Festival 2025
May 1-4
Cabaret Festival 2025 Gala Show On Sale Now!
Gala Dates
May 2-3
Gather your favourite and most adveturous friends and secure your tickets for our Festival centrepiece: the Cabaret Gala.
Witness an electrifying showcase of world-class performers from the worlds of cabaret, circus, opera, magic, and more, all coming together for a bespoke Ballarat show.
Identity Quest - a trans existential drama
By Julie Peters
Sunday May 4
5pm
As a child, people kept telling Julie Peters she was a boy, and she could never be a girl.
It took her decades of multi-directed epic quests to become herself and unbecome all the negative labels and the unbecoming-stressful drama her life had become.
Along the way she tried showbiz, academia, politics, environmentalism, promoting social justice and equity and became an accidental archivist and fashionista.
We meet the `personae dramatis’ of her life, family, teachers, religion, Macbeth’s witches, movie stars, colleagues.
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Mama Alto: Transcendent
Friday May 2
6pm
One of Australia’s finest cabaret artistes, the velvet-voiced Mama Alto makes her
Ballarat Cabaret Festival debut with “Mama Alto: Transcendent.”
following sold-out, smash-hit performances at Joe’s Pub in New York,
Perth International Cabaret Festival, and Melbourne Recital Centre.
Mama Alto is a jazz singer, cabaret artiste and gender transcendent diva. Her liquid velvet voice comes to the fore in stunning and beguiling interpretations that turn already rich material inside-out. Traversing smoky torch songs, sumptuous jazz ballads and luscious vocals, Mama’s repertoire holds both familiar melodies and unexpected morsels.
With her soaring voice, exquisite sense of musicality and wondrously statuesque stage
presence, Mama Alto continues to establish herself as one of Australia’s pre-eminent
interpreters of the art of torch singing. Enigmatic, multifaceted and resplendent, her
weaving of song and story, triumph and tragedy, poignancy and pathos make for an
unforgettable musical experience.
