ABC RN Arts

Darren Yap has been a part of some huge moments in Australian performing arts history, from acting in Miss Saigon to being on the directorial team for the Sydney 2000 closing ceremony. Now he's using his talents to bringing new Asian Australian work to the stage. Also, we meet artists behind a surge of Asian Australian plays on our mainstages right now and Neil Armfield joins us to pay tribute to the English theatre director Peter Brook, famous for his reinvention of contemporary theatre.

British author Benjamin Myers says he likes to be on the margins as a writer and his latest novel, The Perfect Golden Circle, is about the crop circles that appeared in 1989 in the English countryside and explores the type of people who created them. Also Ceridwen Dovey and Eliza Bell explain their genre-bending book, Mothertongues and Noongar author, Claire G Coleman's mysterious and unsettling book, Enclave, set in a walled Australian city.

It’s time to Get up, stand up, show up- the theme for NAIDOC week 2022. Stop Everything presents highlights celebrating the depth of talent from First Nations creatives working in music, television and theatre. BL is joined by BARKAA, a Malyangapa Barkindji woman from Western New South Wales signed to Briggs’ Bad Apples Music label to talk about the Blak Matriarchy she belongs to. BL + BW dig into the ABC show, All My Friends are Racist with co stars, Davey Thomson and Tuuli Narkle and award...

For NAIDOC Week we're joined by Warren H. Williams, co-creator & star of a unique and stunningly shot new crime series, True Colours, NITV's first foray into longform drama, and filmmaker Larissa Behrendt, who talks about Warriors on the Field, a celebration of Indigenous Australia and its long-standing history and connection with Australian football. Two exciting directors from Finland will also be along.....Juho Kuosmanen and Mikko Myllylahti, for a conversation about Finnish storytelling...

Richard Bell is one of the few individual artists curated into Documenta 15, the highly-anticipated global survey of contemporary art. This year, for the first time, it’s been dominated by artists and collectives from the Global South. But the historic takeover has been eclipsed by a media storm ignited by what appears to be a Jewish caricature in a mural painted by Indonesian artist group Taring Padi, since taken down. Queensland-born sculptor Sebastian di Mauro who now calls Delaware home,...

Our oldest modern dance company, the Australian Dance Theatre, has been delighting and challenging audiences for nearly 60 years. Now Wiradjuri dancer and choreographer Daniel Riley is at the helm, becoming the first Indigenous man to lead the company. Also, we meet the winner of this year's Keir Choreographic Award, Tra Mi Dinh, and Wesley Enoch's joyous musical The Sunshine Club returns to the Queensland Theatre stage after 23 years.

For NAIDOC Week, three Aboriginal writers who are grappling with the past: Anita Heiss takes the 1852 Gundagai flood as the starting point for her novel Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray, Tony Birch explores his family history in Dark as Last Night and SJ Norman's, Permafrost, a collection of haunted short stories.

He’s been at the top of Stop Everything!’s interview wish list for awhile and we got him: Taika Waititi talks to Ben Law about his latest film for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor: Love and Thunder, the follow up to Thor: Ragnarok. Podcaster Helen Zaltzman catches up with BW to talk about The Allusionist’s upcoming tour of Australia and Auckland, and her recap podcast, Veronica Mars Investigations. We also take a look at how celebs and the Internet have been reacting to the US Supreme...

We meet Mandy Walker, the pioneering Australian cinematographer who shot Baz Luhrmann's epic film Elvis. TV writer Wenlei Ma is along with an analysis of where streaming services, particularly Netflix, have gone wrong recently and what they can do to remain relevant in the current landscape, and L.A. based Aussie actor Claudia O'Doherty speaks to us about her career and latest role on a quirky series about class and capitalism called Killing It.

A conversation with artist Daniel Boyd whose work has focussed on reframing Eurocentric images from Australia's past. Plus, Sally Ryan discusses her latest commission, a giant oil painting of Jesus, Mary and Joseph for St Mary’s cathedral in Sydney. She says it's her hardest painting yet. And, returning artefacts taken from Kunwinjku and Gagadju artists in Arnhem Land in the early 1900s.

As the ABC celebrates its 90th birthday, we delve into our archives to revisit key moments in Australian performing arts history, including Laurence Olivier on tour, Nureyev and Fonteyn dancing into Australian hearts and Indigenous theatre taking centre stage. Also, Ian McKellen makes his Australian debut, Dorothy Hewett revolutionises Australian playwriting, Philip Glass writes a piece for organ and didgeridoo and Joan Sutherland records a stupendous La Traviata in a 17th-century Italian...

American author Madeline Miller has found a new audience for her prize winning novel Circe on #BookTok and now she has a new offering based on Greek mythology called Galatea. Also, Lauren Chater's real life inspiration for her third historical novel, The Winter Dress and Carrie Cox asks whether relationships are really meant to go the distance in her latest novel, So Many Beats of the Heart.

We’re talking about new releases from superstars Beyoncé and JLo and chatting with silver Logie winner and ABC sweetheart Tony Armstrong and Gruen’s Wil Anderson. Break My Soul is Beyoncé’s first single off her upcoming album Renaissance, Halftime documents JLo’s blazing run as she campaigned for an award for Hustlers and prepared for the Super Bowl halftime show in the same year. Tony Armstrong tells us where he’s keeping his Logie and Ben Law ventures into the fourth dimension for Jurassic...

A chat with the inimitable Baz Lurhmann about what he thinks Elvis, his first new film in nearly a decade might add to the legend and mythology of the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley. We've all heard of Taco Tuesday, but how about Nude Tuesday? Aussie actor Damon Herriman stars in a deliriously silly NZ set comedy about love, nudity and gibberish and he's along to tell us all about it + the question of power, who has it, what they do with it and how to get it, is central to the funny...

Have you ever walked through an epic entanglement of red cotton thread, by the artist Chiharu Shiota? The Japanese installation and performance artist takes Daniel through The Soul Trembles, an exhibition highlighting 25 years of her practice. Including the time she undertook a nude workshop with Marina Abramovic, mistaking her for the textile sculptor Magdalena Abakanowitcz. Plus, Daniel speaks with performance artist Wura-Natasha Ogunji, who came to Sydney to lead a public endurance...

A Strange Loop has won Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical at the 75th Tony Awards. This funny and challenging metafictional musical is inspired by the experiences of its writer, Michael R. Jackson, who joins us from New York. Also, we're joined by the chief theatre critics at the New York Times and the Guardian for the latest from the US and UK and we meet director Max Webster, the man behind a daring new Henry V starring Kit Harrington (Game of Thrones) and soon in cinemas.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brookes says she "didn't grow up as a horse obsessed girl" but rather her interest in horses was a result of a midlife crisis which led her to the history of a famous American thoroughbred that was the inspiration for her latest novel, simply called Horse. Also, John Purcell talks about his second official novel, The Lessons, and reveals his brief career writing erotica and Karen Manton explains the inspiration for her evocative novel, The Curlew's...

The media debacle around Rebel Wilson’s coming out has implications for journalism, LGBTQIA+ safety and the right to privacy. The story’s travelled far and wide with everyone from Whoopi Goldberg to Magda Szubanski weighing in. Among many questions we’re asking — what’s the place of gossip columns in newspapers these days? We know it’s cold outside, so we have a couple of winter warmers to keep you company as you snuggle down in your doona fort on the couch. With the Logies around the...

The great documentarian Frederick Wiseman is being celebrated this month at Sydney Film Festival & ACMI with a retrospective of ten seminal films which chronicle American life and institutions. 92 year old Wiseman is our guest. British actor Jack Davenport who appears in series' like The Morning Show, 90s cult classic This Life, and films including the Pirates of the Caribbean series, talks about his role as the lead character in Ten Percent, a UK remake of the French hit Call my Agent, and...

Why artist and curator David Sequeira doesn't believe in just a 'pop of colour'. How a colour-blind artist adapted to colours he couldn't perceive. And how glasses that allow colour-deficient people to see the full spectrum of colours, work. Plus, Daniel chats to V&A curator Catlin Langford about her book on the mania for Autochrome, an early colour photography process invented by the Lumière brothers.