First-ever Festival of Australian Queer Theatre welcomes authentic disruption

Curator Dr Robert Reid explains the thinking behind a festival dedicated to Australian queer theatre that brings together makers and audiences.
Maude Davey in 'Performing the Monster'. Davey will be delivering a master class as part of the Festival of Australian Queer Theatre. A pale-skinned woman on stage holding a microphone up to her lips. She is wearing smokey eyeshadow and black gloves with a white frilly gown.

The Festival of Australian Queer Theatre (FAQT) will kick off its inaugural program from 22-25 August in Ballarat, Victoria, with a festival theme that is centred on ‘authentic disruption’.

Curated by playwright and director Dr Robert Reid, the Festival is described as ‘a proof of concept’. Reid elaborates, ‘As far as I can see historically, there hasn’t been a festival dedicated to Australian queer theatre… There hasn’t been an opportunity for community to come together and celebrate, but also interrogate what we think of as queer theatre in Australia.’

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Celina Lei is the Diversity and Inclusion Editor at ArtsHub. She acquired her M.A in Art, Law and Business in New York with a B.A. in Art History and Philosophy from the University of Melbourne. She has previously worked across global art hubs in Beijing, Hong Kong and New York in both the commercial art sector and art criticism. She took part in drafting NAVA’s revised Code of Practice - Art Fairs and was the project manager of ArtsHub’s diverse writers initiative, Amplify Collective. Most recently, Celina was one of three Australian participants in DFAT’s the Future of Leadership program. Celina is based in Naarm/Melbourne. Instagram @lleizy_