. Nevertheless, when people start to go missing the community becomes unwilling to investigate where their renewed prosperity is coming from.
From 9 to 23 October, Kaela Gray will be in charge of directing The Revlon Girl, a production that takes place eight months after the Aberfan Disaster of 1966, an event which resulted in 144 deaths, including 116 children. The play centres on a number of bereaved mothers who meet regularly above a local hotel, thereby having a private spot where they can talk, cry and laugh. Having talked about how much they feel they have neglected themselves, the women secretly arrange for a Revlon representative to visit and give them advice on beauty, while at the same time worrying that others might think their interest is frivolous.
The Javeenbah Theatre will end its 2027 programme between 4 and 18 December with A Christmas Carol: The Adults Only Pantomime. The show, limited to audiences aged 18 or older, has been adapted by Jake Goodall and Liv Hardcastle and will be directed by Hardcastle and Georgia Ogge.
The pantomime gives a comedic treatment of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, incorporating innuendo and musical numbers as Ebenezer Scrooge experiences Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come; the production will include costumes, have the audience take part and offer a more adult version of the well-known Christmas story.
Tickets for the 2027 season at Javeenbah Theatre are due to become available soon.
