Wollongong

Wollongong Arts

Wollongong’s creative life stretches from rehearsal rooms and community choirs to clay studios, gallery workshops and university production spaces. You can hear orchestral and choral music, see locally made theatre, learn a new dance style, shape a pot or join a writing group. The city also connects artists across the Illawarra, Shoalhaven and Southern Highlands, creating opportunities to perform, volunteer, study, exhibit and share skills.

Here is a practical selection of organisations and studios for audiences, emerging practitioners, families, experienced makers and anyone keen to take part in the work of the region.

🎭 Theatre & Performance

Merrigong Theatre Company

Merrigong Theatre Company is a not-for-profit performing arts company operating the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre. It presents and produces theatre and other performance work, while MERRIGONGX supports artists through creative programs. Its education activities include drama and young playwrights programs, giving audiences and participants several ways to engage with performance and new writing.

Wollongong, NSW

Wollongong Workshop Theatre

This community theatre company produces several shows each year, bringing local performers and theatre-makers together both on stage and behind the scenes. It offers a hands-on connection with production, performance and the practical teamwork involved in mounting community theatre.

190 Gipps Road, Gwynneville NSW 2500

🎶 Music & Singing

Wollongong Conservatorium of Music

Wollongong Conservatorium of Music combines music lessons with ensembles and workshops. Its choir program includes a non-auditioned community choir, a chamber choir for experienced singers and a children’s choir for school students. A supported Friday morning singing group is available for seniors, people living with dementia and carers, making group singing part of the local community’s everyday musical life.

Wollongong, NSW

Steel City Strings

Steel City Strings is a Wollongong-based not-for-profit chamber orchestra drawing musicians from the Illawarra, Shoalhaven and Southern Highlands. Alongside orchestral repertoire, it champions Australian art music and creates opportunities for local musicians as players, soloists and composers. Volunteers can also contribute to the orchestra’s work.

Wollongong, NSW · ☎ 0467 869 478 — volunteer enquiries

Illawarra Choral Society

Established in 1947, Illawarra Choral Society is a community choir performing classical choral repertoire and presenting major concerts. Its work also supports young musicians and singers, linking established choral practice with opportunities for the next generation.

Wollongong, NSW

🩰 Dance

VPA Studios

VPA Studios offers dance and performing arts classes from early childhood through to advanced training. Styles include jazz, lyrical, RAD ballet, tap, hip hop, contemporary and musical theatre, with HSC dance, solo tuition and competition teams also available. Ready Set Dance is designed for children aged two to five, while the wider program supports developing dancers across different stages.

Unanderra, NSW

🎨 Visual Arts & Studios

Wollongong Art Gallery

Wollongong Art Gallery is a council-operated regional gallery presenting exhibitions, artist talks, workshops and public programs. Visitors can encounter visual art through exhibitions while taking part in creative activities and hands-on programs that connect gallery audiences with artists, ideas and related performance work.

46 Burelli Street, Wollongong NSW · ☎ 02 4227 8500 — gallery contact

Creative Wollongong Studios

Creative Wollongong Studios provides residency studios in the Wollongong Town Hall building for local artists. Residents contribute to the city’s creative exchange through tours, workshops, talks and events. The studios are temporarily closed for building upgrades from 22 June 2026, so access should be checked before planning a visit or enquiry.

Wollongong, NSW

University of Wollongong Creative & Performing Arts

The University of Wollongong’s creative arts study includes acting, creative writing, music, theatre studies, visual arts, and visual arts and design. Its Wollongong facilities include performance and rehearsal spaces, technical production areas, recording studios, post-production facilities and visual arts studios, bringing study, making and production together in one creative environment.

Wollongong, NSW · ☎ 1300 367 869 — future student enquiries

🏺 Craft & Making

Clay Wollongong

Clay Wollongong is a ceramics studio offering wheel and handbuilding classes, beginner and intermediate courses, and sessions for children and teenagers. Makers can also book private classes, use memberships and access firing services. The studio provides venue hire and connects with a residency through Burnt Dirt, extending its role beyond classes into shared ceramic practice.

Wollongong, NSW

Voart Studio by Violetta Strabic

Voart Studio offers adult and children’s art classes alongside handbuilding and wheel-throwing pottery classes. Private art or pottery sessions and supplies are also available. Saturday access is by booking appointment only, and the studio’s Wollongong base gives makers a focused place to work with drawing, painting and clay.

31 Bligh Street, Wollongong NSW 2500 · ☎ 0435 036 471 — studio contact

✍️ Writing & Storytelling

South Coast Writers Centre

South Coast Writers Centre brings writers together through member discussion and writing groups, including groups meeting in North Wollongong. The Black Wallaby Indigenous Writers Group is for Aboriginal writers from the Illawarra and beyond, creating a dedicated space for shared practice, conversation and the development of written work.

North Wollongong, NSW

Whether you are looking for a seat at a performance, a choir rehearsal, a first pottery class, a community production or a place to develop longer-term creative work, Wollongong offers ways to move between making and experiencing the arts. The mix of professional practice, study, community participation and artist-led activity keeps those connections close to everyday life.

Are you a local artist, maker, teacher, performing company, community group or arts-support business? Add or update your listing so audiences and fellow practitioners can discover the creative work happening in and around Wollongong.

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