Western Australia’s Black Swan State Theatre Company has announced its 2022 season, built around the theme ‘kin’ and the ways we are all connected to one another. This season will also be Clare Watson’s last as Artistic Director, a role she has filled since 2016.

Watson said, “gathering audiences and collaborating with extraordinary artists has given me five years of joy and kinship”. In explaining the season’s theme, she added, “we both inherit our kin, and we choose who we gather around us as family, just as we can be chosen. We each carry a narrative within us that comes from our kin. There is a story in us all about how we were loved, and we bring this story with us to our own families, to our friendships, to our workplaces, and to the theatre. In 2022, we are bringing these stories to the stage.”

That sense of community is reflected in the local flavour of the season: three of the seven...