Concrete Playground

Thursday, 15th October - Sunday, 15th November
@ Domain Theatre, Art Gallery of New South Wales

‘You gave me my first glimpse of a real life and then you ask me to carry on with a false one. No-one can endure that.’ - Newland Archer, The Age of... Read More »

Monday, 14th September - 5AM
@ Ballast Point Park

According to the ever-dependable Bureau of Meteorology, this Sunday promises to be a bloody brilliant spring day (fine and sunny with a top temp of 28 – yes!). Just perfect,... Read More »

Friday, 2nd October - Sunday, 31st January
@ Art&About

Once again the City of Sydney is transforming, well, thecity of Sydney, with its public art program Art&About. While there aremany pretty things lining the more conspicuous promenades, it’s down... Read More »

Saturday, 3rd October - Sunday, 14th February
@ Art Gallery of New South Wales

Having never quite managed to be in the right place to see a Kaldor Public Art Project in the flesh, I'm pretty excited about the Art Gallery of New South... Read More »

Saturday, 10th October - 2PM
@ Oxford Art Factory

 Self-proclaimed ‘acid ninjas of the inner-west’, Sticky Fingers, are launching their EP. (Remember the cover The Rolling Stones did for their album of the same name? The zipper? Awesome. Well... Read More »

Friday, 25th September - Friday, 13th November
@ Chauvel Cinema

Axes do not fall silently and men die neither quickly nor quietly; their life splutters out of them in a mixture of breath and blood. It may well be that... Read More »

Sunday, 27th September - Sunday, 25th October
@ Art&About

It’s hard to do throw ups when you got no can control. Maybe it’s time to give up trying and join a knitting circle instead. Your nanna will be pleased.Guerilla... Read More »

Tuesday, 24th November - Sunday, 13th December
@ Playhouse, Sydney Opera House

Prepare to be lulled into a heady state of amusement. Daniel Kitson is bringing his self-deprecating, brilliant arrogance to Sydney for the second time in two months, with his latest... Read More »

Sunday, 4th October - 4AM
@ Roslyn Oxley9

Because it’s kind of a big deal, you’ve probably already heard about artist Tatzu Nishi’s (alias Tazro Niscino alias Tatsurou Bashi alias Tatzu Oozu) War and peace and in between.... Read More »

Thursday, 1st October - 5AM
@ Firstdraft

Good news! Firstdraft Gallery – that tireless incubator of emerging art – will survive the notice of compulsory renovations recently served to them (reeking of impending doom). Sound the Hurrah!Their... Read More »

Thursday, 24th September - Saturday, 17th October
@ Griffin Theatre

The desert is a strange, lonely place. Cacti advance. A catcopulates with a coyote. Out there you have too much time to think. Anything ispossible. As is nothing.Acclaimed playwright Jose`... Read More »

Sunday, 4th October - Sunday, 29th November
@ Art Gallery of New South Wales, Level 2 Contemporary Projects Space

Amongst all the fanfare of the opening of War and peaceand in between at the AGNSW, another showseems to have slipped quietly under the radar. It’s a shame really because... Read More »

Friday, 16th October - 12PM
@ Peer Gallery

GO FONT UR SELF* is returning to Sydney with chapter 3 in its series of typographical revelations.With a truly international line up of ‘typographic misfits’ – hailing from Sydney, NYC... Read More »

Friday, 16th October - Thursday, 1st October
@ MOP

Entering Drew Bickford's Mongrel, a collection of intricately executed illustrations, is like, as one observer put it, "arriving at the gates of hell". Yet it is a sweet hell. A... Read More »

Saturday, 24th October - Saturday, 14th November
@ CarriageWorks

Sometimes art events in aid of community awareness about something or other can be a little naff. Sometimes they're all about the artists acting heroic while pretending they are not... Read More »

Thursday, 22nd October - 11AM
@ Dixon room, Mitchell wing, State Library of New South Wales

In 1948, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh bet a bunch of local actors in a Sydney pub that they could recite Australian poetry as good as any local. To prove... Read More »

Saturday, 24th October - Saturday, 14th November
@ Sarah Cottier Gallery

The self-deprecating not-humour humour of Sydney artist Christopher Hanrahan's work makes it the kind that continues to resonate long after you've encountered it. If you saw his sculpture Endless Holes... Read More »

Friday, 30th October - Saturday, 21st November
@ GRANTPIRRIE Gallery

Sam Smith equals awesome video art. His work defies any complaint about video as a skill-less medium. Special Effects, Smiths second solo show at GRANTPIRRIE, combines geometric sculptural forms and meticulously... Read More »

Friday, 6th November - 7PM
@ The Red Rattler

There are lies, and then there are lies. There are those shameless, blatant untruths told with a twitch and a sneer that are about as cool as Alexander Downer in... Read More »

Tuesday, 17th November - Wednesday, 16th December
@ SCA, COFA , NAS

In true education-institution style, Sydney University announces the 2009 Degree Show at its art school affiliate, Sydney College of the Arts, to be "a chance for all students to stand... Read More »

Thursday, 26th November - 11AM
@ MOP

Yep, the pointy end of the year is here for Sydney. The Christmas party after Christmas after Christmas party marathon is about to start and, despite all the good advice... Read More »

Thursday, 26th November - Saturday, 19th December
@ GrantPirrie

I want. I Want. I WANT! and I spend too much time looking in the mirror (and to be honest, at my reflection in shop windows). Ooh so painful to... Read More »

Monday, 16th November - Sunday, 3rd January
@ Campbelltown Arts Centre

Adapted from the title of the 2008 Haruki Murakami book What I Think About When I Think About Running (itself adapted from the title of Raymond Carver's 1980 short story,... Read More »

Tuesday, 9th February - Sunday, 21st February
@ Playhouse, Sydney Opera House

If any Australian musician was going to play Johnny Cash, it would have to be Tex Perkins. It just makes sense. It's the vibe or something. And so he is... Read More »

Tuesday, 24th November - Friday, 4th December
@ The Vanguard

Trained by an opera singer and influenced by jazz greats Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday, Parisian chanteuse Caroline Nin describes her discovery of Edith Piaf as the "ultimate... Read More »

Wednesday, 6th January - Sunday, 10th January
@ Playhouse, Sydney Opera House

Gymnasts and circus-people are freaky. So are beatboxers. And drummers. It's all that weird coordination that they have going on. The Tom Tom Crew out-freaky the freaky by combining all... Read More »

Wednesday, 10th March - 8PM
@ Metro Theatre

Dirty Projectors, and front-man Dave Longstreth's pre-DP projects, initially copped more than their fair share of flack for being too intellectually obfuscative (read pretentious). Their fourth album Bitte Orca seems... Read More »

Saturday, 19th December - Sunday, 17th January
@ East Sydney Doctors

Since when do people stand around in doctors' surgery waiting rooms when they're not ill? Since East Sydney Doctors started moonlighting as a contemporary art gallery a year or so... Read More »

Thursday, 17th December - 6PM
@ MOP

As usual MOP delivered a stellar exhibition program in 2009. Three of a perfect pair - what a highlight! But it's costly to run a non-commercial gallery. Not that MOP... Read More »

Friday, 8th January - Sunday, 17th January
@ Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House

Touted as the dance event of the Sydney Festival, Bale de Rua is coming to town with a whole lot of sweet dance action that smacks of Brazil. Using original... Read More »

Friday, 19th February - 7PM
@ Parker St, Chinatown

Enough with the lawns and gardens – outdoor cinema could do with some dirtying up. Taking over Parker St in Chinatown for one night only, Gallery 4a’s Cinema Alley is presenting... Read More »

Friday, 15th January - 1PM
@ Westsyde Connection

Gymnasts and circus-people are freaky. So are beatboxers. And drummers. It's all that weird coordination that they have going on. The Tom Tom Crew out-freaky the freaky by combining all... Read More »

Tuesday, 19th January - 6PM
@ The Coachman

Apparently Jesse Willesee is going somewhere. Before he does though, there’ll be one last show: YOU PUT A SHIRT ON A HANGOVER AND CALL IT A DAY. And, despite being... Read More »

Wednesday, 27th January - Sunday, 2nd May
@ University of Sydney Art Gallery

Comprising two shows across three spaces, Mirror Mirror Then & Now looks at mirror as material in art from both historical-international and contemporary-Australian perspectives. Curated by Ann Stephen, the exhibitions... Read More »

Saturday, 6th February - Sunday, 28th March
@ Object Gallery

Object Gallery is reinvigorating the sustainable design/eco-friendly/carbon neutral debate just when it was starting to sound like a whole lot of codswallop - I mean what a life-cycle; from being... Read More »

Thursday, 11th February - Tuesday, 23rd February

Gaffa has built a solid name for itself on the Sydney gallery trail over the last few years. Perched atop the one and only Ding Dong Dang Karaoke Bar, this... Read More »

Wednesday, 10th February - Saturday, 6th March
@ Stills Gallery

A number of Sydney art spaces have been inserting an exhibition of works by emerging artists into their programming of late. It's good. Got to keep the blood fresh. Stills Gallery... Read More »

Thursday, 11th February - Saturday, 13th February
@ SBW Stables Theatre

Lady Grey is a clever play. It has a vitality and, indeed, poetry to its language that is often missing from contemporary plays. On a stage bare but for a... Read More »

Wednesday, 12th May - Sunday, 1st August
@ Various Sydney venues

Hands up who likes contemporary art? Put ‘em down. Put ‘em up. Down. Up. Sorry, stay with me. The 17th Biennale of Sydney is almost upon us. Three months of... Read More »

Friday, 23rd April - Sunday, 9th May
@ The Darlinghurst Theatre

“Anon, Anon! I pray you, remember the porter.” And so you shall, if you chance to find your butt affixed to a seat in the Darlinghurst Theatre before May 10.... Read More »

Monday, 26th April - Saturday, 29th May
@ Drama Theatre, Opera House

Honor (Wendy Hughes) and George (William Zappa) have been married for 32 years. Honor, an accomplished (and published) poet when they met, gave up her career to support George’s ascent... Read More »

Friday, 30th April - 11PM - Friday, 16th July - 11PM
@ Newtown Theatre

The south end of King Street in Newtown is not the nicest of places to find oneself late in the evening, except of course if one is looking for a... Read More »

Saturday, 15th May - Saturday, 5th June
@ SBW Stables Theatre

In an Oklahoman hotel room foreboding seediness, Agnes, a fortysomething diner waitress with a face sharp from years of masking misery with vodka and crack, trades the washed-out hospital green... Read More »

Monday, 5th July - Saturday, 31st July
@ CarriageWorks

Winterland is Sydney's coolest festival. Get it? Coolest? Winterland? Yep, awesome. There's just nothing like a good kitschy pun. Especially when said kitschy pun is accompanied by ice skating, mulled... Read More »

Thursday, 1st July - Sunday, 4th July
@ Drama Theatre, Opera House

Young Israeli-born, London-based choreographer/composer Hofesh Shechter has been hailed as a revolutionary "set to do for dance what the YBAs did for art". Critics were reaching for all manner of... Read More »

Wednesday, 14th July - Saturday, 7th August
@ New Theatre

Don't fret, despite what the name implies, New Directions is not a hippy camp; it's the New Theatre's annual mini-season dedicated to showcasing the best contemporary writing for the theatre.... Read More »

Tuesday, 6th July - Sunday, 1st August
@ Sydney Theatre

Tucked away in their scrappy summerhouse, the Tyrone family faces itself. Mary Tyrone (Robyn Nevin), an aged beauty long condemned to addiction after the troubled birth of her youngest son... Read More »

Friday, 6th August - Friday, 27th August
@ Wharf 2, Wharf Theatre

The STC Education program's presentation of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors is funny. Making the most of Shakespeare’s wit, director Charmian Gradwell, has the fresh-faced Residents (STC's resident company of young-ish... Read More »

Tuesday, 17th August - Saturday, 25th September
@ Sydney Theatre Company

The Steppenwolf Theatre Company is theatrical genius. Their production of company member Tracy Letts' pulitzer-prize winning play August: Osage County, is extraordinarily good. I mean, look at the set —... Read More »