by FilmInk Staff
The self-funded, micro-budget series has beaten Australia’s broadcast comedies to the trophy, with a musical number sung by a chorus of STDs
The underdog of the field, The Witchy Girls, has won Best Music for a Television Comedy at the 2026 Screen Music Awards, becoming the first YouTube series ever to take out the category.
Composer Peter Corrigan accepted the award at Brisbane’s Fortitude Music Hall last night on behalf of himself, Georgie Darvidis and Matt Sheers, for Episode 6, The Witchy Girls vs STDs. It is the first APRA AMCOS award for all three.
The category’s previous winners came from SBS and the ABC. This year The Witchy Girls saw off Dog Park, He Had It Coming and Sunny Nights. In a year when the industry is asking whether social-first content can compete with television, the answer has arrived… in a wig.
For Corrigan, the win has been a long time coming. After more than a decade composing for Australian television and advertising, his first award has come from a drag comedy about teenage witches.
“This is crazy. I was not expecting this,” said Corrigan. “It’s the first time I’ve ever been nominated for an award. I’m so grateful to have been invited into the demented world of Lazy Susan and Zelda Moon, and I hope I never leave.”
“Last night’s win is what drag is all about: making something spectacular with nothing,” said co-creator Robbie Sinclair Ten Eyck, aka Lazy Susan. “Pete, Georgie and Matt turned out a legendary score with nothing more than the smell of an oily rag and two drag queens yelling at them the whole time.”
For Darvidis, the win is the payoff of a long friendship with Lazy Susan and Zelda Moon. “Sometimes you go to drag shows and stand in the front row and get covered in raisins and glass, because you love weird drag,” she said. “Then seven years later you get a trophy, and that’s cool.”
Co-director Haley Alea Erickson put it more simply: “FINALLY, some trophies for drag queens singing about gonorrhoea!”
The little show that could!
Created by Robbie Sinclair Ten Eyck, winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under as Lazy Susan, and Kane Bonato (Zelda Moon), The Witchy Girls is Sabrina the Teenage Witch meets It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but queer as hell. Lazy and Zelda play best friends stumbling through high school armed with spells, bad judgement and very big hair, battling the Millennium Bug, STDs and the most popular girl at school without ever learning a single lesson.
After repeated funding knock-backs, the team made it anyway. Iris Arc Pictures partnered with Melbourne comedy legends Comedy Republic to fund the series through sold-out live screenings and merchandise, then released it free online. The budget was tiny; the cast was not. Hannah Gadsby, Judith Lucy, Geraldine Hickey, Nina Oyama, Hot Department and Alaska Thunderf*ck all signed on.
“We’re so incredibly proud of the entire team,” said producer Lauren Simpson of Iris Arc Pictures. “Working within restrictions brought out extraordinary talent. A shared creative vision and a genuine love of making things is what brought this show to life.”
“There is no greater pain than having talented friends and nowhere to show them off,” Sinclair Ten Eyck added. “Making this show has been a labour of love, and watching people celebrate these amazing artists we love has been incredible.”
The win caps a run of festival success. Last week the series took out Best of Spotlight (Produced for Under US$50,000) and Best Actors for both Lazy Susan and Zelda Moon at Melbourne WebFest, adding to the Grand Jury Prize, Best Director and Best Original Score at Sydney WebFest. It has also won Best Director at the Tokyo Film and Screenplay Awards and the New York Film and Cinematography Awards, and Best Costume Design at Toronto’s T.O. WebFest.
Next, Melbourne Queer Film Festival will screen the full series, followed by a Q&A, on Sunday 15 November at 1pm at Cinema Nova.
The Witchy Girls is streaming free on the Comedy Republic Originals YouTube channel
The award-winning soundtrack is available on Spotify
Credits
Created and written by Robbie Sinclair Ten Eyck and Kane Bonato
Directed by Haley Alea Erickson and Robbie Sinclair Ten Eyck
Produced by Iris Arc Pictures in partnership with Comedy Republic
Produced by Lauren Simpson, Annie Thiele and Kyran Nicholson
Executive Producer Rhys Nicholson
Composers Georgie Darvidis, Peter Corrigan and Matt Sheers
