Over the course of three nights in August, Queer theatre in Australia will be showcased, debated and celebrated in Ballarat.
Presenting some of the most exciting new works by some of Australia’s leading Queer theatre makers and performers, the Festival of Australian Queer Theatre is the first festival solely dedicated to Queer theatre and live performance in the country.
This festival utilises the platform of theatre to disrupt the broader societal narrative around the who and what of queerness. We offer authentic disruption as the vehicle to tell our own LGBTIQA+ stories and reclaim our humanness from the judgements on our existence.
The festivals night time line-up includes the critically lauded A Body at Work by Frankie van Kan with Dandrogyny which played to a sold out season in Melbourne earlier this year and Perpetual Horror featuring the work of the fiercely intelligent, boundary pushing performance of Kerith Manderson-Galvin.
During the day more family friendly fare is being presented at Federation Uni, including Em Chandler’s fairy tales, Rich Chew’s Aerial and Polite Mammals – a celebrated clown/rock and roll show presented by the multiple award-winning Wholesome Hour.
For those interested in how the shows are made or interested in making their own shows, the weekend also presents a range of conference activities including not-to-be-missed masterclasses by legendary Australian Queer theatre makers, Maude Davey and Moira Finucane.
The festival will open with a Queer theatre conference hosted by Richard Watts OAM, inviting anyone interested in Queer theatre and performance making to hear from and meet leading Australian artists and participate in a conversation about the contemporary queer theatre – what it is, what the community needs from it and how to support it in the future.
Finally, the Festival of Australian Queer Theatre commissioned and is presenting a brand-new work for Australian theatre by Dax Carney, entitled Chasing Dick, that tells a story of tragic romance in regional Victoria evocative of Tennessee Williams.
The Festival of Australian Queer Theatre is for anyone interested in performance that pushes the edges, challenges the norms and imagines other ways of being in the world. Artist or audience, queer or ally, the Festival of Australian Queer Theatre is an exciting and important new addition to the cultural life of Western Regional Victoria.
The Festival of Australian Queer Theatre runs 22 – 25 August 2024. For more information including performance dates and times, visit: www.faqt.au for details.
Image: Richard Watts OAM – photo by Fiona Hamilton
Festival of Australian Queer Theatre 2024
A Body of Work
The Minerva Space – Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute: 22 & 23 August
Frankie van Kan achieves the improbable task of exposing more of herself than ever before, in this deeply intimate piece of confessional theatre. A Body at Work, directed by theatre Alumni Maude Davey, is the tale of a queer woman’s sixteen years – and counting, in the sex industry. Beginning in a strip club, with insightfully refreshing antics of strip club culture and the perceived power dynamics between workers and clients, Frankie unpacks her own whorephobia and the unravelling of boundaries. As she regales you with stories of the body as a commodity and navigating queerness in this honest, humorous and heartfelt journey Frankie asks the question—will they love me at my Madonna when they’ve relished me at my whore?
Festival of Australian Queer Theatre Conference
LanceTV Studio: Friday 23 August
The FAQT Conference brings together some of the leading thinkers and creators in contemporary Australian queer theatre to talk about their practice and the state of queer theatre making in Australia today. Hosted by Richard Watts OAM with a brief key note from Dr Robert Reid. Guest performance from Six Inches Uncut. Guests and speakers include Ash Flanders, Jack Beeby, Kate Gaul, Jennifer Vuletic, Beng Oh and Rob Reid.
Short Showings
Post Office Theatre – Federation University: Saturday 24 August
Two of Ballarat’s leading artists present showings of their current work. Ariel Songs – a 30-minute choral theatre work, based on William Shakespeare’s The Tempest by composer Richard Chew. Queer Faerie Tales – a magical, musical romp through the world of faerie tales and nursery rhymes with the award-winning Em Chandler.
Master Class – Maude Davey
Humffray Room – Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute: Saturday 24 August(11.00am)
Maude Davey presents a writing and practice workshop exploring writing what we otherwise wouldn’t have written, in saying what we otherwise wouldn’t have said. This Master Class will experiment and explore working with: disrupting patterns; interrupting flows; and then corrupting what seems like a whole thing, turning it onto the wrong path. Participants will work on the floor and at table.
Master Class – Moira Finucane
Humffray Room – Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute: Saturday 24 August (2.30pm)
Presented by Moira Finucane, this three hour masterclass workshop, explores creating from what is most urgent, most visceral and most powerful for the artist right now. It’s for any kind of creator, from writer to cabaret artist to composers and musicians. The workshop opens up a hot tool kit in the artists; part generation of new work, part finding and blessing our inner beast, part seeing others and ourselves anew and answering some practical and philosophical burning questions, as we strive to make art in a world that teeters on the edge of the abyss.
Polite Mammals
Black Box Theatre – Federation University: Saturday 24 August
Presented by The Wholesome Hour, Polite Mammals is a totally wild, neo-vaudevillian variety show the whole family can enjoy. Celebrating animals of all kinds: real, imaginary, sparkly, stinky, polite and rude! Say goodbye to daggy songs, dated jokes and moth eaten puppets – this is kid’s entertainment at its coolest.
Numa and Karl
Humffray Room – Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute: Saturday 24 August
Numa and Karl: Extraordinary Man that He Was’ is a biographical play about 19th-century queer activist and theorist of sexuality, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. In 1867 he protested at a gathering of 500 German jurists against the criminalisation of (what we now call) homosexuality. Em Chandler’s play explores this incredible human and his passion, his relationship with his family and loved ones, and the impact his work had on community then and today. Shortlisted for the Midsumma Festival Queer Playwriting Award 2023.
Perpetual Horror
The Arts Incubator: Saturday 24 August
An intimate experience spawned from body-horror films, a bodiless cover of Playboy Magazine, and Kerith Manderson-Galvin’s identity in flux – Perpetual Horror follows an uncontainable queer body through desire, disgust, disturbance, and oblivion.
Chasing Dick: A Love Story
The Reading Room – Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute: Sunday 25 August
Commissioned by Festival of Australian Queer Theatre, Chasing Dick: A Love Story is a staged reading of Dax Carney-Hanrahan’s new full length script. In a regional city, far from the CBD, a conservative accountant father and his good-looking bisexual son will soon find out they have been chasing the same thing – the love of Dick. When Dick, a larger-than-life transwoman, moved into town, the already strained relationship between father and son took an even more dramatic turn. As they get to have more of Dick they start to question everything they think they know about themselves, each other and the world.
Play Readings & Reflections
Reading Room – Ballaarat Mechanic’s Institute: Sunday 25 August
Australian Theatre / Queer Canon – Hosted by John Kachoyan – until comparatively recently, live performance work and story telling on the Australian stage was still rare and scandalous – that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. From 1800s male impersonator Effie Fellows to modern classics of the Australian stage like Love by Patricia Cornelius, queer theatre has of course always been here. Theatre Director and historian John Kachoyan, together with local actors present and discuss readings of key scenes from important queer Australian plays including Michael Gow’s Away and Peter Kenna’s A Hard God.