The future doesn’t belong to the faint hearted...
It belongs to the brave.

Surrender to night-time delights, as you experience the unexpected.

Join us for an evening showcasing an eclectic array of performances curated to surprise and enchant, accompanied by wine, wonder and delicious dining.

THE ABUNDANCE & ABANDON GALA celebrates imagination and raises vital funds for our future.


FEATURING

CLAIRE HOOPER (Master of ceremonies)
Claire Hooper started on the stage – crafting engaging, innovative live shows that blended stand-up, theatre and some hammer dancing. She has featured as a team captain on Good News Week, co-hosted The Great Australian Bake Off and appeared on Rove and The Project.

A born storyteller with a sharp wit, Claire has gone on to regularly perform at festivals and comedy rooms all over the country.

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MAMA ALTO
Mama Alto is a jazz singer, cabaret artiste & gender transcendent diva. Fierce, femme and fabulous, she works with a dedicated belief in the radical potentials of storytelling, strength in softness and power in vulnerability. Her sublime and sumptuous vocals enrapture audiences from intimate salons to grand concert halls.

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THE HUXLEYS
Will and Garrett Huxley’s shared background in costume design, photography, film and performance has informed their practice as The Huxleys: a living, ever-evolving collage of arresting shapes, lurid colour, extreme theatrics and an ethos of glamorous androgynous abandon.

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ONE FELL SWOOP CIRCUS
One Fell Swoop is a contemporary circus company that aims to re-examine the dynamics of acrobatic ensemble work and the relationships within it. One Fell Swoop lets audiences viscerally experience the balance of joy and risk inherent to group acrobatic performance, creating powerful works on the cutting edge of contemporary circus practice.

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SHAUNTAI BATZKE
In 2016, Wiradjuri Soprano Shauntai Batzke made her Sydney Opera House debut with Short Black Opera’s 5th season of Pecan Summer. Short Black Opera Company is Australia’s first and only Indigenous opera company and the proud recipient of the 2014 and 2015 Harold Blair Scholarship with the Dame Nellie Melba Opera Trust.

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LOU WALL
Lou Wall is a multi-award winning comedian, actor, and theatre-maker based in Melbourne. She is a recipient of Melbourne Cabaret Festival’s Emerging Cabaret Artist Award for her 2017 work, It’s Not Me, It’s Lou. She was also the winner of Melbourne Fringe’s Best Emerging Artist Award 2018 for her latest extravaganza, Lou Wall’s Drag Race.

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JESSICA HITCHCOCK
Jess Hitchcock is an award-winning indigenous opera singer, composer, actor and songwriter with family origins from Saibai in the Torres Straits and Papua New Guinea.
Over the last 2 years Jessica has been touring with Kate Miller-Heidke as her backing vocalist around Australia and this year was with Kate at the Eurovision song contest in Israel.

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POLLY FILLA
Clocking up over 20 years of performing in drag, Polly Filla is a multi-award-winning costume designer, known for her dazzling wardrobe of creative couture costumes, polychromatic hair & makeup and precision lip synching – often to comedic mash ups she has mixed together herself. She can usually be found with mic in hand hosting many of Australasia’s popular social events.

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MATT DOLL
Matt Doll has been a fixture in the Australian music scene for over 20 years as the lead singer/songwriter and creative force in bands The Mavis’s, The Boxing Tostados, The Blow Waves, The B-Dolls and VIDEO VIDEO.

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JOHNNY GASH & DONATELLA WHYFE
Carefully painting in sharp cheekbones and heavy eyebrows before applying a moustache and a final sprinkling of glitter, Leonie Dodds slowly transforms into male alter-ego Johnny Gash a new Melbourne Drag King Icon making his debut around the bars of Melbourne. Johnny is an irreverent bossy boi who takes the lead with his onstage drag wife, Donatella Whyfe.

Paul Whelan first adopted his drag alter ego Donatella Wyfe as a means to support Melbourne’s LGBTI-inclusive swim team, the Glamourhead Sharks. He’d been swimming with the Glams for more than four years and was trying to find a new way to champion the team.