Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Wednesday 02 March
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
‘Out and Proud’ or ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’? Sexual identity and public acceptance are not always easy bedfellows. Our guests share their personal accounts of the agonies and ecstasies of telling all to loved ones, friends and the wider world.
Featuring
Virginia Lovett
Virginia Lovett is general manager of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Virginia has also worked as an advisor to the Carr Labor government in New South Wales. Virginia is currently Deputy Chair of Force Majeure and a board member for Arena Theatre. She has sat on the boards of Sydney’s Mardi Gras, Legs on the Wall and Craft Victoria. In 2006, Virginia was awarded a Churchill Fellowship.
Richard Watts
Richard Watts is the National Performing Arts Editor of industry website ArtsHub; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM, and serves as the Chair of La Mama Theatre's volunteer Committee of Management.
Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, and was awarded the status of Melbourne Fringe Living Legend in 2017. In 2020 he was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize. Most recently, Richard was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Green Room Awards Association in June 2021.
View Profile
Tom Cho
Tom Cho’s stories have appeared in magazines, journals and anthologies in Australia and internationally.
He has also performed at festivals around the country, including in the award-winning show Hello Kitty. He has won grants and awards for his fiction and is currently completing a PhD in Professional Writing.
Ana Kokkinos
Acclaimed writer/director Ana Kokkinos’ career spans film and TV.
Ana’s latest feature film Blessed (2009) premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival and was selected for Main Competition at San Sebastian (where it won the Jury prize for Best Screenplay). Blessed was in Official Selection at the Toronto, London, Giffoni and Palm Springs International Film Festivals.
Ana’s first full-length feature Head On was selected for Director’s Fortnight at Cannes. Her other films include The Book of Revelation and Only the Brave. She’s also directed episodes of ‘The Secret Life of Us* and 'Eugenie Sandler PI’, which won an AFI Award for Best Children’s TV Drama.
Ana is currently a board member of Film Victoria. She teaches directing at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School where she began as an industry mentor in 2007. In 2010 Ana was honoured at the Seattle International Film Festival as an emerging master filmmaker.
Tina Del Twist
Truly unique, Tina Del Twist is Australia’s much-loved nightingale, known for her ‘beautiful voice and wicked sense of comic timing’ (the Age). With a voice as smooth as honey and a comedic wit that could shred brie, you’ll have a ball enjoying the talents of Tina Del Twist.
Tina Del Twist has featured on ABCTV’s Comedy Up Late, has performed sell-out seasons with Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Melbourne Cabaret Festival, Darwin Festival and has been invited to perform in Copenhagen, Berlin, Edinburgh, and New York. Tina has also performed with the Melba Spiegeltent playing a lead role in La Soiree. And then some.
'Fabulousness' - Age
'Super fabulous' - Herald Sun
'I must apologise for my overuse of the word "fabulous"' - Inpress