Talks & Events

A DEEP DIVE INTO JULIUS CAESAR

Since it was first performed, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar has been hailed as a gripping exploration of power, rhetoric and politics, and remained relentlessly relevant. Join us for this special lecture series where Australian academics delve into the play and its history, and unpack what Shakespeare’s political masterpiece tells us about our past, present and future.

SYDNEY
Thursday 19 February, 2026, 6:30pm
The Seed, Pier 2/3

With Associate Professor Huw Griffiths from The University of Sydney, an expert in sixteenth and seventeenth-century English literature and culture, with a focus on Shakespearean drama.

MELBOURNE
Thursday 19 March, 2026, 6:30pm
The University of Melbourne

With Professor David McInnis, Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama at The University of Melbourne, co-editor of Shakespeare Quarterly and currently editing Timon of Athens for the Arden Shakespeare 4th series.

CANBERRA
Thursday 26 March, 2026, 6:30pm
Venue to be announced

With Dr Kate Flaherty from Australian National University, Senior Lecturer in English and Drama. Dr Flaherty is interested in the relationship between performed drama and public culture using Shakespeare as an expansive test case.

MoreMore

Tickets to 2026 talks and events are exclusively available as part of a 2026 Season Package. Single tickets will be available from 6 November 2025.
 

AMBITION AND THE AFTERMATH

Power-hungry politicians, scheming masterminds and pursuers of greatness – Shakespeare’s characters are no strangers to ambition. But what happens once they achieve their goal Shakespeare seems just as interested in the aftermath as the pursuit, giving his characters plenty of space to reflect on the ultimate question: was it all worth it?

Does ambition always lead to ruin, or can it be a force for good? Join host Head of Education Joanna Erskine and a panel of experts for this riveting conversation series about ambition in
Shakespeare’s plays and in our contemporary world.

SYDNEY
Thursday 14 May, 2026, 6:30pm
The Seed, Pier 2/3

MELBOURNE
Thursday 2 July, 2026, 6:30pm
The University of Melbourne

MoreMore

Tickets to 2026 talks and events are exclusively available as part of a 2026 Season Package. Single tickets will be available from 6 November 2025.
 

SONNETS & SEMILLON

Thursday 20 August, 2026, 6:30pm
The Seed, Pier 2/3

Bell Shakespeare’s popular annual evening of performance paired with curated tastings of selected Tyrrell’s Wines. A delicious selection of wines hand-picked by fifth-generation winemaker
and CEO of Tyrrell’s Wines, Chris Tyrrell, will be paired with some of our favourite excerpts and sonnets, performed by Bell Shakespeare artists. 

This event is strictly for those over the age of 18

Presented in proud partnership with Tyrrell’s Wines. 

MoreMore

Tickets to 2026 talks and events are exclusively available as part of a 2026 Season Package. Single tickets will be available from 6 November 2025.
 

PLAY IN A DAY

Bell Shakespeare’s lively script reading series celebrating rarely read classics continues in 2026. 

Actors and director have one day together as an ensemble before standing script-in-hand in front of an audience, the bare-bones reading allowing the words to take the stage.

HENRY VI PART 2 BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The war with France is over, and to secure the peace, the naïve young King Henry VI marries the French noblewoman Margaret. But the infighting starts almost immediately. Accusations of witchcraft, treason and fake miracles fly around the court, and it doesn’t take long before the faction of Richard, Duke of York, is in open revolt. 

Shakespeare made his name with this actionpacked history play. It features the earliest skirmishes of the Wars of the Roses, the thuggish uprising of Jack Cade (who gets rid of anyone who can read and write), and the emergence of a young Richard Plantagenet, who will one day become the infamous Richard III.

SYDNEY
Tuesday 15 September, 2026, 6:30pm
The Neilson Nutshell

VOLPONE, OR, THE FOX BY BEN JONSON

First performed at the Globe Theatre in early 1606, perhaps just weeks before the premiere of Macbeth, Ben Jonson’s timeless satire Volpone explores the insatiable desire for advancement and power through riches. Volpone is a beast fable, in which every character is named for an animal whose traits they embody. It tells the story of a cunning ‘fox’ who accumulates ever more wealth by pretending to be on his deathbed and starting a bidding war amongst visitors hoping to be named in his will. To what lengths will gullible Venetians go for the chance to be named Volpone’s heir? Will the greedy Volpone’s vaulting ambition pay off in the end? And who will get what they deserve in the corrupt city-state of Venice?

MELBOURNE
Wednesday 18 November, 6:30pm
The University of Melbourne

MoreMore

Tickets to 2026 talks and events are exclusively available as part of a 2026 Season Package. Single tickets will be available from 6 November 2025.