Here’s Arts in the City, arts editor HELEN MUSA’s weekly burst of arts news and events.

In a spectacular theatrical traffic jam, not just one but six plays will open in Canberra within four days: Enemies of Grooviness Eat Sh!T (Courtyard Studio) September 4; Sanaz Toossi’s English (The Playhouse), Ordinary Days (The Q), Canberra Rep’s Away and ACTHub’s August – Osage County, September 5; and Chicago at Canberra Theatre on September 7. Might it not be a good idea for our theatre companies to communicate?

Of special note among is that English, a comedy set in a small classroom in Iran, is directed by Tasnim Hossain, now resident director at the Melbourne Theatre Company but very much a product of the Canberra arts scene. The show stars Osamah Sami, creator of the movie, Ali’s Wedding. 

The work of Canberra composer Sally Greenaway was recently featured in the first instalment of Ed Le Brocq’s new spotlight on Australia’s living composers.

The winners of the 2024 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards will be announced at the National Library on September 12. Australian history, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, young adult, and children’s literature will all be honoured, but alas, not drama.

Simon Holmes à Court will give the 24th Manning Clark Lecture on The Politics of Energy Transition. Coombs Lecture Theatre, ANU, September 10.

Renowned Canberra flautist Sally Walker and friends will present music by Mozart and Boccherini in Music Fit for a King, Wesley Uniting Church, September 7.

Two legends of Canberra’s poetry scene, Hazel Hall and Kathy Kituai, will launch new anthologies upstairs at Smiths Alternative, Civic, on September 3.

The world premiere of Jakub Jankowski’s Ritornello, commissioned by the Australian Chamber Orchestra, will be performed by the ACO alongside works by Mendelssohn, Bach and Thorvaldsdottir, at Llewellyn Hall, September 14.