Slingsby’s final major work, A Concise Compendium of Wonder, is set to premiere as part of Adelaide Festival 2026, and it’s designed as a theatrical experience audiences can step inside, rather than simply watch.
Currently playing at Plane Tree Lawn in the Adelaide Botanic Garden, the production invites audiences into an intimate, purpose-built timber theatre surrounded by nature, where three connected stories unfold across three distinct worlds. With performances scheduled across the Adelaide Festival season, audiences can attend a single show, return across multiple dates, or experience the full triptych cycle in one day, a chance to witness the company’s final work in the way it was designed to be seen.
The triptych, The Childhood of the World, The Giant’s Garden and The Tree of Light, blends storytelling, atmospheric sound, lighting and immersive staging to explore humanity’s relationship with the natural world across time.
The Childhood of the World, written by Jennifer Mills and inspired by Hansel and Gretel, follows siblings Ré and Crann as they are forced from their village during a time of famine and must navigate a mysterious forest to survive. By flickering candlelight, audiences are drawn into a world of cinematic sound, original music and striking lighting that evokes a time when the forest was our home. Bold design, mirrored surfaces, and inventive lighting transport audiences into a futuristic landscape before gently returning them to Earth.
The Giant’s Garden, Ursula Dubosarsky’s reimagining of The Selfish Giant, centres on a group of children and a vast tree claimed by a solitary giant, setting in motion a story of courage, care and environmental responsibility. Through shadow play and intricate stagecraft, the performance reveals miniature and monumental worlds colliding in unexpected ways.
The Tree of Light, by Ceridwen Dovey, leaps forward to the year 3099, where a young Moonfolk leader invites audiences into the hollow trunk of the last surviving tree on the Moon to hear a story that could guide humanity home. Mirrored surfaces, inventive lighting and theatrical illusion transport audiences into a futuristic landscape before gently returning them to Earth.
Each production stands alone, yet together they chart humanity’s shifting relationship with nature across more than two millennia, from forest living and rural communities to distant futures beyond Earth. Created for audiences aged 8 and above, the works combine wonder, reflection and hope, offering something equally compelling for families, theatre lovers and festivalgoers seeking a distinctive experience.
Audiences can choose to see one production, return over multiple weeks, or experience the full cycle in a single day. “Think of it as The Ring Cycle for families,” the creative team say. “We call it a Sling-Cycle.”
At the heart of the experience is The Wandering Hall of Possibility, a portable wooden theatre that transforms with each production. Designed as a regenerative, touring structure, it allows all three works to be performed by the same cast on a set that transforms with each new story, in an effort to reduce environmental footprint as well as creating a rather unique performance space. The name is a take on Slingsby’s home base in Parkside, Slingsby’s Hall of Possibility.
“The Wandering Hall of Possibility reconfigures across the three shows from in-the-round, to traverse, to end-on,” the creative team explains. “The internal walls contain 5,500 pixels and 17 inbuilt speakers plus lots of bespoke Slingsby magic — so we can surprise and delight audiences of all ages, everywhere.”
Premiering as part of Adelaide Festival, the monumental production captures the award-winning craft, imagination and spirit that have defined Slingsby from the very beginning, and marks the final chapter for one of South Australia’s most respected theatre companies after nearly two decades of work.
Along the way, Slingsby carved out an internationally recognised identity through creative risk-taking and a passion for immersive storytelling, evolving from a small South Australian outfit into a company whose productions have reached audiences around the world while remaining grounded in the same sense of wonder that defined its earliest shows.
That journey has unfolded within one of the country’s most competitive arts landscapes, where long-term sustainability often hinges on securing ongoing funding and resources. For Slingsby, the decision to close comes not from a lack of ideas, but from the realities of sustaining an independent theatre company over time.
Andy Packer, Slingsby co-founder, Artistic Director and CEO explains the company has spent much of the past decade working to regain multi-year federal support after it was lost in 2016, a challenge faced by dozens of Australian arts organisations. “It’s really about the amount of time that we need to spend as a company chasing resources,” he says. “After 10 years of doing that, we’ve decided there are better ways to spend our days.”
Despite the frustrations, the decision is a deliberate and positive one. “There is frustration about that, but there’s also great pride that we are choosing not to complain… but really take a positive step and take control of our own destiny,” Packer says.
Packer describes this final project as both a culmination and the perfect goodbye. “It’s a beautiful farewell and it’s also the perfect bookend to the company’s creative work,” he says.
For Packer, the work is also a reflection on Slingsby’s global legacy and the lasting creative influence it has had on both audiences and artists.
“I think I’m most proud of the creative consistency that the team of South Australian artists have worked so well together to establish something that’s so identifiably us. When people come to see a Slingsby show, they’ll be moved and it’ll be a beautiful experience that they’ll remember.”
That impact, he says, extends beyond the stage, helping spark passion and creative pathways for the next generation of performers and theatre-makers.
“We have artists like Ren Williams, who saw our work as a Year 10 student, and now is one of the three cast members of this triptych work.” Williams is a performer and co-creator on A Concise Compendium of Wonder.
For longtime audiences, it’s a final opportunity to experience the company’s signature showing of imagination, intimacy and pure craft. For new audiences, it’s a rare chance to discover the work that has made Slingsby one of Australia’s most distinctive theatre voices, before the curtain falls for the last time.
A Concise Compendium of Wonder – Adelaide Festival 2026
When: 18 February – 15 March
Venue: The Wandering Hall of Possibility, Plane Tree Lawn, Adelaide Botanic Garden
For more info and tickets, click here.
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