Cabaret Panel
Margot Morales (she/they) - Co-Chair
MARGOT MORALES (she/they) is a writer, performer, and director. Their experimental cabaret IN THE LIKELY EVENT OF FOREVER, was commissioned by Melbourne Fringe and received the Headroom Award from RISING. It was also nominated for three 2023 Green Room Awards for Cabaret: Best Production, Best Writing, and Best Artiste. Margot is currently an Artistic Associate at Melbourne Theatre Company where they’ve also worked as Assistant Director and presented their own play at Cybec Electric. As a director, they directed CLUB NITE at Miscellania and AND SHE WOULD STAND LIKE THIS with Antipodes Theatre Company for Midsumma. Their queer digital adaptation of Eros and Psyche, PSYCHE404ERROR, won Best Work in Festival at Melbourne Fringe 2021 and was nominated for a Green Room Award in Experimental Practice. As a musical comedian, their solo comedy show VANITY FAIR ENOUGH was nominated for the Golden Gibbo during MICF 2019. Margot has also performed their original songs at the Enmore Theatre, Forum Theatre, and with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for Eddie Perfect’s The Perfect End To 2020.
Fiona Scott-Norman (she/her) - Co-Chair
FIONA SCOTT-NORMAN (she/her) is a cabaret director, dramaturg and writer, who is also known as a DJ, performer, arts critic, columnist, broadcaster and teacher of creative non-fiction writing. She was the artistic director of the Ballarat Cabaret Festival in 2017, headed up the cabaret course at Federation University for five years, and was responsible for adding 'Cabaret' as an artform category for the Green Room awards. Fiona is a non-fourth wall and comedy specialist, and has directed and dramaturged over 170 cabarets..
Sophie Smyth (she/her)
SOPHIE SMYTH (she/her) is a neurodivergent singer, actor, writer, and sometimes dancer based in Naarm (Melbourne). She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Music Theatre) from Federation University’s Arts Academy. Sophie is a 2021 recipient of Australians in Film’s inaugural UNTAPPED development lab program supported by Screen Australia and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for her half-hour comedy drama television series “UNLOVEABLE”; the program includes tutelage from top LA industry leaders and personal mentorship from LuckyChap Entertainment. She is a proud finalist for the 2021 Rebel Wilson Comedy Commission. Her cabaret show The Aspie Hour (theaspiehour.com), a poignant and hilarious look at autistic life, co-written and performed with Ryan Smedley, played to sold-out audiences and standing ovations across Australia and enjoyed successful seasons at the Adelaide Fringe’s Garden of Unearthly Delights (2021), Sydney Festival (2020), Perth Fringe World (2020), Melbourne International Comedy Festival (2018-19), Melbourne Writers Festival (2018), and the Ballarat Cabaret Festival (2017). The show garnered multiple awards including a Green Room Award for Best Writing in a Cabaret (2019), Perth Fringe World Weekly Award for Best Theatre (2020), and the Adelaide Fringe Weekly Award for Best Emerging Artist (2021). Theatre highlights include Juniper in the Helpmann Award Winning musical Robot Song with Arena Theatre Company and Blasko Tupper in Motor-Mouth Loves Suck-Face: An Apocalyptic Musical at La Mama Theatre. She is a passionate disability advocate for authentic neurodivergent representation across film, television, and stage.
Nicole Warren (she/they)
NICOLE WARREN (she/they) is a creative producer with experience in the not-for-profit arts sector, community arts and local government. Working in community circus seeded an early interest in creating inspiring and engaging work that could resonate with a broad audience. Nicole currently works in local government delivering a diverse portfolio of arts and culture programs alongside independently producing and curating across the arts and entertainment sector. Nicole has a special interest in site specific work, large outdoor spectacles and immersive experiences.
Olly Lawrence (they/them)
OLLY LAWRENCE (they/them) is a non-binary arts professional based in Melbourne. They are best known as the producer of T4T: A Transgender Showcase, Burlesque Up Late, and the multi-award winning Anna Piper Scott: Such An Inspiration. With a keen eye for operations, they are the current program manager of multidisciplinary venue The Motley Bauhaus, and former venue and production manager of cabaret venue The Butterfly Club. They have experience in everything from festival organisations such as Midsumma Festival and Next Wave Festival - to grass-roots projects such as Fledgling Magazine and .JPG Arts Journal. Olly holds a Bachelor Degree in Cultural studies and Art History from the University of Melbourne (Dean’s Honors), and regularly works as a freelance technical operator, lighting designer, and artisan.
Jack Beeby (they/them)
JACK BEEBY (they/them) is an award-winning gender non-binary and neurodivergent writer, performer, producer and visual artist, living and working in Naarm/Melbourne, on the lands and waters of the Wurundjeri people. A graduate of Monash University’s Bachelor of Performing Arts, they are best known for their ongoing work as sleazy cabaret drag clown and smut poet Six Inches Uncut. Under this moniker, they are the creator and host of experimental queer cabaret lab TAINT (2016 - present), and were the lead creative behind “ornithological masterpiece” (Australian Arts Review) BIRDOIR (2020). Since 2020, they have also been a regular host of Highway Robbery Productions’s .CHURCH. (Nominated ‘Best Variety’, Greenroom Awards 2022). Six Inches Uncut's latest one-person cabaret show POPPYCOCK (2022) played to standing ovations upstairs at Melbourne’s iconic Butterfly Club and was awarded ‘Best Cabaret’ at the 2022 Melbourne Fringe Festival. Their work is often surreal and silly, with a focus on fostering connection and community through playful celebration of the hilarious and heartbreaking complexities of identity, body, love and sex. Credited as Jack Beeby, they have worked as a freelance reviewer of theatre, cabaret and comedy for Aussie Theatre from 2015 to 2017. They have also worked extensively with queer indie musical theatre darlings Darwent & Gray, appearing in The Adulteresses (2016), Bed Reckoning (2017) and The Rest Is Drag (2019). With creative ensemble Making Space, they co-created the immersive, exploratory deep sea and outer space worlds of Beneath & Beyond (La Mama, 2016) and Beneath (Art Play, 2017; Nominated ‘Best Kids Event’ Melbourne Fringe Festival 2017) entirely out of recycled trash materials. In 2020 their illustration and animation work was also featured in the film clip for ‘Too Close To Home’ by Geraldine Quinn.
Steven Gates (he/him)
STEVEN GATES (he/him) is a musician, actor, writer, director, sound-designer, music producer and film-maker – and comedy/cabaret performer. He began his career wanting to be taken seriously as a moody guitar-slinger in the ‘90s, but was blown off course by his first break: playing a magical swagman on the ABC children's program, Shape Shape Shape. As a member of the Aria award-winning music based comedy group Tripod, 'Gatesy' has released over twenty CD/DVDs since 1997, and has performed worldwide including four Edinburgh Fringe Festivals and Montreal's Just for Laughs. Tripod first gained national attention for their early Song-In-An-Hour segment on Triple J, and have written songs for countless TV shows, video game companies, and orchestras including the MSO. Steven was a core cast‐member and writer on the sketch show, skitHOUSE, and other tv credits include Good News Week, Spicks and Specks, Upper Middle Bogan and FISK. His most treasured accolade is the peer-voted Piece of Wood award, which was bestowed on him at the 2012 Melbourne International Comedy Festival for Stubborn Monkey Disorder, his show with Bob Franklin. In 2017 he premiered at the Ballarat Cabaret Festival with a two-hander show with Paul McDermott which toured successfully for several years. Steven is currently a showbiz swiss-army-knife: besides Tripod, he produces, directs and tour-manages comedy/cabaret shows, writes and performs songs for commercials, and creates featured songs for The Weekly on the ABC.