COVID-19 has had a devastating effect on live performance worldwide. Though digital technologies have made a world of entertainment accessible, they cannot replace the experience of seeing a show live.
There is magic and possibility when people gather to be entertained, challenged, moved, transported or uplifted by a story told in real time, through sound and movement. By its very nature, live performance is ephemeral. But its impact can be long-lasting.

On Stage shines a spotlight on Australia’s performing arts history, through the National Library’s extensive performing arts collections, and looks forward to the return of better days.
Selected themes
Exhibition highlights

Houston Rogers, Portrait of Sir Robert Helpmann as Oberon, nla.obj-136330433

Martin Philbey, Audience at the Falls Music and Arts Festival, Lorne, Victoria, 2007, nla.obj-147950306

George Hughes (Government Printer), Playbill for a performance of Jane Shore, The Wapping Landlady and The Miraculous Cure at the Theatre, Sydney 30 July 1796, nla.obj-1419486 – the earliest surviving document printed in Australia.

Kenneth Rowell, Adelaide Festival of Arts: 6–28 March 1970, nla.obj-133748736, Courtesy Victoria Rowell

Portrait of Winifred Atwell, London: Rimis, between 1950 and 1970, nla.obj-144625849

Cole Bros. Circus: The Great Con Colleano “World’s Greatest Wire Artist” Performing Forward and Backward Somersaults on the Wire, USA: Cole Bros. Circus, 1945, nla.obj-136767748

The Bushwhackers at the Smith Family Event, Sydney Showground c.1955, nla.obj-147277128

Kristian Fredrikson (1940–2005), Costume Design for the Character of the Duke for Melbourne Theatre Company’s Production of The Revenger’s Tragedy, 1975, nla.obj-509653896

Theatre Royal, Sydney, King St. Entrance in 1882, nla.obj-137238900

Daniel James Boud, Ange Sullivan, Head of Lighting, Preparing a Ghost Light at the Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House, 2020, nla.obj-2976573618, Courtesy Daniel James Boud