Guided by the theme, Time & Place, the 2026 Midsumma Festival explores how moments and locations shape our identities – through over 200 events spanning art, performance, music and celebration.
This summer, Midsumma Festival invites audiences to look closer at the moments and places that shape us. Through a kaleidoscope of performances, exhibitions and celebrations, the 2026 program explores how art becomes a mirror for queer identity, history and imagination across Victoria.
From large-scale public celebrations to intimate creative encounters, this year’s program continues to champion connection, creativity, and community, in over 100 iconic venues, across 22 days of unforgettable art, performance, music and joy.
“Every year, Midsumma amplifies the extraordinary voices that make Victoria’s queer culture thrive,” says Karen Bryant, Midsumma CEO. “In 2026, we’re celebrating artists who not only reflect the world around them – they help reshape it.”-
Parks, streets and venues will come alive across Victoria, Midsumma’s beloved mainstays, Midsumma Carnival, Pride March and Victoria’s Pride, anchor the festival while uplifting a new generation of artists whose works explore identity, belonging and imagination.
“Building on Midsumma’s developmental focus, this year’s program features a powerful suite of works by emerging and alumni artists from our Pathways mentorship program,” adds Pieta Farrel, Head of Programming. “These artists are redefining the future of queer performance and visual culture in Australia.”
Program highlights of the 2026 Midsumma Festival include:
Afterglow
Chapel Off Chapel: 31 January – 8 February
S. Asher Gelman’s international hit play Afterglow is heading down under for its highly anticipated Australian premiere. The stellar cast of three comprises Julian Curtis, gold medal winning Olympic diver Matthew Mitcham and Matthew Predny. Afterglow is a raw, funny and sensual exploration of polyamory, commitment, and modern love.
Australian Open
Theatre Works: 21 – 31 January
Serving scandal, smashing egos, and dripping sweat – welcome to the Australian Open you’ve never seen before. From acclaimed queer playwright Angus Cameron, comes a razor-sharp new comedy that takes audiences courtside, where ambition, lust and rivalry collide in spectacular fashion. Under the blazing summer sun, the world’s most famous tennis tournament becomes the backdrop for a wickedly funny exploration of love, fame and the messiness of desire.
DIVA
Australian Museum of Performing Arts: 11 December – 26 April
DIVA is a groundbreaking exhibition celebrating some of history’s most provocative and powerful performers. The exhibition presents more than 250 objects, including 60 spectacular costumes, jewellery, photography, art, and music, drawn from the V&A’s Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne’s Australian Performing Arts Collection, and loaned treasures from across the world. Discover the triumphs and transformations of the diva, from 19th-century opera goddesses and silent film stars to Golden Age Hollywood legends and today’s global megastars and pop icons.
Drag Storytime for Adults with Neralda Jacobs & Karina Natt
State Library of Victoria: 31 January
Hosted by drag performers and featuring journalist Narelda Jacobs and her wife Karina Natt reading from their new picture book If Queers Weren’t Meant to Have Kids… , this adults-only storytime celebrates rainbow families through humour, satire and love. Equal parts laughter and liberation, this event reclaims the joy of storytelling for all, and includes an exclusive and lively in-conversation and book-signing opportunity with Narelda and Karina.
Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens
The MC Showroom: 29 January – 1 February
Born from the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens gives life and, more importantly, voice to those lost and left behind in the wake of the AIDS epidemic. This brand new production fuses Bill Russell’s original free verse poetry and Janet Hood’s musical score with new choreography by Jesse Matthews, striking right to heart of what it means to survive and be remembered. An ensemble of actors and musicians will bring this collection of songs and monologues to life, sharing this pivotal work with a new generation of queer folk – helping us all connect to our history.
GARABARI
Meat Market: 30 – 31 January
Garabari by Joel Bray Dance flips the usual theatre experience into an all-in dance gathering. Created with Wiradjuri Elders and community, it shares the Giilang – the story and song of how the Murrumbidgee River came to life. Wiradjuri song and Byron Scullin’s driving electronic beats set the pace. Denni Francisco’s striking designs and Katie Sfetkidis’ immersive lighting turn the space into a vibrant dance floor. Audiences are invited to join the performers in call and response and simple movement, building to a collective finale full of energy and connection, a state of ecstasy.
Homophonic!
Theatre Works: 6 – 7 February
Classical music, but gayer! Homophonic! is bringing the disco ball to the concert hall and inviting you to experience the entrancing sound world of todays LGBTIQ+ composers. Performed by the Homophonic! Chamber Ensemble and 6 voices of The Consort of Melbourne. Featuring the world premiere of Midsumma Presents: The Homophonic! Pride Prize performed by Homophonic! Artistic Director and double bassist Miranda Hill, works for voices and strings telling the stories of LGBTIQ+ seniors, and so much more.
Mama Alto: Transcendent
Melbourne Recital Centre: 29 – 31 January
The velvet-voiced Mama Alto, returns to the Salon at Melbourne Recital Centre for Midsumma Festival. With musical director Joshua Haines, she weaves an exquisite show that epitomises – and eclipses – the past fifteen years of her performances around the country, and around the world. First created for the revered Joe’s Pub at The Public Theatre, New York, this show is truly Transcendent.
Milo Hartill: Black, Fat and F**gy
Chapel Off Chapel: 4 – 5 February
At the centre of the Venn diagram of queer, chunky, brown women with the voice of a goddamn angel, you’ll find the terrifying talent that is Milo Hartill. How do you tell the story of a mixed race, fat, bisexual, underwear model, performer and Instagram influencer? You sing the shit out of a fistful of killer songs in a brand spanking new cabaret of course. Straddling pretty much all of the hottest 2024 minorities (take that as you will), Milo’s unique perspective has her perfectly placed to unpack the NOW.
Much to do with Law, but more to do with Love
Gasworks Arts Park: 4 – 7 February
It’s alienating. It’s violent. It’s pretty much incomprehensible. For one queer lawyer, it’s the ultimate toxic lover. In his award-winning lecture-performance, Danish Sheikh returns to the courtroom that broke his heart, and the play that healed it. Tracing a journey through colonial legacies that refuse to die, court transcripts that won’t let him move on, and a certain pop star who insists on the redemptive power of shaking it off, this charming and provocative show asks: what’s the point of loving the law when the law won’t love you back? Winner of the 2025 Queer Playwriting Award!
My Heart by Danaë Killian
Melbourne Recital Centre: Thursday 22 January
Forest Collective’s star pianist Danaë Killian (The Minotaur, Labyrinth) returns solo to Midsumma 2026 in a thrillingly intimate performance celebrating the launch of her latest album, My Heart (Move Records). Inspired by German-Jewish Expressionist poet Else Lasker-Schüler’s novel Mein Herz, Danaë’s piano performance flies on a magic carpet of spoken-word improvisatory poetic threads, which existentially obfuscate the boundaries between Danaë and Else, as both their hearts break. Music by Danaë’s real-life composer friends wraps around these shattered hearts like an exquisitely unction-soaked, colourful bandage.
Skank Sinatra: The Name On Everybody’s Lips
Chapel Off Chapel: 6 – 7 February
Broadway’s greatest hits explode in a glittering high-camp spectacular as award-winning cabaret diva Skank Sinatra shimmies into the spotlight with powerhouse vocals, biting comedy, and lashings of showgirl charm. This brand new show bursting with live music and unfiltered charisma reimagines musical theatre with jazz, sparkle, and wit. Expect razzle-dazzle, satire sharper than a Patti LuPone glare, and vocals big enough to bring down the Phantom chandelier. Skank Sinatra is a two-time winner of Best Cabaret at Adelaide Fringe weekly awards (2024 & 2025).
SUGAR
The Show Room – Arts Centre Melbourne: 13 – 25 January
Theatrical, outrageous, silly and sexy, Tomáš Kantor’s award-winning debut is about Sugar – a radiantly-beautiful gender-fluid twink who discovers that there’s money to be made from ‘transactional relationships’ (though their primary source of information is Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman). What could go wrong? Tomáš veritably shimmers with charisma, and reveals their talent not only as a storyteller, but a multi-instrumentalist and a superstar-in-the-making.
The Placeholder
Fortyfivedownstairs: 27 January – 8 February
In a regional town, grief holds a group of women together after the death of Barb. Their bond is fragile – some close, others linked more by memory than friendship. When one of their own announces his transition, the circle begins to fracture. Loyalties splinter, old wounds reopen, and the meaning of identity and belonging is fiercely contested. Funny, sharp, and deeply human, The Placeholder explores how feminism, friendship, and chosen family collide – and how love is tested when those closest to us change in ways we never expected. Directed by Kitan Petkovski, The Placeholder is a bold new queer Australian play by trans playwright Ben MacEllen.
The 2026 Midsumma Festival runs 18 January – 8 February. For more information and full program, visit: www.midsumma.org.au for details.
Image: Midsumma Pride March (supplied)