CANBERRA Theatre director Alex Budd was running out of fingers as he tried  to remember how many productions there would be in the 2022 theatre season, but he thought it might be 29.

Of  those, he said,  there’d be 12 new ones and at least 17 which had been on the slate from before covid hit.

Budd was speaking at the official launch of the 2022 season, held in the big theatre this evening (March 7),  a bit later than usual because of covid interruptions.

Without doubt the jewel in his crown is the Bob Dylan musical, “Girl From The North Country“, starring Lisa McCune, Zahra Newman, Terence Crawford, Helen Dallimore and Peter Carroll, coming to Canberra Theatre in August.

Budd, who has had had a rough time of it since taking up the directorship immediately before covid struck in 2020, is determined to make his mark by bringing in the big shows such as the Dylan musical and the pop musical about Henry VIII’s wives,  “Six the Musical”,  but also to reboot The Courtyard Studio which, instead of being a quiet hidden gem, he wanted to become “loud”.

To that end, he’s programmed in star Canberra playwright Dylan Van den Berg’s new play, “Whitefella Yella Tree”, directed by Griffin Theatre Company’s Declan Greene, which will transfer here directly from Sydney and has an understanding with Canberra Youth theatre to do its shows there.

The hilarious musical “Urinetown”,  will be presented by a new local theatre company, Heart Strings, directed by Ylaria Rogers.

With frequent side references to the likely advent of a new, bigger theatre for Canberra, Budd had earlier outlined to “CityNews” some of the highlights, such as the return of the Reconciliation Day Eve concert, this year featuring the extraordinary Christine Anu and the engagement cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who performed at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle who, joined by his family of musicians, will play  works by Schubert, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Shostakovich and Gershwin.

To him, a real phenomenon in Canberra is the love of contemporary dance – good box office, too, with Bangarra (back with “Terrain”) regularly selling out, and the return of the Australian Dance Theatre with “Savage,” a new work by its new artistic director, Canberra-trained Daniel Riley.

The new variant of The Wharf Revue, billed as “the antidote to everything,”  performed by Jonathan Biggins, Mandy Bishop, Drew Forsythe and Phil Scott, will be back in October and November.

As well, we’ll be seeing and QL2’s annual blockbuster and  Australasian Dance Collective, a re-booting of  Expressions Dance Theatre, with “Three”, a triple bill feasting the work of choreographers Jack Lister, Hofesh Shechter and Melanie Lane.

Australian circus company Gravity & Other Myths will make its debut in Canberra with “Backbone”. Regulars Bell Shakespeare will be here with “Hamlet” and “The Comedy of Errors”, while Sydney Theatre Company will be back with satire, “White Pearl” and “Chalkface”, a new Australian comedy  by Angela Betzien.

And for the kids, there’ll be Erth’s “Prehistoric World”, The Beanies in  their “Egg-straordinary Day”, Roald Dahl’s “The Twits” and Brisbane company Shake & Stir is bringing its new production based on Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre”.

All this Budd says, is just the tip of the iceberg.

Canberra Theatre 2022 subscription season, all details here.