Theatre
The championship cast and creative team ready to bring Suzie Miller’s new play to life.
Geelong Arts Centre will host the Victorian exclusive season of Strong is the New Pretty from 8 to 11 October, as Suzie Miller’s world premiere production arrives on stage following its Brisbane debut. Framed as a work written in mud, sweat and belief, the new play reimagines the birth of the AFLW not as a linear sporting success story, but as a cultural revolution shaped by persistence, institutional negotiation and collective resolve.
This World Premiere Season will take to the road for a 2026 national tour, with Geelong positioned as the only Victorian stop. That exclusivity gives the October season particular weight, placing local audiences at the centre of a story that has reshaped Australia’s sporting and cultural identity within a single generation. It is a work that insists on scale while remaining grounded in the specifics of how change is actually made.
Miller, the celebrated Australian playwright behind Prima Facie, Inter Alia and RBG: Of Many, One, turns her attention to the seven-year journey that transformed an official recommendation into a national league. In 2010, a report into Australian Rules Football recommended the creation of a women’s competition. Seven years later, after sustained advocacy, structural resistance and fierce determination, the AFLW was born. Strong is the New Pretty traces that trajectory with clarity and momentum, revealing the negotiations, setbacks and breakthroughs that shaped its emergence.
“I’m so excited to bring Strong is the New Pretty to the nation. It speaks to Australia and celebrates the unique, collaborative way this group of women dreamed something into existence and reclaimed the Aussie mantra ‘fair go’ in a manner that speaks to a new century and a strive for equality in all things,” says Miller.
“The play traces the life-affirming, heartbreaking and passionate story of the organisers and players of the inaugural AFLW season, showing a different way women make things happen in Australia. One that we can all celebrate and a template for all of us to learn from. It’s funny, and emotional, distinctly about ‘us’, and unites lovers of footy and the arts in a theatrical showing for all.”
At the heart of the production is a newly announced ensemble of eight performers whose combined experience spans stage, screen and musical performance. Lucy Bell leads the cast as Governor-General Sam Mostyn, joined by Amy Hack, Amy Ingram, Alex King, Amber McMahon, Tara Morice, Contessa Treffone and emerging performer Nyasha Ogden. Together, they embody the administrators, advocates, players and powerbrokers whose collective efforts shaped the AFLW from concept to national phenomenon.
The casting reflects both depth and range. Tara Morice brings a long-standing screen and stage presence shaped by iconic Australian film and musical storytelling. Amber McMahon contributes a finely tuned theatrical intelligence, known for navigating complex institutional and emotional terrain. Amy Ingram, Alex King and Contessa Treffone represent a contemporary wave of Australian performers with recent credits across major theatre and screen productions. Lucy Bell anchors the production’s political framing with precision and clarity, while Nyasha Ogden adds a fresh and emerging voice to an already dynamic ensemble. Rather than functioning as individual portraits, the cast operates as a responsive collective, echoing the collaborative foundations of the AFLW itself.
Directed by Sarah Giles, the production moves with controlled urgency, shaped by Miller’s trademark precision and rhythmic dialogue. Scenes shift between public forums and private negotiations, tracing how policy becomes lived reality and how ambition is tested through process. Giles’ direction places emphasis on ensemble interplay, allowing the narrative to unfold through accumulation.
Strong is the New Pretty arrives in Geelong when the local AFLW Geelong Cats blockbuster season will be underway. Having newly appointed two co-captains for the 2026 season in Nina Morrison and Becky Webster, two inaugural members of the AFLW team, the Geelong Cats are in fine form. Prime your AFLW knowledge before seeing Strong is the New Pretty by catching a game locally at GMHBA Stadium from mid-August.
At its core, Strong is the New Pretty is framed as both record and reckoning. It captures the friction behind progress, the labour behind visibility and the collective will required to shift systems long resistant to change. It is a story of sport, but also of governance, identity and the architecture of belief. The production takes over Geelong Arts Centre for a strictly limited Victorian exclusive season from 8 to 11 October 2026.