Many of the shows, such as Metropolitan Players' production of the popular musical Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, were initially set for staging in 2020, with the worsening of the spread of the virus leading to the various dates having to be abandoned.

Priscilla was first listed this year for staging at the Civic Theatre in August. The tightened regulations led to that being changed to October, with the subsequent proposed ending of the major restrictions at the beginning of November leading Metropolitan Players to seek another 2021 date. The company was fortunately able to book a November 10-14 season at the Civic when Aspire, the region's Catholic schools theatre establishment, decided to postpone a season of a Civic show that week.

While there are some restrictions imposed on theatre shows, such as only having audiences occupy 75 per cent of a venue's seats and having to present when entering a venue documents showing they have had a double-dose vaccination, the changes will help staging companies to keep operating.

As Claire Williams, Newcastle Theatre Company's president noted recently, the cancellation of one show through its season and the postponement of another show had led to the company losing more than $40,000 at the box office.

The company has just one major season left for this year, with the premiere of A Hit and Miss Christmas, a comedy written by a former member of NTC, Emma Wood, who now lives in Melbourne, being staged at the company's Lambton venue from November 20 to December 11.

The show, which looks at theatre company members getting together to discuss their Christmas production and increasingly arguing about it, was initially set for premiering by NTC in December, 2019, with the initial outbreak of the coronavirus leading to its cancellation, and the same thing happening in December last year. Hopefully, it will go ahead this year, as Emma Wood, who has had many of her plays staged around the world, NTC members and theatregoers, are keen to see it.

NTC has two other shows scheduled for this year that also confirm the wide range of shows presented by other companies in Newcastle and the Hunter.

Love Letters, a play that was staged by NTC early this year as part of the company's Independent Season, which lets theatre teams present very different plays for one or two-week seasons, with the work showing the nature of the letters a man and woman exchange for decades after they first meet and are attracted to each other, has matinee and evening sessions between October 27 and 30.

And the company's theatre is also hosting at two sessions on Saturday, November 6, an annual one-day short play festival Play Date staged by another Newcastle company, Knock and Run Theatre, that features plays largely written by people that show different aspects of a theme.

This year's theme, Time and Space, led as usual to a very interesting range of short plays being submitted, and with 10 selected.

Many of the plays were submitted by young writers, with just a few by people who are renowned playwrights.

Dez Robertson, for example, who also directs his plays, has entered one called The Opportunist, which he describes as "a light-hearted look at missed opportunities".

Jo Ford, who has won many awards for her short plays presented at events such as Short and Sweet Festivals in Sydney and Newcastle, with titles such as From a Great Height, and is also a renowned choreographer, winning a CONDA Award in 2014 for her choreography in Hunter Drama's Disney's Little Mermaid, has actually written a play called The Play About Time and Space which she describes, with her tongue firmly in her cheek, as "written with the intention of creating the worst possible play about the theme time and space possible. Success!"

Interestingly, while a play that was to have been part of NTC's 2021 Independent Season, 84 Charing Cross Road, with performances from September 1-4, had to be cancelled at the company's venue because of COVID-19, it is now on a NSW regional tour, and will have a season at Maitland Repertory Theatre from January 7 to 15, 2022.

The play was based on incidents in the life of its American writer, Helen Hanf, who became attracted to a London bookstore manager when she saw an ad for his store while working in New York. They exchanged letters for 50 years and met when she visited London.

The other Newcastle and Hunter shows still to be performed this year include:

Be More Chill, presented by Chookas Entertainment at the Civic Playhouse (November 17 to 20), a comedy with music that has a teenage boy finding out about "The Squip" - a tiny supercomputer that promises to bring him everything he desires most, including a date with a girl he is attracted to at his suburban New Jersey high school by making him the most popular guy in the school.

The Importance of Being Earnest, a renowned comedy by Oscar Wilde that has two earnest bachelors with tiresome lives who create alter egos named Ernest, with the hope of winning two women who claim to love only men with that name. Maitland Repertory Theatre, November 24 - December 12.

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