Love. Eternal.
After delighting audiences and critics alike in sold-out seasons in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne, our highest and fastest selling show in the history of the Dunstan Playhouse returns to Adelaide as part of a wider national tour throughout 2025.
Lovingly adapted by South Australian playwright Verity Laughton from Pip Williams’ acclaimed bestseller, Ruby Award Winner The Dictionary of Lost Words is back in Adelaide April 3-17.
In 1901, the word bondmaid was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. The Dictionary of Lost Words is the story of the girl who found it.
A multi-award winner, the book has been praised by critics as an “absorbing, quietly revolutionary novel” (The Age) and “a captivating and slyly subversive fictional paean to the real women whose work on the Oxford English Dictionary went largely unheralded” (The New York Times).
Motherless and ever curious, Esme spends her childhood in the Scriptorium – the “Scrippy”, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of lexicographers are gathering words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. She hides beneath the table and catches discarded words as they fall – words the men find irrelevant and unimportant … female words. Here begins Esme’s collection of her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words.
As the years pass and Esme’s world expands and her circle of friends grows – actresses, suffragettes, market traders, workers, she realises the power in gathering their voices, and lending hers. And on the way, she comes to understand the many meanings of the word “love”.
The same creative team of director Jessica Arthur, set designer Jonathon Oxlade, costume designer Ailsa Paterson, lighting designer Trent Suidgeest and composer and sound designer Max Lyandvert welcomes you back into the lovingly crafted world of Oxford at the turn of the 20th Century.
Ksenja Logos returns from the previous season where she was noted for her “remarkable versatility” (Glam Adelaide), “masterclass in physical nuance and acting” (Stage Whispers) and hailed as “comedic gold” (Scenestr) in the roles of Mabel and Ditte.
“We are looking forward to sharing this production with audiences all around Australia,” said director Jessica Arthur. “Every time we revisit this rich text we find more ways to appreciate what an incredible adaptation it is. Esme’s perspective is curious and compelling and it is a pleasure to be able to bring it back to life with such an exceptional creative team, cast and crew.”
Fall in love again with the new cast of Shannen Alyce Quan (Six the Musical) as Esme, along with Kathryn Adams as housemaid Lizzie Lester, Arkia Ashraf as Gareth, Brian Meegan as Sir James Murray, Johnny Nasser as Esme’s father Harry, Angela Nica Sullen as Tilda Taylor and James Smith as Bill Taylor.
Be sure to get in quick, as the only show in State Theatre Company South Australia history to sell out before opening night returns to the Dunstan Playhouse for two weeks only!
April 3-17 – Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre
