Summer of the 17th Doll

The play that put Australian theatre on the global stage is back, bigger and bolder than ever. A beautifully observed, humorous and poignant tale of two Queensland cane-cutters who, for sixteen years, have worked up north in the brutal sugar canefields and travelled back to Melbourne to meet up with their barmaid girlfriends, for five months of partying and romance. But this seventeenth summer is different for all the wrong reasons.

A triumph at its 1955 Melbourne premiere, this 2020 production celebrates the 65th anniversary of this iconic play, and is directed by AACTA Award-winning Denny Lawrence (Always...Patsy Kline, Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine, My Brilliant Divorce).

"A story of love, heartache, hope and loss, Ray Lawler’s Summer of the Seventeenth Doll remains one of the theatrical canon’s most moving explorations of the fading of youth and dreams." - artsreview.com.au