It’s 1971 and Australia is protesting the war in Vietnam. But inside the walls of a burnt-out theatre next to a psychiatric facility, the resident patients are listening to Mozart, learning their lines, and occasionally skipping their medication. It’s art, it’s mayhem, it’s a wonderful roller coaster all the way to opening night. With its cast of loveable characters, Così offers a touching reminder of how art can make our spirits soar.

Based on playwright Louis Nowra’s own life, who fresh out of university found himself tasked with directing a musical with patients from Melbourne’s Mont Park Psychiatric Hospital in the early 1970s, Cosi is a renowned Australian work about mateship, love, identity, and the power of art.