For more than a decade, Junior Theatre Festival Australia has been the biggest celebration of young people and musical theatre in the Southern Hemisphere. It has brought together the country’s most enthusiastic and exciting young performers for one very exciting weekend.
Thousands of young performers have taken to its stages. Hundreds of schools, academies and theatre groups have travelled from across Australia to be part of it. Our biggest stars, leading creatives, international guests and the country’s best musical theatre educators have joined them.
There have been performances, adjudications, masterclasses, new musical pilots, teacher development, disco parties, friendships, discoveries, career-defining moments, and more jazz hands than anyone could possibly count.
Now, JTF Australia is getting ready to take its biggest leap yet.
But first, there is one more Newcastle festival to come.
Before Junior Theatre Festival Australia packs up and heads south, the festival will return to Newcastle in 2026 for one final celebration at the Civic Theatre, marking its eleventh year.
Then, in October 2027, JTF Australia will open the doors to an entirely new era and begin its next chapter at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.
The move will give JTF Australia room to grow from its current capacity of around 1,400 participants to more than 5,000 in the years ahead, transforming what the festival can offer young performers, teachers and the Australian musical theatre industry.
For Producer Daniel Stoddart, Event Manager Hayley Stoddart and Associate Producer Taylor Tran, Melbourne represents the next stage in the evolution of an event they have spent the past decade building.
“When we started JTF Australia in 2016, we knew there was a real appetite for an event that celebrated young people in musical theatre while also giving them access to the people, ideas and opportunities shaping the industry,” says Daniel.
“What has happened since has gone far beyond what any of us imagined. The community has exploded, demand has outgrown the venue and JTF itself has become something much bigger. Melbourne gives us the opportunity to take everything we’ve built and ask: how big can this become?”
More than a festival
JTF Australia is loud, fast, joyous and unapologetically passionate about musical theatre.
But beneath all that energy is a serious purpose.
At its heart, JTF is about connecting young performers and their teachers directly with the professional musical theatre industry.
Students perform excerpts from Broadway Junior musicals for professional adjudicators, receiving feedback on their acting, singing, dancing and overall performance. They participate in workshops and masterclasses led by experienced theatre professionals. They encounter new shows before they are widely available and, through pilot programs, can even become part of the process of developing new work and bringing new musicals to life.
For teachers and directors, the festival provides a different kind of opportunity: professional development, access to new repertoire, networking and the chance to share fresh ideas and conversations with educators from across Australia and around the world.
And then there are the moments that cannot really be planned.
The spontaneous sing-alongs. New friendships between students from opposite sides of the country. The excitement of seeing a professional performer walk into the room. The nervous anticipation before an adjudication. The eruption when a group’s name is called. Being surrounded by hundreds of young people realising they have found a room full of people who love this stuff just as much as they do.
That feeling of belonging is at the heart of JTF Australia and has become its defining characteristic.
Built by a team with a big vision
Behind the spectacle is a team that has spent years refining what JTF can be.
Over the past decade, Daniel, Hayley, Taylor and the wider OzTheatrics team have continued to reshape the festival as the community around it has grown.
Daniel has led the festival since its Australian launch, combining his work as a producer and theatre-maker with a career-long commitment to creating opportunities for young performers.
Hayley oversees the enormous event operation bringing students, teachers, creatives, guest artists and industry professionals together, while Taylor has become an integral part of delivering and developing the festival.
Together with a much larger team of staff, creatives, adjudicators, volunteers and partners, they have built JTF Australia into a major fixture on the national youth musical theatre calendar.
But repeating the same successful formula has never been the goal.
“We’ve never wanted JTF to become an event that simply rolls out the same program every year,” says Daniel. “We keep asking what young performers and educators need next. What can we expose them to? Who can we put them in a room with? What opportunity can we create that they couldn’t get anywhere else?”
That question continues to drive JTF Australia forward.
Australia’s youth musical theatre community is booming
The move comes as youth musical theatre continues to grow rapidly across Australia.
Music Theatre International, through their Broadway Junior collection, has made professionally developed versions of the world’s best-known musicals increasingly accessible to schools, academies and community organisations, creating more opportunities for young people to experience high-quality musical theatre.
Victoria is at the centre of that growth.
More than half of all Broadway Junior licences in Australia are currently presented in the state, making Melbourne a powerful new home for an event that draws participants from across the country.
“There are more young people performing, more schools and academies producing musicals now and more teachers building ambitious programs. Our challenge is making sure JTF Australia keeps growing with them,” says Daniel. “At the Civic Theatre, JTF Australia has reached its capacity. At MCEC, that ceiling disappears.”
The move isn’t simply about fitting more people into the building. It creates the opportunity to rethink the scale, programming and reach of the entire festival. It allows room for thousands of more young performers and educators from every corner of Australia to join in.
Australian festival. Global community.
JTF Australia is part of a much bigger international community.
Junior Theatre Festivals take place across the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia, connecting young performers and educators around the world.
In Australia, that connection is strengthened through JTF’s close relationships with iTheatrics and Music Theatre International Australasia, the home of Broadway Junior.
Australian students aren’t simply participating in an Australian event. They are part of a global movement in youth musical theatre. They are connected to the writers, creatives, educators and organisations developing the shows they perform.
Stuart Hendricks, Managing Director of Music Theatre International Australasia, has been a long-time advocate of JTF Australia and its mission.
“Broadway Junior has transformed the way young Australians engage with musical theatre. The growth of Junior Theatre Festival Australia reflects the passion of teachers, schools and students across the country, and Melbourne provides the perfect platform for the festival’s next stage of growth,” says Hendricks.
Next stop: 5,000
The ambition for Melbourne is big.
More than 5,000 participants. More groups. More experiences. More industry connections. More opportunities to discover what is possible in musical theatre.
But growth for growth’s sake isn’t the goal.
JTF will always be about a young performer stepping onto a stage and discovering what they’re capable of.
It will be about a teacher heading home with an idea that changes the way they work with their students. Discovering a new musical. Meeting a creative hero. Making a friend from the other side of Australia. Finding yourself surrounded by thousands of people who understand exactly why theatre matters to you.
“We’re not moving to Melbourne just because we need a bigger venue,” says Daniel. “We’re moving because JTF is ready to become bigger in every sense of the word. Bigger opportunities. Bigger connections. Bigger ideas. We want to take everything people love about JTF Australia and give it the space to become what we know it can be.”
Before that happens, Newcastle gets one final celebration.
One last JTF Australia at the Civic Theatre. One last weekend in the city that gave the festival its first home and watched it grow for a decade.
Then, in 2027, Melbourne.
A new city. A new home. Thousands more young people.
And the beginning of JTF Australia’s biggest act yet.
And yes, there will be jazz hands.
Proudly supported by
Junior Theatre Festival Australia is proudly supported by Music Theatre International Australasia, Secret Melbourne, Fever and JH Productions, alongside the organisations who continue to help make JTF Australia possible.
JTF Australia also acknowledges iTheatrics for its longstanding international partnership.
