Adelaide Cabaret Festival crowns next artistic director
Virginia Gay has handed over the reins to the festival’s next artistic director, who promises to lead a “delicious revolution” in 2026.
Adelaide Cabaret Festival has named drag-inspired singer and comedian Reuben Kaye to helm the festival in 2026, with outgoing director Virginia Gay revealing the news last night at the festival’s 25th anniversary party.
Kaye says it would be a “wonderful thing” to give back to a festival that has played a formative role in his own career, telling InReview that his first experience with the festival a decade ago was a sliding doors moment.
“I was doing a casino show in Macau that was a front for money laundering,” he says. “They were laundering cash through the show to gangsters, and I flew down just to host the Banquet Room.
“It was the first time I’d ever seen a festival or any space in the art world — that was established, that was mainstage — that welcomed me, that threw it arms open and said, ‘Oh you don’t fit in anywhere else? You fit in here.’”
Subsequent festivals under the directorship of Ali McGregor and Eddie Perfect helped Kaye develop his practice as a solo artist. He has since become a regular sight on television screens and stages around Australia and the United Kingdom, and is currently in the middle of a season playing Pontius Pilate in a revival of Jesus Christ Superstar.
“I could be running the Yakuza now,’ he laughs. “Sadly it was not to be, instead the Adelaide Cabaret Festival stole my heart.”
A rare glimpse of incoming Adelaide Cabaret Festival artistic director Reuben Kaye out of costume and makeup. Photo: Claudio Raschella / Supplied
Kaye is set to close out the 2025 festival with his latest solo show at Her Majesty’s Theatre on Saturday, before returning next year to join a starry lineage of Cabaret Festival artistic directors that has included Alan Cumming, Tina Arena, Julia Zemiro, David Campbell and Barry Humphreys.
“Every other artform looks down its nose at cabaret, but for me it will always be the fiercest, most immediate, most exciting art form,” Kaye says. “And especially in times like, this it’s the most relevant and allows the performer the most autonomy.”
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Like his predecessor, Kaye says his festival will channel the rebellious spirit of cabaret’s origins while responding to contemporary conversations.
“I want exciting, angry, edgy, sexy artists who are pushing boundaries, who are seeing the world up right now and holding up a mirror,” he says. “Cabaret was forged in the fires of controversy, of fascism, of corruption, of an uncomfortable and scary world, and if anything, it’s a response to that. My festival is a delicious revolution.”
Gay said her two years as artistic director has been “one of the most transformative experiences of my life”.
“I cannot tell you how grateful I am for the welcome and generosity that Adelaide audiences have shown me,” she said in a statement. “Everywhere a hug, everywhere a willingness to try something new: a show; a name; an experience. But it’s time for me to sail off into the glittery sunset and make other new worlds for people to play in. And when we were thinking of the perfect fit for the future of the festival … there really is nobody like Reuben Kaye.”
Reuben Kaye will perform enGORGEd XXL at Her Majesty’s Theatre on Saturday June 21