On a sweltering day, 26 January, 1788, on a bluff high above Sydney Cove, seven Aboriginal men stand looking out to sea. Moored off-shore is a huge nowee (boat) … then there are two, then more. Who are these visitors? Where are they from? What do they want? Should they be turned away—by force—or welcomed to country?

S. Shakthidharan's extraordinary multilingual play (English, Tamil and Sinhalese) Counting and Cracking traverses countries and decades to bring us an epic tale of family, love and politics.

Vivian Bearing, Ph.D., a renowned specialist in the brilliantly difficult Holy Sonnets of John Donne, has been diagnosed with stage four metastatic ovarian cancer. But during the course of her illness – and her stint as a prize patient in an experimental chemotherapy programme – she comes to reassess her life and her work with profundity and an unbearably moving wry humour.

In an ordinary street, in an ordinary suburb, in an ordinary town, something is amiss. It's not the maths exam the teens are about to fail, or the overdue essay. It's not global warming or fast-fashion sweatshops. It's a low buzz of anxiety, a quiet terror in the middle of the night. Because girls have been going missing.

In the legendary rivalry between Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart, great forces are at play, with nations at stake and citizens ready to fight for the just cause. On the one hand there is principle and ideology; on the other, jealousy and pride. But there is also love. For who else could understand what torments a queen better than another queen?

Studying comes naturally to Sam, but Danny finds it more difficult. Linda thinks Jenny is wasting her time while Cathy regrets not working harder. And all the parents are anxious...

Twelve-year-old Celeste - 'half French, half Chinese and all Australian' - travels to China to scatter her mother's ashes. There she meets her grandmother, Por Por, a ghost-hunter. When Celeste learns she may have inherited her grandmother's talent, she must decide whether to acknowledge her gifts and use them to save her family and friends, and if she has the strength needed for the job.

Danny Fisher is coming of age at a time when Australia faces the threat of invasion. When his beloved brother Frank is killed in the bombing of Darwin, Danny's family is ripped apart. Ignored by grieving parents, the awkward Danny is left to fend for himself, and to try to fill the shoes left behind. Thrust headlong into the threat of war and the hope of love, Danny, like his city, is growing up fast.

Young courtier Shahrazad poses as a ‘Smuggle’ (a refugee) about to be executed by the despotic King Shahrayar. To save her life, she tells the king a story he can’t resist. It’s a tale of magic and transformation, demons and lovers, adventure and terror.

Daisy Moon—founder, president and so-far only member of the Batemans Bay Little Monsters Fan Club—is in a world of her own. She's the only girl she knows who hasn't got her period yet. She's the only one who can't afford tickets to see her idol Lady Gaga. She's the only one who feels like she doesn't belong. When the effortlessly cool Parker turns up and wants to join the Monsters fan club, Daisy's world is sent spinning into a strange and wondrous orbit.