Qtopia Sydney is thrilled to announce our 2024 performance season at The Loading Dock, introducing 11 productions over the course of the year at our flagship venue at 301 Forbes Street Darlinghurst.
Seating 60 guests in an intimate blackbox style setting, the venue is one of three spaces offering multi-genre programming and openings for creatives at all career points, to ensure that all members of our community have access and opportunity to share their work, their experiences and their stories.
The new theatre was opened by NSW Minister for the Arts, The Hon. John Graham, MLC, at a season launch event on Tuesday night.
Qtopia Sydney’s Curator of Culture Carly Fisher said, “We are proud to be showcasing five world premieres, two NSW premieres, three shows that have completed a development this year and four shows touring from other parts of the country.
“We have shows made by Artists who have been in the field for decades and shows that present new Artists in their Sydney mainstage debut. We have stories that take place far overseas, deep in regional Australia, and then a story that takes place on our very block of Darlinghurst. We have powerful dramas and new Australian musicals. We have stories based on true events, stories that discuss history and mental health, stories that will make you laugh and stories that will challenge,” she continued.
James Elazzi of James Elazzi Productions, whose show Saints of Damour – an epic story of love, migration and identity unfolding across continents and decades – will shine on The Loading Dock stage later this year said, “For a story that holds such deep importance to me, I was looking for a venue that carried the same strength of spirit that Saints of Damour has.
“To have the World Premiere of this work held on the same streets, in the same spaces in which this play unfolds, truly feels like the best way to make this story come to life.”
The season will include two festivals; one curated by Qtopia Sydney’s culture team throughout June to celebrate Pride month, Sydney Fringe Festival in September which has announced Qtopia Sydney as a dedicated Queer Hub, a first for the festival and the city.
The space in which the Loading Dock Theatre resides was never intended for theatrical purposes – instead this is a ‘Loading Dock’ in its truest sense – a space lined with bricks and bars, where police cars would pull up and push those in their capture through to the cells.
Ms Fisher continued saying, “These cells have long haunted the collective memories of the LGBTQIA+ community, this building has long been the site of deep trauma, pain, embarrassment and fear.
“Nothing about this building was intentionally designed to be a theatre, nor was it designed to house the rich, diverse, authentic and powerful stories of both the LGBTQIA+ and wider communities, yet here we are.
“The bones of it are here, the stage is set but now it is ready for the life that each member of the audience will breathe into this place,” she concluded.
