Award-winning Director Dean Bryant (Circle Mirror Transformation, Dear Evan Hansen) reflect on remounting The Normal Heart in 2026.

I first picked up The Normal Heart from the uni library when I was at drama school. It grabbed me because of the immediacy of the story and the humanity that pours out of it. And like most theatre I’m drawn to, it moved me tremendously. Forty years after this plague emerged to wreak havoc in the gay community (and so many other communities around the world), the play functions now as a history play (of the first four years of AIDS in NYC) and a continued call to action. 

I am in awe of what Kramer achieved with The Normal Heart. He took the events of four years of his life, terrible years where he and his friends screamed into the void until the world started paying attention, and made a piece of art about them. He took a specific story and made it universal, exploring love, romance, family and grief, making characters from the people in his life, and, even more impressively, creating a hero based on himself who is wonderfully flawed. 

Kramer demanded that the plight of gay people be taken seriously. He demanded that gay people have the courage to say who they are to the world. He wasn’t afraid to scream, to be unlikeable, which seems even more revolutionary in the media climate in which we currently exist. Rehearsing his words, and a fictionalised version of four agonising years of his life, in a room full of queer artists (and their joyous allies) shows how far we’ve come. The fight isn’t over, of course. Rights aren’t gifted, they must be watched-over, maintained, improved-upon, shared.

Classics evolve and speak to their time. When we first made this production for STCSA in 2022, we were coming out of the pandemic, so had all lived through the experience of changing our lives and behaviour in order to keep as many people well as possible. There was irony in how quickly governments acted in that crisis versus the one Kramer brings to life. Three years later, however, the rights of minorities are under attack around the world, and wins our community thought were permanent are being…reconsidered. 

It is a privilege to return to this material and to find it even richer than three years ago. Sydney was the epicentre of the AIDS crisis in our country, and it’s particularly special to share this classic with the community who fought the same battles as the play’s heroes. I can’t wait to share The Normal Heart with all who lived through the initial crisis, and the generations who have benefited from their courage since.

The Normal Heart runs from 9 Feb – 14 Mar 2026. Tickets available now.

Image: Dean Bryant. Photo: Anna Kucera