Mission
Malthouse Theatre is dedicated to leadership in the nation’s cultural and
imaginative life through recognising, and being alive to, the changing dynamics
of theatre and theatre practice in contest with the contemporary imagination.

Vision
Malthouse Theatre is a company dedicated to the development, production, and
promotion of contemporary Australian theatre. Our task in theatre is to engage
broadly and investigate profoundly what it is to be alive, to be human, to be
Australian, and to be a citizen of the world. Of necessity, this task extends to
provoking the living entity of theatre itself.

We undertake these challenges as an offering to the past, a witnessing of the
present, and a manifestation of our hopes and fears for the future.

Further to this we believe:

	Theatre is a collaborative act. The communion between writer, director, designer, composer, and performer must be enshrined in our working practice - theatre is apprehended through all of the senses.
	Theatre is contradictory. Theatre can amuse, shock, clarify, confuse, seduce and horrify - simultaneously.
	Theatre is dangerous. It reveals what is yet to be understood (and that which we have been too afraid to acknowledge).
	Theatre is alchemical. It drives us into the farthest reaches of the imagination, transforming what we know and who we imagine ourselves to be.
	Theatre is inherently and profoundly sexual.
	Theatre is of itself political and binds us into all history.
	Theatre makers must not beg permission to blaspheme in order to squarely face the contemporary.

A new look at what’s Australian and what’s contemporary

We focus ourselves on the creation of new work, regularly commissioning
from conception, as well as developing projects already at an early or more
advanced stage of being. By ‘contemporary Australian theatre’ we also refer
to major re-investigations of classic work, such as Wesley Enoch’s bold
retelling of the Medea story and Michael Kantor’s acclaimed production of The
Odyssey, and Tom Wright and Michael Kantor’s theatrical response to Dafoe’s
early novel, A Journal of the Plague Year. We also include re-appraisals of the
Australian and international repertoire such as Michael Kantor’s production of
Patrick White’s 1949 play, The Ham Funeral, and the presentation of the best
new Australian and international theatre, stretching from the wonderful David
Page in his autobiographical work Page Eight, to the dystopic epic grandeur of
Benedict Andrews’ production of Eldorado by German playwright Marius Von
Mayenburg’s.

A new look at what constitutes theatre

Malthouse Theatre aims to explode the narrow definition of theatre as
narratively determined prewritten plays. It programs on its stages a broad
spectrum of theatrical activity that places its emphasis on the performer and
the audience experience, often drawing techniques from many disciplines
including dance, opera, stand-up comedy, cabaret and the visual arts.
To this end, our recent seasons have included the extraordinary talents of
Paul Capsis in Boulevard Delirium, the brave physical theatre of Headlock,
and the combined satirical skills of Max Gillies and Eddie Perfect in The Big Con
and Babes in the Wood.

When the great Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev met Jean Cocteau in the
1920s, he asked of him only one thing, in two words – "Astonish me!"

Malthouse Theatre hopes to astonish audiences over the coming months, and
years, as it offers an ever-evolving array of theatrical experiences – a theatre
of the senses.