Love for One Night returns to the Eltham Hotel for a strictly limited season from 27 August to 12 September 12 and if the 2022 run is anything to go by, tickets won’t hang around.
Conceived and directed by NORPA Artistic Director Julian Louis, the production takes over the entire Eltham Hotel, bar, beer garden and upstairs rooms, transforming it into a wonderland of the everyday.
Five actors play 24 characters across a series of interwoven love stories: a single mum with an incurable romantic streak, childhood sweethearts bickering over schooners, two men who fell for the same woman. The stories, pulled straight from the fabric of the Northern Rivers, are funny, tender and achingly real. A live band, live camera projections and an audience seated in the pub carpark under the stars complete the picture.
The original season carried extraordinary weight. It opened in September 2022 as the Northern Rivers was still reeling from the devastating floods that had torn through the region and gutted NORPA’s home at Lismore City Hall. What emerged was something more than theatre, a communal exhale, a love letter to a community still finding its footing.
The production went on to win the 2023 PAC Australia IMPACT Award, with The Guardian calling it ‘a gift’ and Australian Stage declaring it ‘pure gold’.
For anyone who was lucky enough to catch NORPA’s Love for One Night at the Eltham Hotel back in 2022, you know exactly what that feels like. For everyone who missed out, and there were many, given that it sold out almost instantly, this is the news you’ve been waiting for.
Ticket options range from general admission to on-stage table seating right amongst the action – a group of four right on the stage, seated at picnic tables at actor level, as close to the action as it gets. It is genuinely one of the more fun ways to experience live theatre in this region.
Love For One Night, The Eltham Hotel, 27 August to 12 September 2026. Prices start at $30 for under-30s, with full-price tickets from $69. For tickets and more information go to www.norpa.org.au/events/love-for-one-night.
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