An early role as Lady Macbeth while touring with The Grin and Tonic Theatre Troupe laid the groundwork decades ago for Roxanne McDonald’s upcoming star turn at La Boite in 2025.
One of the treats next year promises to be a production of Shakespeare classic Macbeth, co-directed by La Boite’s artistic director Courtney Stewart and Polytoxic’s Lisa Fa’alafi.
This production will focus on the witches and McDonald will play one of them and several other roles, although she hasn’t sighted the script yet.
“I have done a few Shakespeare plays before,” McDonald says. “And I did play Lady Macbeth touring with Bryan Nason and Grin and Tonic. It was just one scene, the ‘out damn spot’ bit. That was way back in the 1990s when I started out in theatre.”
McDonald is a respected indigenous artist, descended from the Mandandanji (Roma area), Wangan (Clermont area) and Darumbal (Rockahmpton) peoples. She also has Scottish heritage on both her maternal and paternal side, which may help.
She has spent the past two years touring nationally in a production of Wesley Enoch’s classic The Sunshine Club, but that tour has now concluded so she’s ready for Macbeth at La Boite in March 2025.
The season program notes promise a new take on what is known, for superstitious reasons, as The Scottish Play:
“The prophets who once hailed Macbeth, foretelling his rise to power, have lingered in the shadows for too long. Now, the Weird Sisters step out from the wings and take centre stage.
“In this reimagining of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the witches – whose cryptic prophecies drive Macbeth to murder, madness and ruin – become the focus. Their deep spiritual and philosophical connection to the Earth reveals a world groaning under the weight of human ambition. Through their eyes, we see not just Macbeth’s bloody climb to the throne, but the profound consequences of our insatiable desire for power.
“The Weird Sisters are no longer mere bystanders. They embody the forces of nature itself, their voices intertwined with the Earth’s cries for balance and need for healing. Blending dance, movement, text and sound, this hybrid performance explores the interconnectedness of all things – reminding us that every action we take ripples through the natural world.”
One of our most respected theatre identities, Sue Rider, former artistic director of La Boite, serves as dramaturg on this production, which will open on International Women’s Day.
It’s a promising start to 2025 for La Boite and season 2025 looks like one of its best for some years. The company celebrates its 100th birthday in 2025 with a daring program of reimagined classics, cross-genre productions, powerful performances and striking cultural contributions.
La Boite’s four major productions are: the spirited adaptation of Macbeth; the world premiere of Dead Puppet Society’s We’re All Gonna Die!; the world premiere of Congratulations, Get Rich!, co-presented with Sydney Theatre Company and Singapore Repertory Theatre; and the Queensland premiere of a Griffin Theatre production, WhiteFella Yella Tree.
Complementing the mainstage program is La Boite Encores, a three-month play-reading series that brings to life 10 celebrated hits and fan favourites from the company’s 100-year-old archive.
La Boite artistic director Courtney Stewart says it is a privilege to steer the company into its centennial year.
“The dual themes of legacy and longevity were front of mind even before I was appointed as La Boite’s artistic director, a position that has been filled over the past 100 years by luminaries and legends of Australian theatre,” Stewart says. “I keep returning to a quote I read in Christine Comans’ book, La Boite: The Story of an Australian Theatre Company, which recounted the ethos on which the company was founded.
“It was about ‘presenting serious drama and aspiring to cultural awareness, social improvement, discussing moral and spiritual values and collective responsibility’ and it’s become a guiding light. It’s what La Boite’s founders were trying to do 100 years ago and it’s what we’re still striving to achieve. How do we set ourselves up for another century of legacy?”
The next 100 years begins with a Shakespearean subversion: a retelling of the 400-year-old Macbeth (March 6-22) where the three witches reclaim the narrative.
We’re All Gonna Die! (July 29 to August 16) by Maddie Nixon is a high-octane, premiere work from Brisbane-based, globally renowned darlings Dead Puppet Society, collaborating with La Boite for the first time since the 2017 smash-hit, Laser Beak Man.
Part climate change play, part schlock horror, part live comic book, We’re All Gonna Die! is an enjoyable romp about monsters, real and metaphorical. The provocative production features an Australian all-star cast including La Boite stalwarts Anthony Standish and Ngoc Phan.
Making its world premiere in September is Congratulations, Get Rich! (September 4-20), a major international collaboration created by Merlynn Tong and directed by Courtney Stewart. The explosive ghost story is set in a karaoke bar with a thematic playlist that spans transformation, legacy, family, hope, traditions, laugh-out-loud comedy and the ecstasy of being alive.
The new Asian-Australian work stars Tong alongside Singapore’s Seong Hui Xuan, Zachary Boulton and Kimie Tsukakoshi, returning to La Boite’s stage after her critically acclaimed performance in 2023’s The Poison of Polygamy. Congratulations, Get Rich!. will tour Sydney and Singapore after its debut in Brisbane.
La Boite’s final mainstage production for 2025 is a sweeping 19th-century coming-of-age saga about love, mob and Country, WhiteFella Yella Tree (October 23 to November 8). It chronicles the fragile friendship that blossoms into love between Ty and Neddy, two First Nations teenagers poised on the brink of a world that is about to change forever.
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The heartwarming and heartbreaking queer love story was written by Dylan Van Den Berg and La Boite is proud to host its Queensland premiere season.
La Boite’s 2025 season is the first to benefit from its inclusion in Creative Australia’s National Performing Arts Partnership Framework. The framework provides joint, multi-year investment from state and federal governments and recognises La Boite as Queensland’s seventh major arts organisation alongside Queensland Ballet, Opera Queensland, Queensland Theatre, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Circa and Dancenorth Australia.
Stewart says La Boite’s entry into the framework is a testament to the company’s significant contribution to Queensland’s arts sector and influential position within the national arts and cultural ecology.
laboite.com.au
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