Over 20 days, Sydney will pulse with queer energy through a dynamic program of theatre, music, parties, talks, and community events, culminating in the 48th Annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade on Saturday 28 February, when Oxford Street once again transforms into the beating heart of LGBTQIA+ pride and visibility. With so much on offer, the Australian Pride Network takes a look at eight events worth checking out:
Brand New Dress
Qtopia Sydney – The Loading Dock Theatre: 23 – 27 February
One piano, ten fingers and and a pile of dresses Andy never wore. Until now. Brand New Dress is an autobiographical cabaret from the mind of Andy Freeborn. Join them on an adventure through queerhood, from the dizzying highs to the confusing lows, through cigarettes and lipstick and growing out their hair. Following the smash success of Everything is Shit at the Old Fitz in 2024, Andy journeys beyond the binary in their second introspective work. This queer, rocking cabaret delivers lyrical sweetness to nurse your wounded inner child and poetic rage to exorcise your demons.
LOVING: Photographs of Men in Love, 1850s–1950s
Qtopia Sydney: ongoing
Qtopia Sydney, in association with the European Union (EU) Delegation to Australia, presents LOVING, a photographic collection capturing intimate moments of male love between the 1850s and 1950s by American collectors and married couple, Hugh Nini and Neal Treadwell. When they discovered an old photograph of two men in love at an antique store in Dallas, Texas, 25 years ago, they had no idea how profoundly it would change their lives – and illuminate a hidden history. That single image sparked a global journey, taking them across the United States, Canada, Europe, the UK, Australia and Asia in search of photographs capturing men in love. This landmark exhibition draws from the extraordinary private collection of more than 4,000 images they collected from from flea markets, auction houses, family albums and online collections across the globe over a period of more than two decades.
Perfect Arrangement
New Theatre: continues to 7 March
It’s 1950s America, and a new colour has been added to the Red Scare: lavender. The Lavender Scare saw LGBTQ+ people interrogated, outed, and dismissed from government service in a sweeping campaign of fear and moral panic. Enter Bob and Norma, two U.S. State Department employees tasked with identifying and reporting “sexual deviants” within their ranks. There’s just one problem: both Bob and Norma are gay, and are married to each other’s partners as a carefully constructed ruse. Inspired by the early stirrings of the American gay rights movement, this madcap, classic-sitcom setup gradually gives way to sharp, provocative drama, as two “All-American” couples find themselves staring down the closet door – and the cost of keeping it shut. Topher Payne explores themes of fear and the weaponisation of identity – themes that feel just as relevant today.
Queer Art After Hours
Art Gallery of New South Wales: Wednesday 25 February
Join the Art Gallery of New South Wales in celebrating the diversity, resilience and creativity of the LGBTQIA+ community at this special event. A platform for LGBTQIA+ artists, performers and storytellers, the annual Queer Art After Hours at the Art Gallery of New South Wales is a testament to the vibrancy of queer culture in Sydney. Queer Art After Hours will take place across Naala Badu and Naala Nura, featuring a dynamic program of DJs, live performances and Queering the collection tours activating the Art Gallery after hours. This year’s event extends to the Tank, with a limited-capacity dance party hosted by Late Night Queer Dance collective within the exhibition Mike Hewson: The Key’s Under the Mat.
Strip The Life Fantastic
Qtopia Sydney – The Substation: continues to 21 February
Australia’s Kween of Burlesque, World Queen of Burlesque 2012, shares stories of their life in a game-show style evening. Featuring films, photographs, stories, poems and songs form their past Imogen (or Ben Her to those who know them better) reminisces about the AIDS epidemic, working for gangsters in Kings Cross, changing laws to allow sex workers rights, travelling the world as a notorious showgirl, performing in traditional circus, being crowned World Queen of Burlesque, finding out they are intersex among other fascinating twists and turns that their life has taken. More than a talk, and interactive as theatre, this is part show, part sharing of history.
The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin
Belvoir Street Theatre: 21 February – 29 March
A landmark work of Australian theatre returns to the stage where it first sprang to inglorious life. steve j. spears’s The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin scandalised and mesmerised in equal measure when it premiered in 1976—touring across the world and collecting awards everywhere it ventured. Now, on its 50th anniversary, Simon Burke takes on the towering role that Gordon Chater made infamous. Robert O’Brien is an elocution teacher whose career is going nowhere fast. Stuck in a dreary cycle of diaphragm exercises and She-Sells-Seashells, every evening he escapes into extravagant fantasies of seducing Mick Jagger. Then, a new student arrives. Benjamin Franklin. A 12-year-old acting prodigy with a stutter, a pack-a-day smoking habit and some unsettling curiosities about his middle-aged voice teacher. With half of Double Bay already suspicious of their flamboyant neighbour, a ticking time bomb is lit. Directed by Artistic Director Declan Greene (Naturism, The Lewis Trilogy), this revival is a riotous, razor-edged tragicomedy and harrowing portrait of persecution. Half a century on, it’s just as urgent – and unsettling – as ever.
The Normal Heart
Drama Studio – Sydney Opera House: continues to 14 March
In 1989, The Normal Heart made its Australian premiere at Sydney Theatre Company to roaring standing ovations. Almost 40 years later, Larry Kramer’s groundbreaking, semi-autobiographical and Tony and Olivier Award-winning masterpiece – set in 1980s New York during the first few years of the AIDS crisis – returns to Sydney Theatre Company: an epic exploration of a community in crisis and their resilience, courage, humour and love. Directed by Dean Bryant, The Normal Heart is a monumental and moving tribute to the beginning of a world-changing movement and a poignant reminder of the power of people coming together and falling in love, even when the world seems to be falling apart.
The Performers
Qtopia Sydney – The Substation: 19 – 21 February
Australia’s most fabulous double act, Dolly Diamond and Skank Sinatra, are teaming up for a cabaret catastrophe of epic proportions – and it’s going to be the funniest musical comedy failure you’ve ever seen. The Performers follows down-on-their-luck cabaret producers Dolly Diamond and Skank Sinatra as they hatch a scheme to save themselves from unpaid Edinburgh Fringe tax bills – by producing a surefire flop. But when their “guaranteed disaster” turns out to be a surprise success, chaos, comedy and showtunes ensue. Expect dazzling costumes, razor-sharp banter, and musical parodies of Broadway’s biggest hits as these two cabaret icons do everything in their power not to succeed.
The 2026 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival continues to 1 March. For more information and full program, visit: www.mardigras.org.au for details.
Images: Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade – photo by Ann-Marie Calilhanna | Brand New Dress (supplied) | Unknown subjects, LOVING: Photographs of Men in Love, 1850s-1950s – The Hugh Nini and Neal Treadwell collection | New Theatre presents Perfect Arrangement by Topher Payne – photo by Bob Seary | Nefertiti LaNegra performs during Queer Art After Hours 2025 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (supplied) | Imogen Kelly stars in Strip The Life Fantastic – photo by Joel Devereux | Simon Burke stars in The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin – courtesy of Griffin Theatre Company | Mark Saturno as Ben and Mitchell Butel as Ned in The Normal Heart -photo by Matt Byrne | Skank Sinatra and Dolly Diamond star in The Performers (supplied)