Get ready to be served a cabaret banquet of the biggest, boldest and brightest performers at the 21st Adelaide Cabaret Festival, kicking off tonight with the sold-out red-carpet event, The Variety Gala at Adelaide Festival Centre’s Festival Theatre.
Olivier and Tony Award winning Scottish/American actor and cabaret icon, Alan Cumming – the festival’s first international Artistic Director – proudly serves up his personal ‘love letter’ to Australia with this year’s star-studded program, including 180 artists in 105 performances over 12 dazzling days and nights.
The world’s largest cabaret festival features ten world premieres, four Australian premieres and ten Adelaide exclusives by a large contingent of Australian artists and performers from the USA and Canada.
The festival has been a platform for shows and performers who have achieved critical acclaim and featured world-renowned artists including Ms Lisa Fischer, Kristen Chenoweth, Dina Menzel, Dita Von Teese and Patti Lupone to name a few.
Festival favourite Trevor Jones, The Piano Man, is back at the Festival foyer Quartet Bar nightly, presented by the City of Adelaide, and the cabaret lounge will become a chill out hub where audiences can enjoy free roving performances along with a knit and natter (BYO winter knitting project or watch and learn from some of SA’s finest knitters). Pop up food vendors and bars Adelaide Festival Centre will be sure to whet the appetite, including Alan Cumming’s personal favourite, a vegan pie-floater cart, and Corryton Burge’s new pop up up wine bar.
Shining the spotlight on Australian talent as well as some international friends, audiences will be shocked, delighted, teased and tickled by classic and contemporary cabaret performances with this year’s program, traversing the cabaret genre – from old-word French glamour to penis painting, pie-floaters, and everything in between.
In his debut as Artistic Director, Alan Cumming is ready to get the party started and see him rated program come to life.
“I am so excited to finally see this much-loved winter festival come to life and share the special energy of live performance with audiences over the next three weeks. This program is a temple to my love and nostalgia for Australia – the people, the spirit, the adventure, the fusion of high and low that I have learned and stolen from and hold dear in my heart. I hope you Australians enjoy this Scot’s cabaret love letter to you.
I look forward to seeing audiences experience the joy, laughter, cheekiness and splendour that only cabaret can deliver. I will be bringing a version of my New York cabaret bar, Club Cumming, to audiences – a bacchanalian celebration dance party with performances, games and surprises. Let’s get this party started!”
Alan Cumming will DJ every night of the festival at the late-night Club Cumming, bringing a touch of New York to Adelaide in the Famous Spiegeltent, with limited tickets still available.
The final night of the festival will see Alan perform the world-premiere of his own show, Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age, at Festival Theatre before touring the show nationally.
In an Adelaide Exclusive on the first weekend of the festival, Australia’s next generation of First Nations artists will perform in Deadly Hearts, celebrating Australian Indigenous music. The incredible line-up includes multi award winning musician and artist Dan Sultan; 2019 National Indigenous Music Awards nominee Tia Gostelow, 2020 Music Vic award winner for Best Emerging Artist Kee’ahn; and 2019 Triple J Unearthed High Indigenous Initiative winner, Aodhan.
The Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2021 opens on June 11 and runs til June 26.
For more info and to book your tickets to this incredible world event visit here.
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