Love & Anger
'I am born, and feel to myself I am, a man. I cannot begin to understand what it is to be a woman. And perhaps I shouldn’t even try. But I want to. I want to learn and create from women: because everything I am, I owe to the women who made me.'
When life unexpectedly breaks up with you, don't rebound with Grindr. At least, not straight away. The best thing to do is to turn to the people who know you best. For CJ, that is the women who made him, alongside his friends, there's Kate Bush. Beside his mother, his sister, there's Tori Amos, Björk, and Florence Welch.
Memoir and cabaret collide in this tribute to women in music, as CJ McLean journeys through first love, “Slutting it up”, waiting, and letting go.
Presented by: CJ McLean
CJ McLean is a playwright, writer and performer based in Adelaide.
His creative work has appeared in InDaily, Vaein Zine and broadcast on Coast FM and ABC Radio National. In 2015, CJ participated in ATYP’s Fresh Ink Mentoring Program. He worked with playwright Nicki Bloom to produce two short plays, Bed Song and 3AM. In this same year, he attended ATYP’s National Studio at Bundanon, NSW. Over the course of the retreat, CJ developed a seven-minute monologue, Changing Room (under the mentorship of playwright Lachlan Philpott), that was selected to be a part of The Voices Project. The monologue was performed at ATYP’s Studio 1 in Sydney’s Rocks area, from the 3rd of February to the 20th, and published by Currency Press in an anthology under the same name.
He has reviewed for the Adelaide Fringe’s 2015 and 2016 seasons, for Buzzcuts and Rip It Up respectively.