The suspense and waiting is finally over - the launch of 10th Adelaide Cabaret Festival was held tonight on the 14th of April at Adelaide Festival Centre for invited guests.
Celebrating its 10th year, the festival is now officially the biggest cabaret festival in the word. 60 shows were sold out during last year’s season, and the festival has received further $500,000 funding from the government. With the Variety Gala Performance already sold out in record time this year, it looks to be another successful season. It features 41 acts, 46 shows and 124 performances.
Radio personality Amanda Blair was the MC for the evening, and Premiere Mike Rann, Artistic Director & CEO of Adelaide Festival Centre Douglas Gautier, and Chair of Adelaide Cabaret Festival Committee Frank Ford gave speeches to the guests who were all eagerly waiting for the line-up announcement on the red velvet-draped stage of the Adelaide Festival Theatre.
Artistic Director of Adelaide Cabaret Festival, David Campbell took over and unveiled the program for this year. Perhaps they’ve taken last year’s criticism about the lack of local artists on the program into consideration – there is a healthy proportion of national and local acts included this time with 220 Australian artists and 117 South Australian performers.
The headline artist this year is Natalie Cole, whose amazing 35-year career has earned her nine Grammy awards. Other notable acts include the Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz, Broadway’s favourite leading lady and cabaret performer Liz Callaway, who sang Memory 1500 times as Brizabella in Cats, A Tony Award winner and an original triple threat Donna McKechnie, John Waters with his show Brel, Adelaide’s own Robyn Archer, Caroline O’Connor and Hugh Sheridan.
I’m a tad dubious about Damien Leith and John Paul Young, but I will hold my judgement – I can’t knock them until I see them.
As mentioned in the previous post on the Cabaret Festival launch, the Jonathan Larson Award winners Benj Paesk and Justin Paul will be performing at the festival and will also lead a masterclass. At the tender age of 23, they are the next generation of songwriters who’ll be taking cabaret and musical theatre to the new direction.
Speaking of new direction, this year’s lineup has an emphasis on selling the genre to the younger age group. Contemporary cabaret acts, such as Frisky & Mannish, You Am I’s Tim Rogers, iOTA in Smoke and Mirrors and Laine Lane, will appeal to the sub-30’s crowd. High School Cabaret is the first project of its kind to cultivate young talent in high schools. A group of creative arts students at Seaview High School and Norwood Morialta have been tutored by David Campbell and will present their cabaret show at the festival.
In between David Campbells’s introduction of the acts, we were treated to live performances by Alex Rathgeber, Caroline O’Connor and Drew Forsythe. Forsythe stole the show with his hilarious impersonation of Nick Xenophon singing “Old Man Murray (River)”. They not only gave us a taste of what’s on offer, but also proved that there’ll be no shortage of incredible talent at the festival.
We can all breathe sighs of relief, as Debbie Reynolds is NOT included in the lineup. It seems our blog Editor Matthew Carey’s prayers have been answered.
I’d have preferred a little less talk by David Campbell and a few more performances, but the evening has definitely sparked the Adelaide Cabaret Festival fever in me. I appeared to be one of many, judging by the never-ending queue at the box office afterwards.
Spread the word, check out the program, book the tickets before they sell out and let the fun begin!
10th Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2010
11-26 June 2010
Venue: Adelaide Festival Centre
Official website: www.adelaidecabaretfestival.com.au
Booking: Call 131-246 or click here.
Subscribe via email, or follow us on Twitter for the extensive coverage on the festival on Cabaret Confessional – there’ll be daily What’s On events listing, interviews, reviews and show information.
If you enjoyed this post, you might also like these entries:
2010 Adelaide Cabaret Festival Top 10 picks
2010 Adelaide Cabaret Festival: Bring a Friend Free offer extended
Cab Fest Pre Launch Info
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Saturday, May 1, 2010 at 11:00AM 