Stella: A New Australian Musical, featuring the story of Australian literary icon Miles Franklin, premieres at Monash University’s Alexander Theatre in June with composer Monique diMattina and director Julia Robertson leading the production.
by Paul Cashmere
The world premiere of Stella: A New Australian Musical will open at Monash University’s Alexander Theatre in Clayton from 12 to 20 June 2026, bringing the life of Australian literary figure Stella Miles Franklin to the stage in a new multi-genre production. The show revisits Franklin’s journey from 1890s Snowy Mountains beginnings to her lasting cultural legacy, unfolding through a cast of five performers and seven live musicians.
The production arrives after seven years of development and is positioned as a major new Australian musical theatre work, drawing directly from Franklin’s writing, letters and diaries while reframing her beyond the legacy of her 1901 novel My Brilliant Career and the literary prizes that bear her name.
The significance of Stella lies in its attempt to reposition Miles Franklin as a lived, complex figure rather than a symbolic literary reference point. While Franklin remains widely recognised through the Miles Franklin Award and The Stella Prize, her personal history, marked by poverty, gender barriers, wartime upheaval and artistic persistence, has remained less visible in public storytelling.
The musical’s creative team argues that her voice, sharp, witty and observational, is central to understanding both her writing and her place in Australian cultural history. By embedding Franklin’s own language into the libretto, the production aims to bridge historical biography and contemporary musical theatre.
Developed over seven years, Stella: A New Australian Musical is written, composed and lyrically shaped by Monique diMattina, with musical direction by Vicky Jacobs and direction by Julia Robertson. The production design team includes Nick Fry (set), Isla Shaw (costume), David Letch (sound) and Sidney Younger (lighting).
DiMattina describes Franklin as a long-term creative companion, drawing from an extensive archive of novels, plays, letters and diary entries.
“There is so much inspiration, pride and joy for us in Stella’s story, yet most people know nothing about Stella’s life,” diMattina said. “Stella Miles Franklin left us so much in her extraordinary body of work – novels, plays and thousands of personal letters and diary entries.”
She also notes the tonal complexity of Franklin’s voice as a key driver of the musical’s structure. “She is witty, courageous, loveable and edgy,” she said.
Director Julia Robertson frames the production as both artistic interpretation and historical responsibility. “It is both a privilege and a responsibility to help bring to life the lesser-known story of Miles Franklin,” Robertson said. “My hope is that audiences will encounter Miles Franklin anew, not just as a name attached to a prestigious literary prize, but as a woman of profound complexity and courage.”
The production adopts a deliberately resource-driven staging concept in line with Franklin’s own ethos. A five-person cast remains on stage throughout, performing multiple roles through rapid character and costume shifts, supported by seven live musicians integrated into the performance space rather than positioned in a traditional pit.
Miles Franklin occupies a unique position in Australian literary history. Born in 1879 in the Snowy Mountains region of New South Wales, she gained early recognition for My Brilliant Career, published when she was just 21. The novel’s depiction of a young woman resisting domestic expectations resonated strongly, though Franklin later withdrew from public literary life for periods, working in the United States and Europe under pseudonyms.
Her broader legacy includes not only her fiction but her substantial correspondence and advocacy for Australian writing. The Miles Franklin Award, established through her will, remains one of the country’s most significant literary honours, reinforcing her long-term impact on national storytelling.
In recent decades, reinterpretations of Franklin’s life have increasingly focused on the tension between her public legacy and her private experiences, particularly the constraints placed on women writers in the early 20th century. STELLA aligns with that broader cultural reassessment, placing her biography within a contemporary theatrical frame.
While the production has been developed with strong creative intent and institutional support, its success will ultimately depend on how audiences respond to its hybrid structure of biography, musical theatre and historical adaptation. Franklin’s life has been previously explored in literary criticism and screen development discussions, meaning expectations around fidelity and interpretation may vary among audiences familiar with her work.
There is also the broader question of how Australian musical theatre continues to balance experimental form with commercial viability. Multi-genre scoring, from folk and bush ballads through to punk rock, salsa and neo-classical elements, signals ambition but also presents a structural challenge in maintaining tonal cohesion across a single narrative arc.
With its world premiere scheduled for June 2026, Stella: A New Australian Musical positions itself as both a reinterpretation of Miles Franklin’s legacy and an expansion of contemporary Australian musical theatre language. The production’s inclusion in the VCE Theatre Studies curriculum further embeds it within educational and cultural frameworks, suggesting an audience that extends beyond theatre-goers to students engaging with Franklin’s legacy for the first time.
As rehearsals continue and casting is finalised, the production is set to test how Australian history, literature and music theatre can intersect on stage in a single, integrated work.
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