Kip Williams STC Artistic Director

Trisha Starrs talks with Mathew Lee on Stages about The Campaign.

Seymour Centre and White Box Theatre will present The Campaign, an honest and raw retelling of the
journey to repeal Australia’s most archaic anti-gay legislation, as part of the 2020 Sydney Mardi Gras Festival.

In 1988, more than 100 arrests were made at Hobart’s popular Salamanca Market when the Tasmanian
Gay Law Reform Group defied a ban to gather signatures on a petition to decriminalise sexual activity
between consenting adult males in private.

The unprecedented and highly publicised arrests grew into Australia’s largest-ever gay rights civil
disobedience, which began a campaign to change the Tasmanian law – the most draconian in the
Western world in terms of its penalty and, by the time of its repeal, the last of its kind in Australia.
Based on personal testimony, parliamentary transcripts, media reports and archival sources from the
people involved – including Rodney Croome, Nick Toonen and Christine Milne – The Campaign
chronicles Tasmania’s journey from exclusion to inclusion, from opposition to acceptance, and from
hatred to embrace.

Playing at the Seymour Centre: 11th – 28th February, 2020