The Street Theatre's busy 2016 season

The artistic director of The Street Theatre, Caroline Stacey, says, "We are the leading creative producer dedicated to creating theatre and performance in Canberra."

And when they're not creating theatre and performance, they're hosting it and always keeping things busy – and this year is no exception.

The Burden of Memory on Sunday is a concert and album launch by Australian jazz saxophonist Jamie Oehlers teamed with longtime collaborator Paul Grabowsky.

The Street is also producing four full theatrical works as part of its season.

"The big one is Cold Light, adapted by Alana Valentine from the bestselling book – book three of Frank Moorhouse's Miles Franklin Award-winning Edith Trilogy," Stacey says.

Both Moorhouse and Valentine have established considerable presences in Canberra – the Street produced Valentine's plays MP in 2011 and Head Full of Love in 2015 for example – and Stacey is confident Cold Light, which has been in progress since 2012, will be a success.

"It's an epic story stretching from the Menzies era to the Whitlam government," she says.

"The work features fictional characters as well as real people. It's the story of a generation of Australian women wanting to pursue their dreams."

And it focuses on one in particular.

"Edith Campbell Berry is one of the most-loved female literary figures – she's sexually flamboyant, socially dynamic and politically and diplomatically engaged."

Directed by Stacey, Cold Light will have its premiere in November.

Stacey will also direct another new work that will premiere in September. The Faithful Servant is written by Tom Davis, whose play The Chain Bridge was recently seen at The Street Theatre.

"It's a play about foreign aid, former colonies and conflict between generations and NGOs and their relationship to the poor and asks, 'What does it mean to be good?"'

While it's unusual to be producing two new works by a single writer in 12 months, Stacey says she was impressed by Davis' strength as a writer and his ability to take complex ideas and harness theatre to put the audience into complicated ethical and moral dilemmas and elicit a strong response.

The third original, locally produced play in the season is actor-writer Raoul Craemer's Pigman's Lament, to be directed by Adelaide-based director Paulo Castro in June.

"It's a wild ride that features Raoul as himself, trapped in his Canberra apartment and visited by his grandfather."

Drawing on Craemer's own life – he is of German and Indian heritage – it's a psychological thriller exploring themes of destiny and masculinity as he is forced to relive elements of the past and face the family history.

"It's funny and dark."

And the fourth production, The Sonnets Out Loud & Imprinted on April 30 and May 1, directed by Dianna Nixon, will mark the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare with a live performance of all of the writer's 154 sonnets – "the quintessence of love being expressed" – by actor William Zappa and counter-tenor Tobias Cole, with live musical accompaniment.

This year, the Street is presenting two festivals – Segue, in May, looking at the cultural interaction between Australia and Europe, and a mini Capital Jazz Project over the Queen's Birthday Weekend in June.

Among the shows in Segue 2016 is Austrian-Australian Justus Neumann's Alzheimer Symphony.

"During a performance of King Lear, an elderly actor begins to forget his lines ... it's dark and sad and funny and witty and physical."

Swing by Fishamble: New Irish Play Company is another Segue offering, a romantic comedy coming to Canberra as part of Ireland's 2016 centenary program, celebrating 100 years of the republic.

And during a residence at the Street, Polish-Australian artist Gosia Wlodarczak will contribute Frost Drawing, a temporary installation on glass on the windows of the theatre.

In the Capital Jazz Project the performers will include Ethiopian jazz musician Mulatu Astatke & Black Jesus Experience and Lloyd Swanton whose POW story AMBON is based on the coded diary his uncle kept during World War II.

"It's a jazz response to that story with spoken word, music and projections."

One-person shows will include Camilla Blunden in the "guerrilla granny" play All This Living from March 11 to 20, Penny Arcade in her alternative stand-up comedy show Longing Lasts Longer on April 14, and Paul Capsis as the longtime British expat in New York, Quentin Crisp, in Resident Alien from July 27.

Spare Parts Puppet Theatre will bring Antoine de Saint Exupery's classic The Little Prince to life on stage in July and there will be other musical performances during the year as well as the usual public workshopping of works in progress – part of the Street's ongoing commitment to developing new theatre pieces.