Celebrating 20 years of Steamworks Arts we are thrilled to be bringing back to the stage our inaugural award winning smash hit production Savage Grace. With the original creative team we revisit this powerful classic Australian play by Alana Valentine, one of Australia's most esteemed playwrights.

Savage Grace is the story of Dr Tex Cladakis, an American HIV specialist, who meets bioethics professor Robert Bavaro. They clash over ethical issues, but despite or perhaps because of this, a passionate sexual affair develops between them. As Cladakis considers assisting the suicide of one of his terminally ill patients, the moral ground shifts and stakes escalate, threatening their personal beliefs and the trust and love that is growing between them.

This play is a ground-breaking work and a timely provocation given our current climate. Alana has written a contemporary update to the original work, with both characters now experiencing a 'new' pandemic in COVID-19, as they look back twenty years reflecting on love, loss, and their experience of the HIV-Aids pandemic that changed their lives forever.

‍…If you've ever wondered why some people get excited by theatre, it's time for you to head out and see Savage Grace and experience it for yourself. Savage Grace is everything that good theatre should be; educational, entertaining, emotive, edgy, confronting, compassionate and thought provoking, without ever crossing the line into preaching... Savage Grace is a beautiful piece of work in every regard, from scripting to set, sound and production design, although the lion's share of praise will ultimately lie at the feet of Bowers and Nolte. Savage Grace is probably one of the most powerful pieces of theatre performed in Perth - if you haven't been to the theatre this year, now is the time (Sabian Wilde, X-Press)

...A brave, searching play, Bower and Nolte do a superb job...Directed with simplicity and precision, this is a powerful and deeply affecting piece…(Melbourne Times)‍

...Economical and intelligent direction by Sally Richardson make this a compelling piece of theatre…(Kate Herbert, Herald Sun)