Picnic at Hanging Rock

Our most beguiling modern myth, boldly reimagined

Five modern teenage girls recount a story burnt into the Australian psyche. In Tom Wright’s lyrical and daring adaptation, Joan Lindsay’s hypnotic classic becomes a form-shattering mix of storytelling, gossip, and reenactment. Seen through the eyes of STC Resident Director Ian Michael (Stolen, Constellations), “the most exciting new director of this generation” (Limelight), Picnic at Hanging Rock promises an inventive and dreamlike theatre experience like no other.

St Valentine’s Day, 1900. In the summertime heat of the Victorian Highlands, four schoolgirls sneak away from their excursion to climb the imposing monolith of Hanging Rock, pulled higher and higher by a mysterious force. All but one disappears without a trace.

With a cast featuring some of this country’s finest young performers including Olivia De Jonge (Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis), Kirsty Marillier (Home, I’m Darling), Lorinda May Merrypor (& Juliet), Masego Pitso (Is God Is), and Contessa Treffone (On the Beach), this critically-lauded adaptation brings an archetypal mystery into the twenty-first century while preserving the chilling enigma at its heart.

Eerily beautiful, Picnic at Hanging Rock cracks wide open one of the most famous fables of contemporary Australia to create a heart-stopping and thoroughly contemporary investigation of innocence, cultural clash, and the enduring power of the wilderness. 

A play by Tom Wright

Adapted from the novel by Joan Lindsay

Directed by Ian Michael

Approx. duration 85 mins (no interval). Subject to change.

Content Theatrical haze and complete black outs. Subject to change