Josie Alibrandi is in her final year of high school. Whip-smart and aspirational, she is a third-generation Italian teenager and scholarship kid, with the shadow of a family curse and a penchant for rule-breaking. Juggling grades, boys, and the claustrophobia of an overbearing Nonna and saintly mother, Josie’s life becomes tangled in the webs of class, identity, and family history as she finds her place in a changing world.
Iconic novel and cult movie, Looking for Alibrandi is the honest and empowered portrait of 1990s Mediterranean culture that spoke for the first time about systemic racism in Australia from a migrant perspective. It defined a generation and to this day resonates with those caught in the stranglehold of identity and othering in this country.
Award winning director Stephen Nicolazzo (Loaded, Merciless Gods) brought Melina Marchetta’s best-selling novel to the stage for the first time in 2022, where Vidya Rajan’s AWGIE nominated adaptation joined three generations of women in a passionate, heart wrenching, and unmissable rendering of the Australian classic. Now, it returns, with live passata sauce making, traditional Italian music and a soundtrack of Australian pop classics. Looking for Alibrandi is a vibrant theatrical experience full of passion, laughs and beauty.
★★★★1/2
A ridiculously enjoyable sunbeam of a production.
Arts Hub