Qtopia 2025 Loading Dock Season
Qtopia Sydney has just announced their 2025 theatre lineup for the Loading Dock Theatre, and it’s a stunning catalogue. Gay Sydney Australia got to sit down with artistic director Carly Fisher to dive into the program, and more on what Qtopia represents in Sydney’s queer scene. Take a look.
The inaugural season of the Loading Dock Theatre exceeded expectations, with nearly 400 artists engaging 9,000 audience members. How has this success shaped the vision for the 2025 season?
One of the most exciting outcomes for us was seeing how proud and energised the artists were about performing in this space. We didn’t just open another black-box theatre in Sydney; we created a venue located in the heart of a community centre, in a building that has historically stifled the voices of many queer people. Now, it stands as a space to proudly tell rich and vibrant queer stories.
Another critical takeaway has been understanding what our audiences love—not just the broader LGBTQIA+ community, but also the local Darlinghurst neighbourhood. With the closure of the Eternity Playhouse, there was a clear gap for a vibrant, active theatre space in the area.
For a new theatre, we’ve been incredibly busy, with barely a night off this year. Seeing the community embrace this venue with open arms and hearts has been deeply rewarding.
As a result, the 2025 season is packed with uplifting tales—stories about love in all its forms, unexpected relationships, and the beauty of chosen family. People love happy endings, and we’re committed to bringing as many of those as possible to the stage.
That said, we’re not sanitising the queer experience. We still present hard-hitting stories, but we’re equally proud to provide a space where people come to celebrate who they are and who they love.
Remembering the history of our community is the cornerstone of Qtopia Sydney’s mission, but we also exist to tell stories of the future. We’re proud to see this stage become a beacon for positive storytelling, which was the driving force behind creating a festival like Pride Fest.
This year, Pride Fest featured 52 performances over 30 days, and we’re planning an even bigger festival next year. While I’m proud of everything we’ve achieved this year, Pride Fest remains a personal highlight.
The 2025 season boasts a mix of world premieres, Australian debuts, and celebrated queer theatre. What was the curatorial process like for selecting such a diverse and dynamic programme?
As a hire venue, we don’t produce the shows ourselves, and we maintain an open-access policy where anyone can submit a proposal. This is particularly important to me because there are limited opportunities for small-to-mid-sized production companies and early-to-mid-career artists.
This policy ensures that even if it’s your first-ever show, if it’s the right fit for the theatre, we’ll give you that chance.
We have an incredible advisory panel that reviews pitches from shortlisted productions. We meet with every creative team to understand their vision and ensure the project aligns with our ethos. After the panel provides feedback, we map out the calendar to ensure a balance of genres, moods, and stories throughout the year.
Our programming is designed to take audiences on a rollercoaster of experiences. For example, during Mardi Gras, we focus on celebratory and uplifting stories to match the festive mood. Similarly, Fringe Festival Queer Hub, now in its second year, is a cornerstone of our programming.
Globally, I’ve only found six theatres, including ours, that operate as dedicated queer stages. While our productions don’t necessarily require a queer storyline, we ensure that the creative teams predominantly represent the LGBTQIA+ community and allies.
It’s a privilege to have this space in Sydney—a true cultural asset—and we’re proud to champion intersectional stories. For instance, Chasing Dick by TayoTayo Collective, a neo-Filipino-Australian creative team, will run during Mardi Gras, and Fekei by Sour Cherries, Sarah Carroll’s new work highlighting Pacifika stories, will debut in October.
The Mardi Gras season is a significant highlight, with shows running every night at two venues. How does this collaboration reflect the theatre’s commitment to celebrating the queer community?
Everything we do centres around celebrating our community and ensuring queer stories are no longer sidelined. Our partnership with Mardi Gras exemplifies this commitment. Beyond traditional participation, like floats and Fair Day, we’re collaborating on a new exhibition that showcases the artistry and history behind Mardi Gras costuming.
Our venues’ connection to Mardi Gras runs deep. The roots of this festival trace back to the 78ers, who quite literally ended up at our building, and we honour that shared history by continuing to tell those stories.
This year’s Mardi Gras season includes an array of events: cabaret, comedy, drag murder mysteries, and late-night shows like Sauna Boy. We hope these performances encourage audiences to stay, explore Oxford Street, and support local queer businesses.
Accessibility is a priority for us, both in pricing and in fostering partnerships with over 35 local businesses through our membership programme.
We are also collaborating with other queer organisations to amplify their voices and celebrate their milestones through exhibitions. For example, our Crime to Freedom exhibition honours the fight for equality, from decriminalisation to marriage equality, serving as both a celebration and a memorial.
You noted that the Loading Dock Theatre has become a space where artists feel empowered to take risks. Can you share specific examples from the upcoming season that exemplify this ethos?
In the past, simply sharing your story could feel risky. Thanks to the efforts of trailblazers before us, this theatre now normalises safe spaces where artists can tell their stories with courage and pride.
A standout example is Saints of Damour, a Lebanese-Australian migrant story debuting this season. This production exemplifies the ethos of inclusivity and risk-taking that defines the Loading Dock Theatre.
Where do you see Qtopia sitting in the ‘Oxford St Ecosystem’, and more broadly in the queer scene across Sydney?
Our location has everything to do with it. For example, the Substation was sitting idle for over 30 years, and now with Qtopia occupying that space we get to tell the stories the bricks have been hearing all this time.
The whole benefit of being where we are is that we can support each other as businesses. We really hope that you go to one of the bars or restaurants on Oxford St after seeing one of these shows, because it drives more nightlife into the strip.
We’ve always had all the venue’s support here on Oxford Street, and therefore we see it as our responsibility to maintain those relationships and also give back as much as we can.
It’s great to celebrate queer culture, but it’s also so important to know why we celebrate and where these celebrations are born from. We are the infants in this space, standing on the shoulders of giants, and we want to tell the stories of the people that have been here for a long time fighting for where we are now. Supporting these venues & organisations is foundationally important to us.
With events like Pride Fest and the return of the Sydney Fringe Festival Queer Hub, how does Qtopia plan to deepen its connection with the broader LGBTQIA+ and ally communities in 2025?
We’re committed to fostering an inclusive ecosystem by celebrating and preserving queer stories, supporting local businesses, and ensuring accessibility.
I was talking to one of our volunteers in Pride this year, who had been helping out for 14 nights in a row at this point. I had to ask him first of all how he was doing it, and also why- and he said “because for 30 years, I have hoped and wished that a place like this would open. Now that it has, it is my responsibility to protect our home.”
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