Tina Arena ready to let loose at 2022 Adelaide Cabaret Festival; Libby O’Donovan named festival ‘Icon’

Tina Arena has launched the 2022 Adelaide Cabaret Festival at its Variety Gala – where a local star won the prestigious Icon Award.

Anna Vlach

@vlacha

3 min read

March 25, 2022 - 9:30PM

Arts

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Tina Arena believes the unpredictable nature of cabaret is just what the world needs in these uncertain times.

The iconic Australian star is the artistic director of the 2022 Adelaide Cabaret Festival, which runs from June 10 until June 25.

Arena was in town for its preview, a Variety Gala, where Libby O’Donovan was presented with the festival’s prestigious Icon Award.

Libby O’Donovan, wearing local label couture+love+madness, with the Icon Award. Picture: Matt Loxton

The Adelaide cabaret performer treated the audience to a medley of songs from her new show Sister Elizabeth. Celebrating nuns in pop culture, it will be unveiled at the festival.

Performing every year from the inaugural 2001 event, O’Donovan said being recognised as an icon of the festival was a “magnificent honour”.

“I feel very humbled by it and absolutely thrilled,” she said. “Cabaret is a genre I really love … it can be political, funny, poignant and you can say whatever you want.”

2022 Adelaide Cabaret Festival Icon Award Winner Libby O’Donovan

Previous award recipients include Reg Livermore, Rhonda Burchmore, Frank Ford, Robyn Archer, Debra Byrne and Paul Capsis.

Arena said the world’s largest cabaret festival was “coming at a very good time”.

Noting people were living in “very stressed societies right across the globe”, Arena said cabaret was a vital art form because it offered audiences a “release”.

”I love the fact that anything goes in a cabaret setting,” Arena said. “I want the audience to have a great time and be led astray.”

2022 Adelaide Cabaret Festival artistic director Tina Arena with its Variety Gala’s director Mitchell Butel and performer Catherine Alcorn. Picture: Matt Loxton

Arena and comedian Paul McDermott co-hosted the gala, where the festival’s diverse program was officially launched.

To be staged at the Adelaide Festival Centre and Her Majesty’s Theatre, it will feature 377 artists and musicians across 97 performances – including 14 world premieres and 15 Adelaide premieres – by Australian artists and performers from the US, Germany, Rwanda, and New Zealand.

Headline performers include Arena in the world premiere of Songs My Mother Taught Me and Marcia Hines in The Gospel According to Marcia, to both be staged at Her Majesty’s Theatre.

First Nations regional musicians and performers Kuko, Katie Aspel and Rob

Edwards will appear in the Adelaide premiere of T.R. A. I. L, which is a mix of blues, jazz soul and folk, while 30 Something starring Catherine Alcorn and Phil Scott will be an immersive show set in Sydney’s Bohemia Kings Cross on New Year’s Eve 1939.