Adelaide Cabaret Festival Opens

Exploring what Cabaret can be is what Artistic Directors Ali McGregor and Eddie Perfect set out to explore in this year's Adelaide Cabaret Festival. If you have a desire to dive into the unknown and find out just WHAT COMES NEXT, the 2016 program is for you! Opening tonight the 16 day spectacular features 150 performances starring more than 425 artists from Australia and worldwide all produced and presented by Adelaide Festival Centre.

Minister for the Arts Jack Snelling says, "The Government is pleased to continue supporting Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Each year, audiences embrace the warmth of cabaret in June, as Adelaide Festival Centre and Riverbank precinct come alive for South Australians and visitors to enjoy. Adelaide Cabaret Festival reinforces Adelaide's reputation as a great festival city and shines a light on our state and city to an international audience. This year, I look forward to seeing what Artistic Directors Ali McGregor and Eddie Perfect have in store!"

To kick off Ali and Eddie's inaugural year at the helm of one of Adelaide's favourite festivals, patrons will enjoy a glamorous night filled with local and international stars flaunting their stories and songs at the Variety Gala Performance on opening night.

The kids won't miss out either with the Festival's first Family Gala performance, where the whole family has the opportunity to dress up and walk the red carpet. This opening weekend highlight samples some of the Festival's finest performers offering jazzy beats, interpretive dance, comedy and even roller-skating-ukulele-playing-madness!

Adelaide Festival Centre CEO and Artistic Director Douglas Gautier says, "Now in its 16th year, the Adelaide Cabaret Festival is the largest cabaret festival in the world and a much loved Australian event, attracting audiences from around the country and artists from across the globe. Ali McGregor and Eddie Perfect have curated an outstanding program, packed with music, comedy, satire and film - there is something for everyone.

We are delighted with the response of audiences so far, we are 5% up on where we were on opening day of the Festival last year. In fact, we have more in the box office than we've ever had at the opening. Audiences are responding really positively to the program so we are all set for a very successful 16th Adelaide Cabaret Festival. So far we have 25 sold out performances including Dita Von Teese, David Hobson and Colin Lane, Sven Ratzke's Starman, Ali McGregor's Decadence, Barb Jungr's Hard Rain, Megan Hilty and Mother's Ruin.

There are still plenty of tickets available to world-class shows and we expect strong sales throughout."

The Festival opens with a bang with two of the first weekend highlights very special collaborations with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra - The Composer is Dead starring the comedic genius of Frank Woodley and a video-gaming, hilarious performance with Tripod in This Gaming Life. This year visitors can expect to see a high calibre of artists, including burlesque living legend Dita Von Teese in her internationally acclaimed performance Burlesque, Strip, Strip Hooray! Other burlesque performances not to be missed include the brand-new gothic, erotic, airborne variety show The Birds and the comedic genius of slapstick diva Amy G.

Other must-see opening weekend shows include Rhonda Burchmore and Trevor Ashley, bold, brassy, raunchy and raucous in Twins as they pay tribute to the icons of outrageous glitz and glamour, reinventing the likes of Sonny and Cher, Judy and Liza, Kermit and Miss Piggy. If wild rock-und-roll Cabaret is more your thing, Die Roten Punkte is the show for you. Cabaret will be stripped bare as local clown hero Hew Parham washes away your sins in Rudi's The Rinse Cycle. If you are a gin lover, you can't miss the world premiere of Maeve Mardsen and Libby Wood in Mother's Ruin: A Cabaret about Gin.

In another Cabaret first, the festival introduces Movie Nights with the film stars introducing the movies themselves. Get the popcorn ready and see Reg Livermore in Betty Blokk Follies, Michelle Ryan in Michelle's Story, Ms Lisa Fischer in 20 Feet from Stardom and Sven Ratzke introduce David Bowie's cult hit Labyrinth.

Other Festival highlights include Artistic Director Ali McGregor in her comedy Decadence and critically acclaimed star of stage and screen Megan Hilty - In Concert. The Festival is concluded with The Last Galah, hosted by Ali and Eddie who pay tribute to Australia's greatest songwriters, featuring performances by local and international cabaret stars.

On compiling such a diverse program, Co-Artistic Director Ali McGregor says, "Tonight kicks off 16 days of incredible cabaret performance - we have everything from iconic songbook singers to anarchic late-nite burlesque and comedy. We are celebrating where cabaret has been, where it is going, as well as where it is RIGHT NOW. There is political satire, storytelling, broadway divas, intimate theatre and even shows for the whole family to enjoy. There's lots of free entertainment in the Piano Bar in the afternoons and into the night, then our winter garden with an open fire, food stalls, lots of good South Australian wine and bands playing in the evening. The Adelaide festival Centre is the only place to be over the next three weeks!"

Co-Artistic Director Eddie Perfect says, "As cabaret artists from around the country and the globe descend on Adelaide for three exciting weeks in June, I am delighted to show our audiences the best, most diverse and original cabaret being made around the world. In our search for WHAT COMES NEXT, we've been delighted and proud to witness how heavy hitting our Australian artists are, taking to this immediate, intimate and highly demanding art form with a proficiency that matches anything seen on stage in New York, London, Berlin, Paris and Edinburgh. Cabaret is not a dusty relic from the past, served up as museum pieces of nostalgia, but a thriving, modern, vibrant art form that speaks to audiences about what it means to be alive right now. We're certain Adelaide audiences are up for a theatrical adventure and we encourage everyone to take a step outside their comfort zone, to throw themselves into the unknown, to sit in the dark with strangers, to throw themselves into the new, the strange, the complex and the ridiculous, to come up for air and to ask themselves "Right! What comes next?"

Patrons will also enjoy a number of FREE events throughout the festival including nightly entertainment in the Piano Bar hosted by Trevor Jones followed by Late Night DJs every Friday and Saturday night from 11.30pm as well as Sunday night of the opening weekend.

Don't forget to check out Backstage Club - the place where anything can happen... and usually does! Join Amy G and Miss Behave on the opening weekend Friday - Sunday from 10pm for some late-night frivolity and fabulously spontaneous performances. Throughout the Festival, you can also see Jan Van de Stool and Libby O'Donovan performing their cabaret best as hosts in this year's Club.

See for yourself WHAT COMES NEXT at the 2016 Adelaide Cabaret Festival!

Full program and tickets available through BASS 131 246 or online www.adelaidecabaretfestival.com.au

Aged between 18 - 30? Why not join Adelaide Festival Centre's Greenroom program to get cheap tickets, free workshops and special events join online www.adelaidefestivalcentre.com.au/greenroom

GreenRoom Speakeasy: experience exciting new work from our talented team of GreenRoom members, these emerging cabaret performers will sing songs and share stories on Wednesdays in the Wintergarden.

To post a comment, you must register and login.