See Gay history brought to life in this compelling new play on show as part of the Mardi Gras season.

Jon Maran’s compelling play The Temperamentals delivers a bird’s eye look at the early Gay Rights Movement in the US.

In the closeted USA of the early 1950s, ‘temperamental’ was code for ‘homosexual’, part of a created language of secret words that gay men used to communicate.

The Temperamentals tells the story of political activist Harry Hay and Hollywood costume designer Rudi Gernreich, who met and fell in love while forming The Mattachine Society, America’s first gay rights organisation.

Gay history is brought to life in this Intelligent, sexy and entertaining mix of politics, camp humour and emotional candour.

New Theatre welcomes back Kevin Jackson as director, who has brought together a top ensemble cast including Mark Dessaix, Doug Hansell, Ben McIvor, Brett Rogers and Daniel Scott.

Kevin directed New Theatre’s very first Mardi Gras production – Mart Crowley’s The Boys in the Band – in 1994; this marked the start of our long association with the gay community and the Mardi Gras festival, which has continued for nearly two decades through productions such as Mother Clap’s Molly House, Take Me Out, Falsettos, Hardcore and last year’s hit, Canary.