Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Wednesday 14 April
6:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Trans, non-binary, and gender-diverse comedians and performers are standing up and stepping out. As the world evolves its understanding of gender identity, preferred pronouns and social norms, gender-transcendent stars are reaching wider and more diverse audiences and garnering critical acclaim.
To further interrogate, understand and celebrate their careers, Jeez Louise: Transplaining brings together an incredible panel of writers and performers – including Chloe Black, Scout Boxall and Oliver Reeson – to discuss their lived experiences and share their stories, from the page to the stage.
The Jeez Louise series was born in 2002 to encourage more women to get into comedy, and support those already there. Over the past 18 years, women and LGBTQIA+ comedians have been welcomed onto stages and into writers’ rooms in increasing numbers – not in deference to political correctness, as some still cynically proclaim, but because their wit and skill makes great comedy.
We’ll discuss comedy’s potential to hold space for all comedians – and as a vehicle for speaking truth.
Presented in partnership with Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Due to Covid-19 restrictions, venue capacity is unfortunately limited. We will not be able to accommodate walk-ups or a waitlist as may have been the case in the past. Read more about our live events plan here. Check our website, follow us on social media or sign up to our e-newsletter The Wheeler Weekly for updates and any late ticket releases.
Featuring
Oliver Reeson
Oliver Reeson is an essayist and screenwriter. They are currently one of the recipients of the Next Chapter Fellowship, and mentored by Maria Tumarkin. Their work has appeared in publications such as Overland, Meanjin, Autostraddle, Literary Hub, and The Saturday Paper. In 2018 they co-created and wrote the SBS web series Homecoming Queens.
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Scout Boxall
Scout Boxall is one of the most exciting new talents in Australian comedy. Their work swings between pithy observational stand up and manic, chaotic powerpoint comedy with a sharp political awareness. Winner of Best ...
Chloe Black
Chloe began her stand-up career in Adelaide (at the famed Rhino Room) over 20 years ago. She was a Raw Comedy National Finalist in 2001 although she may have performed back then under another name. She has performed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Adelaide Fringe and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She is a broadcaster on Edge Radio in Hobart as co-host of Film Central. She was an original participant at the inaugural AFTRS National Talent Camp in 2018. She is writer and creator of the web series TRANSFERRED which is currently in development with Screen Australia and Electric Yak Productions. Coming out 5 years ago to friends and family has freed her up to not only find her true self but also has given her stand up a unique point of view and a voice with which to tell it.
Mama Alto
Mama Alto is a jazz singer, cabaret artiste and gender transcendent diva. She is a transgender and queer person of colour who works with the radical potential of storytelling, strength in softness and power in vulnerability. In addition to her excellence as a performing artist, she is a writer of intelligence and sensitivity.
She has performed original spoken word and pieces of new writing for Melbourne Writers Festival, Queerstories, Emerging Writers' Festival and Word In Hand. Her writing has been published in the Age, Archer Magazine, Querelle 2018, the Music, and Melbourne Recital Centre's Soundescapes, and she has contributed chapters to Queerstories (ed. Maeve Marsden, Hachette Australia 2018) and Living & Loving in Diversity (ed. Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli, Wakefield Press and AGMC 2019).
In 2019, she was one of the playwrights selected for the MTC's Cyber Electric workshop and readings series. Her Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship will build upon the research and writing work on the concept of the diva which she undertook as one of the 2019 Creators supported by Creative Victoria's Creators Fund.