Arts editor HELEN MUSA reports on a play that opens a door on Jane Austen. It ‘s this weeks “Arts in the City” column. 

CANBERRA’S love affair with Jane Austen will continue when eight actors from Salt House Creative take to the stage using just a door as a prop, to present “Sense & Sensibility”, as written by playwright, film director and Jane Austen Literacy Foundation ambassador, Daniel Widdowson. At Canberra Pulp Book Cafe, Nicholls, October 9, before travelling to the Melbourne Fringe. 

STATE Opera SA has announced Brisbane-born conductor Dane Lam as its new artistic director. Lam already has an international career behind him but also strong connections with Canberra, having conducted “Fire & Shadow” this year with the CSO and in 2021 held the baton for National Opera’s “La Clemenza di Tito”.

“THE hot-blooded guys from the Vision String Quartet”, Florian Willeitner, Daniel Stoll, Leonard Disselhorst and Sander Stuart, from Berlin, will play Bartók’s “String Quartet No.4”, “Dvořák ‘s String Quartet No.13” and Bloch’s “Prelude”. Llewellyn Hall, October 5.

THE new “What The Film” Festival has been founded by a group of Canberra independent filmmakers who wanted to create a “not-for-profit, fair and transparent film festival”. Films have been entered in the categories. At the Film & Sound Archive, October 7.

SUZIE Miller will discuss her career and the themes of her debut novel “Prima Facie”, drawn from her already famous one-woman play of the same name, at The Street Theatre, October 4. 

“TRAVELLING with Clouds – Yun You” is the theme of this year’s annual concert by the ANU’s Chinese Classical Music Ensemble. At Cook Community Hub, October 1. Inquiries to 0417 041148. 

REBUS Theatre is bringing back its hilarious original theatre show about the mental health system, “Systems and Sanity”, for an online streaming season for Mental Health Month. At rebustheatre.com October 3-31.