25th Anniversary of Midsumma

2013 was Midsumma's silver jubilee. Here's some of the coverage about that.

  • 7.30 (ABC1), 1 Feb: This year's silver anniversary has not only been a time for celebration, but has also sparked some discussion on the Festival's survival.
  • The Weekly Review, 17 Jan: Mature midsumma embraces diversity - "To have a queer cabaret show on the same day as a rugby match, that’s great.
  • The Age, 8 Jan, Cameron Woodhead - Midsumma finds unity in divide: "From stages to galleries, cinemas to dance floors, from beaches to the Yarra's banks, Midsumma's 25th anniversary is pulling out all the stops in a spirit that celebrates Melbourne's love of the arts, the contribution queer artists make to it, and how far social attitudes have changed since the festival began."
  • Herald Sun, 7 Jan, Catherine Lambert - Midsumma set to shine: "When Midsumma began 25 years ago it was in a world that is barely recognisable today."

 

2NARAMA

  • Gay News Network, 9 Jan: Tooning in to Brett: "Famous for his cheeky homages to heroes, hunks and hangers-on from Melbourne's LGBTI community and beyond, Willis tells MCV about his fascination for cartoon art and his latest selection.

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"8" The Play

  • Same Same, 31 Jan, Deanus: "But whether a witness on the stand, a member of a family or a person standing up for what they believe in, every performer is a cog in the wheel of ‘8’ that commits to their characters viewpoint, no matter on what side of the fence they sit."

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Act A Lady

  • Same Same, 29 Jan: "Act A Lady, written by American playwright Jordan Harrison, sets out to blur notions of gender division as it tells the story of a group of men in small-town Midwest America during the prohibition, who decide to cross dress as part of a local theatre production."
  • The Age, 22 Jan, Cameron Woodhead: "If the outrageously silly camp of men in frocks can drag, it is somehow transfigured when the female actors appear in men's clothing as psychological incarnations of the men and their suppressed desires. It's a subversive, and absolutely theatrical, climax."
  • Theatre People, Dec 2012: "A sumptuously comic tale about the woman in every man, the man in every woman, and the power of theatre to uncover both."

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AIDS Memorial Quilt and GLBTIQ Art Exhibition

  • Maribyrnong Weekly, 19 Dec, Goya Dmytryshchak - Quilt unfolds the memories: "The legacy of the quilt is to remember all the people who died from the disease up till the time of the anti-retrovirals. There's no memorial to them except the quilt..."

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A Perfect Midsumma Afternoon

  • Hobsons Bay Weekly, 26 Feb, Goya Dmytryshchak - Diversity on rise as Midsumma crowd puts game through hoops: "ONE of Williamstown's oldest and most conservative clubs recorded the biggest crowd in its 87-year history as part of this year's Midsumma gay and lesbian festival."

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Andy Warhol's 15 Minutes of Fame

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Bent Burlesque

  • The Age, 18 Jan, Jordan Beth Vincent: "Bent is certainly not a show for the faint of heart. It is exactly the sort of show to expect from a Melbourne Midsumma: enthusiastic, raunchy and definitely for adults only."

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Blue and Pink Phenomenon

  • The Age, 2 Feb - "Paul Yore's vast, fastidiously constructed and mechanised installation makes for a psychedelic, colour-drenched melange of gay politics, puns, sound, debris and dildos, while Deborah Kelly's fantastically camp animated music video captures a sexy, trans-species disco party in full swing."

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Carnival

  • Living Positive Victoria, 15 Jan - ENUF signs up almost 700 at Midsumma Carnival: "We have had a fantastic response at Midsumma and the community has come out in force to support the campaign"
  • Same Same, 9 Jan, Deanus - Midsumma kicks off with Carnival: "Melbourne's summer is about to get a whole lot queerer as the Midsumma Carnival this Sunday January 13 kicks off three weeks of queer culture."

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Closet Party

  • Time Out Melbourne, 1 Feb -Closet's Midsumma Party: "Those cheeky uncloseted queers from Closet are hosting a special Twilight Zone party to celebrate Midsumma’s 25th anniversary. "

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Finucane & Smith's Caravan Burlesque

  • Aussie Theatre, 31 Jan, Karla Dondio - "It's high energy, clever and uproariously funny, showcasing the ever-consummate Finucane and a bunch of bawdy cohorts who are every bit as talented."

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Gaybies

  • Herald Sun, 18 Jan, Kate Rose - "The beauty of this work lies in its poignant simplicity, and the organic way all the interviewees have reached the same conclusion: don't use me to deny my parents their rights."
  • Star Observer, 18 Jan - "From the moment the lights went up for Gaybies, I was hooked... It's nice in the best way – the way families are nice. I guess the overall message I took away, with a grin on my face, was 'gay families are still families'."
  • Aussie Theatre, 17 Jan, Anne-Marie Peard - "The Midsumma audiences are adoring this show, but to have the impact that it will have, it needs to get produced, supported and seen widely. I believe that dullness and intolerance can change with truth, so what about starting with performance at a full sitting of our federal parliament?"
  • Theatre People, 17 Jan, Adam Rafferty - "Gaybies plays for an extremely short season and is bound to be the highlight of this year's Midsumma Festival. Don't be one to say, 'I wish I’d seen it'. If you can get a ticket, this show should not be missed."
  • Theatre People, 14 Jan - Gaybies - A celebration of the modern family at Midsumma Festival: "Starring a who's who of Australian stage and screen, Gaybies promises to be a stand out at this year's Midsumma Festival."
  • Gay News Network (MCV), 18 Dec, Mitch Neems - The Kids Are All Right: "Because it is a different world now where you can live the life of a gay or lesbian person, and also have a family life."

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Gobsmacked! Showbiz and Dating

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GOWEST Program

  • Brimbank Leader, 4 Jan - GOWEST for Midsumma Festival events: "This festival will strengthen partnerships with other local councils, including Brimbank and Maribyrnong, and with community groups, organisations and artists supporting and celebrating gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer communities,"
  • Star Observer, 17 Dec - Time to test the west: "Art exhibitions, outdoor events and film nights are just some of the 18 events announced at the 2013 GOWEST launch last week at the Substation."
  • Hobsons Bay Weekly, 12 Dec - Midsumma festival: Altona, Williamstown celebrate queer culture: "Ghost tours of Altona and Williamstown will be held as part of the Midsumma festival."
  • Gay News Network, 10 Dec, Michael Magnusson - Hobsons Bay gears up for Midsumma: "Midsumma events held in the city of Hobsons Bay will strengthen partnerships with other councils and promote a positive perception of the western suburbs."

 

HAIR: The Rock Musical

  • Same Same, 8 Feb, Jayman28 - "Midsumma has brought Victorians great works of musical theatre in its twenty-five long history but none like the Broadway and West End sensation of Hair."
  • The Age / SMH, 4 Feb, Cameron Woodhead: Half-mocking Hair offers full satisfaction - "This Midsumma revival has high production values for independent musical theatre. It looks great: the costumes and wigs are full of paisley-inflected, stagey, half-mocking nostalgia."

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Here Lies Henry

  • Australian Stage, 26 Jan, Nick Spunde - "Slickly produced and performed with great gusto, it certainly offers Melbourne audiences an intriguing introduction to MacIvor's work."
  • Theatre Press, 23 Jan, Myron My - "Hyde is brilliant as Henry and has clearly been taken over himself by this character with dual personalities."
  • Aussie Theatre, 17 Jan, Anne-Marie Peard - Midsumma at Theatre Works: Matthew Hyde: "The Theatre Works Midsumma program has started with the sold out Psycho Beach Party and promises to continue being awesome with Sydney Fringe favourite Here Lies Henry opening on 22 January."
  • Gay News Network, 9 Jan, Michael Magnusson - The Naked Lie: "One of the most talked about plays of last year's Sydney Fringe Festival is coming to Melbourne for Midsumma. ...Here Lies Henry strips the performer bare, emotionally and literally."
  • Gay News Network, 3 Oct, Veronica Hannon - "It's a great collaboration and one that produces a theatrical, funny, moving show and one you'll regret you missed."
  • Australian Stage, 19 Sep, Lloyd Bradford Syke - "Without an odd of a lie, Here Lies Henry is a find. Genuinely edgy, this is a real Fringe benefit."
  • Eight Nights A Week, 18 Sep, Jason Blake - "In the crowded hit-and-miss of this year's Sydney Fringe Festival program, here's a show one you can bank on. Believe it or not."
  • Black Sheep Blog, 18 Sep, Reilly McCarron - "Here Lies Henry is an intelligent, laugh-out-loud funny, curious and poignant play, and will leave you pondering for a long time afterwards."
  • Aussie Theatre, 17 Sep, Cassie Tongue - "A brilliant economics joke is almost missed lodged between ones about Anne Frank and Josef Fritzl, but the brilliance is often there in this play just below the surface impressions, waiting to be found."
  • Weekend Notes, Sep 2012, Maddy Butler - "'Here Lies Henry', directed by Jason Langley, is a play like no other I've ever seen. It pushes the boundaries of the theatre world and, by breaking through the facade of theatre, reminds us of the facades we build around ourselves in our own lives."

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Kitsch In Synch

  • Aussie Theatre, 17 Jan - In Kitsch in Synch, housewife Pollyfilla expresses the drag of her inner longings in her lounge room through lip-synching to songs and dialog from films and TV.
  • Stonnington Leader, 7 Jan - Polly puts the kettle on for Midsumma: "I was bullied a lot at school for being gay and I soon found out that if I could get people to laugh with me, not at me, I felt better about myself."

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Midsumma Retrospective at Northcote Town Hall

  • Northcote Leader - "Exhibition marks 25-year milestone for Midsumma festival in Northcote."

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Pride March

  • City of Greater Geelong, 14 Dec - "In January we will be inviting the Geelong community to join us to march alongside our young people in a show of support."

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Psycho Beach Party

  • The Age, 15 Jan, Cameron Woodhead - Retro romp the funniest show around: "Psycho Beach Party is an absolute cack. Hi-lar-ious. What fun. 4.5 stars!"
  • Aussie Theatre, 14 Jan - Hot diggity! If Psycho Beach Party isn’t the most hip, groovy and neat-o hit of Midsumma, then I’ve got no idea what people like.
  • Aussie Theatre, 14 Jan, Anne-Marie Peard - Hot diggity! If Psycho Beach Party isn't the most hip, groovy and neat-o hit of Midsumma, then I've got no idea what people like. Full of lust, longing and psychotic shaving, it proves that you don't have to be a queen to be camp or be gay to be queer."
  • Aussie Theatre, 9 Jan, Anne-Marie Peard - Midsumma at Theatre Works: Genevieve Giuffre: "...its recent Bondi season blew Sydney away and the short Melbourne season is selling so well that you shouldn't wait."
  • Gay News Network, 9 Jan, Tim Hunter - Get your psycho on: "What I like about it is that it’s queer in the old-fashioned sense and subverting gender stereotypes and fucking with society’s main ideals of health and youth and love and sex, and that’s what I’m interested in; having a queer take on things, says Flanders."
  • Herald Sun, 7 Jan, Simon Plant - Going Psycho by the Bay: "The Melbourne production takes a 'fun, brave and snappy look' at Busch's 'queer classic'. And leopard print is optional."
  • Time Out Sydney, 11 Dec - "A perfect dollop of summertime silliness ***** stars"
  • Crikey, Lloyd Bradford Syke, 11 Dec - "To a man and woman, the cast is an absolute blast, with no small thanks due to Nicolazzo."
  • The Brag - Sydney, Jonathan Hindmarsh, 10 Dec - "With rocking song and dance moments, coming out stories, a psychotic mother and beach bums galore, this tightly directed production is all killer, no filler."
  • SMH (Sydney), Jason Blake, 4 Dec - "Caitlin Adams dispenses pure va-voom as a Hollywood scream queen on the lam, and Genevieve Giuffre's hunched and swotty Berdine is a hoot."
  • Theatre Diary, Kevin Jackson, 4 Dec - "DO NOT MISS. Recommended. Highly..."
  • New York Daily News - "A comic playwright of the first rank"
  • Associated Press - "Fiendishly funny! Zany!"
  • New York Times - "Gidget Goes Berserk!"

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Roller Derby Saved My Soul

  • Northern Weekly, 23 Jan - Midsumma Festival: Roller Derby Saved My Soul "Skater Anne Thrax credits roller derby with lifting her out of a dark depression.""
  • Star Observer, 6 Dec - From circuit to canvas: Roller Derby Saved My Soul: "The Star Observer spoke to Sofer during her preparations for the exhibition, sizing up canvases and perhaps the hardest task, whittling down her favourite 20 images."

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Taking You Places

  • Northcote Leader, 7 Jan, Julia Irwin - Online project supports family outings: "Darebin Council has partnership with Midsumma to organise the project in which members of the GLBTI community take a family member on a gay-friendly social outing and document the experience."

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The Cost of Love

  • Aussie Theatre, 22 Jan, Jan Chandler - End of an Era: Midsumma at The Butterfly Club: "Seeing choreographed dance on the stage of The Butterfly Club is quite extraordinary … it's not about step to the left and step to the right - this is proper dancing. Take it from a former Australian Ballet member, this is well done" says Pulga.
  • Same Same, 31 Jan, Andymil: "I was captivated from the moment Justin Clausen stepped on stage. Shimmying around in silver trousers, hair looking impeccable, he had the audience eating out of his hand."

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The Dead Ones

  • Aussie Theatre, 31 Jan, Anne-Marie Peard - "The Dead Ones is immaculate story telling... get to Theatre Works before it finishes on the weekend."
  • Arts Hub, 15 Jan - "Margie Fischer is a writer and performer and is also the Chair of the Board of Feast, Adelaide's Queer Cultural Festival."
  • The Age, 12 Jan, Cameron Woodhead - A daughter reclaims her lost tribe: "Fischer is the Xena, Warrior Princess of Australia's theatre scene, an outsider with many skills."
  • The Australian, 22 Nov, Murray Bramwell - Daughter picks through the many pieces left by her lost family: "Deceptive in its simplicity, The Dead Ones covers a lot of ground with the repetitions of text and image gathering complexity and intensity as Fischer chronicles one family, and in so doing reminds us of all families"
  • The Advertiser, 22 Nov, Matt Byrne - Margie's heartfelt sense of belonging: "FEAST co-founder Margie Fischer has spent a long time down among the memories of her family."

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The Gay Agenda

  • Aussie Theatre, 24 Jan: "Theatre Works final show for Midsumma is Margie Fischer’s most recent work, The Dead Ones, and she has a chat to Anne-Marie Peard."
  • Gay News Network, 9 Jan, Tim Hunter: "We found the only way to react to this is to make fun of it, and have a lot of fun with it, poke fun at it and highlight its absurdities and its very shaky or invisible foundations," adds Geyer.

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The Gold Party

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The Prince's Quest

  • Aussie Theatre, 25 Jan - "The characters’ example of being true to oneself makes The Prince’s Quest a commendable challenge to the heteronormative world of fairy tales."

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Tom Sharah in It's Raining Me

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Vieux Carré

  • The Age, 21 Jan, Cameron Woodhead - "Queer characters and the playwright's famed sense of place are central to this play of erotic and artistic emergence, and the design, especially Alexandra Hiller's set, makes the seedy rooming house come alive with the intensity of memory too often recollected, with a crepuscular sense of Southern heat and decay."
  • Australian Stage, 21 Jan, Vito Mattarelli - "This production is already receiving a lot of attention, and judging by the crossover audience is not only of interest to Melbourne's gay community."
  • Theatre Press, 20 Jan, Tania Herbert - "For an opening night, this was an astonishingly polished performance, and there was a veteran command of the stage by all performers without exception."
  • The Age, 22 Dec, Andrew Stephens - A minefield named desire: "People are just people in stories, and in this story a couple of people happen to be gay. Hopefully, one day everyone can accept that idea, and we can all just live on this planet doing what we want, and who we want to do it with."
  • Star Observer, 12 Dec - A closer look at Tennessee: "An autobiographical piece by Williams is making its Australian premiere next year at the Midsumma Festival"

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What people are saying about Midsumma

Some general coverage about the 2013 Midsumma Festival.

  • Brimbank Weekly, 31 Jan: West welcomes gay festival.
  • Arina, 26 Jan: Midsumma at OTK.
  • Theatre People, 18 Jan: Midsumma at Gasworks.
  • The Age, 30 Jan - Small works get up close and personal for a big impact.
  • Same Same, 10 Jan, Deanus - All around Melbourne: Midsumma's North, East, West and South: "Want to know what's going on throughout the city? We've compiled a list of everything that's on, just flip through these pages to see what's on offer."
  • Gay News Network, 9 Jan, Rachel Cook - Happy Midsumma: "So it is that time of year again, but this year seems even more special doesn’t it? It's Midsumma's 25th anniversary and I'm sure for the pioneers of this celebrated annual event, the fact that the festival is still going is a great source of pride."
  • Gay News Network, 9 Jan, Monique Thorpe, Festival Manager - Welcome to Midsumma: some insider tips about Midsumma 2013.
  • MX, 7 Jan - "'Program-wise we're heading into a new era, we're looking to really increase the quality', Thorpe said"
  • Sometimes Melbourne, 4 Jan - Theatre Talk - Dan Clarke's Midsumma musts: "interview with Daniel Clarke – winner of the Sometimes Melbourne 'Everything he does rocks' award for 2012 – what he's up to for Midsumma"