Overview
Where's the weirdest, wildest, strangest and most unexpected place you've seen a live show? Wherever it might be, would you like to best it? That's the challenge that Anywhere Festival gives Brisbane audiences every year, because this event's love of putting on theatre everywhere it possibly can is right there in its name. When you're not watching performances in a bar, you might be heading to a park — or a brewery, cemetery or someone's house.
They're just some of the spots that Anywhere Festival is sliding into in 2023, with the event returning from Thursday, May 4–Sunday, May 21. Other destinations include libraries, paint factories, museums, laneways, galleries and a Harry Potter-themed store — and also a YMCA, a couple of universities, community centres, cafes, a beach and an old Stefan salon.
Travis Macfarlane
If you're new to Anywhere Festival, you can pick your way through the program in two ways: by whatever kind of show takes your fancy, or based on where you'd like to see everything the fest has to offer. There's only one kind of spot that you won't be able to catch an Anywhere Festival performance, whether you're keen on theatre, comedy, dance, cabaret, music, circus, spoken word or poetry: a traditional theatre.
The 2023 event begins as it has in previous years, starting with a big laneway party on Fish Lane. From there, you can ponder cabin fever in someone's apartment, watch a dance work in an airport terminal, catch a musical parody of The Human Centipede and listen to live tunes in a Woolloongabba pedorthic clinic. Or, if you'd like to learn how to survive a zombie apocalypse — a handy skill — that's happening at a school.
Travis Macfarlane
Also on the lineup: pondering disaster at The Wilderness Society, musing on the worst funerals ever at South Brisbane cemetery, an immersive ten-year reunion at Blute's, songs about shopping at Garden City, a production about a hellish seaside escape at Northshore's beach, and the 12.7 million lights of the QUT Sphere backdropping music and movement. There's a show about the best bubbles — not the drinks — as well, and a string quartet at Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium.
Dancing in a park, a circus show about the history of booze while beer is being made around you, an ode to introverts, wizard trivia and wondering what'd happen if Shakespeare's characters were still alive today are on the bill as well. And that old hairdressers? The Stefan's former South Brisbane home is this year's Anywhere Festival fringe hub, which means seeing plenty of comedy — no cuts, colours, foils or blow dries necessary.
Stuart Hirth
Anywhere Festival's 2023 season runs from Thursday, May 4–Sunday, May 21 in spots all over the city. For more information or to book tickets, head to the fest's website.