Adelaide Cabaret Festival is a place where bold new voices are nurtured, innovation is celebrated, and the next generation of cabaret stars are born. This year, we put the future of cabaret firmly centre stage, showcasing fresh talent, original works, and fearless storytelling.

Class of Cabaret 2025. Photo by Claudio Raschella.

Class of Cabaret
Now in its 17th year, Class of Cabaret proves that magic happens when you challenge the most dazzling teen talents to create their show from scratch over the course of one school semester. Under the mentorship of cabaret royalty Mark Oates and Millicent Sarre, 16 students show us what they’ve got, and boy, have they got it. Each performance features a different line up of students.

Homecoming: Class of Cabaret Graduates
Over the past 16 years, Class of Cabaret has helped launch the careers of many performers who have gone on to achieve success in the industry.  This year, your MC Alex De Porteous (Class of 2015) shows them off. Hear the success stories (and songs) of the now experienced performers who were once starry-eyed students with dreams of razzle dazzle.

Lincoln Elliott – Artefact (or, Repatriation: The Musical)
Artefact (or, Repatriation: The Musical) is the unapologetically heist-erical emo-rock musical about reclaiming what’s rightfully ours. Take your seat for this in-development peek of the action as our rag-tag crew takes on montage sequences, kazoos, lasers and the British Monarchy. Featuring a live band and a surprisingly tasteful recorder solo, Artefact is the irreverent new musical destined to steal your heart along the way.

Lyndon Watts - JAVÓN
Haunting, wild and devastating, JAVÓN is the star-making turn showing from performance artist Lyndon Watts (Hamilton, Candide, TROY). A woman’s love for a wandering stranger pulls her beyond reason. When death descends and love is taken away, she is left alone with grief, visions and ancestral curses.  JAVÓN is a gothic fever dream of desire, loss and the forces that run through us and the land.

Maybelline Celles Spinley San Juan – Maybelline Wasn’t Raised Like This, But She Is Born With It
Hot off the back of a sell-out season of her debut at the 2025 Adelaide Fringe, Maybelline is back to dazzle with her exceptional vocals and whip-smart wit. In joyful duet and heartfelt storytelling, she invites her family to the stage to unravel their history from Manila to Adelaide across the decades.

Vidya Makan - Light
Join the joyful celebration of the South Asian diaspora experience in Light, an in-development musical by Vidya Makan (The Lucky Country) and Tasnim Hossain. During the annual Navaratri festival, the women of the Pandya family deal with their unique demons. Elegantly navigating single motherhood, burnout, public expectation and secret relationships, Light is a delightfully dimensional story of suburban South Asian Australians, glowing with humour and tenderness.

If you’re looking for something new, heartfelt, and unforgettable, this is where the future of cabaret begins.

More information from the 2026 Adelaide Cabaret Festival edition of WeekendPlus: