OPENING NIGHT
COURTNEY ACT, BENJAMIN LAW, KATE LILLEY & ALEX GREENWICH MP
“I’m not missing a minute of this. It’s the revolution!” – Sylvia Rivera
Thursday 4 November 2021
7:00 pm - 08:00 pm
A night of memoir, poetry, activism and pure passion, our Opening Night brings together prominent queer Australians to acknowledge and celebrate writing and experience. We look forward to you joining us virtually for our first ever opening night - of many more to come.
Courtney Act - Boy, Girl. Artist, Advocate. Courtney Act is a contemporary artist who embodies the zeitgeist of an era. One of the first artists to show their gender fluidity, Courtney has appeared and was semi-finalist on the premier season of Australian Idol (2003), Top 3 on Season 6 of Emmy-award winning RuPaul’s Drag Race (2014), Winner of Celebrity Big Brother UK, 2020 Network Ten’s Dancing with the Stars, Eurovision and is currently competing on Dancing with the Stars All Stars.
Courtney has performed in international tours of original shows The Girl from Oz, Courtney Act: Under the Covers, The Courtney Act Show for Channel 4 UK, Peach (Australia) and is currently performing FLUID.
She has recently published her memoir Caught in the Act (Pantera Press), chronicling her multi-faceted and colourful life and experiences.
Benjamin Law is a journalist, columnist, TV screenwriter and author of The Family Law (2010), Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East (2012), the Quarterly Essay Moral Panic 101 (2017) and editor of Growing Up Queer in Australia (2019). Benjamin created and co-wrote three seasons of the award-winning SBS TV series The Family Law, based on his memoir, and wrote the sold-out mainstage play Torch the Place for Melbourne Theatre Company (2020).
Every week, Benjamin co-hosts ABC Radio National’s weekly national pop culture show Stop Everything and interviews public figures for Good Weekend. He hosted ABC TV’s two-part feature documentary on Chinese-Australian history Waltzing the Dragon, and has appeared on TV shows like Filthy Rich and Homeless (SBS), Q&A (ABC), The Drum (ABC) and The Project (Ten). He has also written for over 50 publications in Australia and beyond—including the Monthly, frankie, Guardian, Monocle and Australian Financial Review.
Kate Lilley is a queer, Sydney-based poet, editor and scholar. She is the author of 2 chapbooks and 3 full-length collections of poetry: Versary (Salt 2002), winner of the Grace Leven Prize; Ladylike (UWAP 2012), shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Awards; and Tilt (Vagabond 2018), winner of the Victorian Premier’s Award for Poetry. As an academic specialising in queer, feminist literary history and poetics, she was a full-time member of the English Department at the University of Sydney from 1990 to 2021 and is now an Honorary Associate.