Troy Frisby is a writer and producer for ZMG, producing entertainment and news video content for clients including AOL and MSN. Troy is a pop culture writer who is obsessed with anything even remotely related to TV (anything with a script), pop music (anything with a beat) and theatre (no exceptions). Follow him on Twitter @troyfrisby.
BenDeLaCreme may have been dubbed 'BenDeLaChrist' by Aja on RUPAUL'S DRAG RACE ALL STARS 3, but for her next act, the queen is headed straight to Hell.
In Bond's latest show, BOYS IN THE TREES, the performer seems particularly interested in exploring what happens when one colors outside prescribed lines of gender---masculinity, in particular---primarily performing songs by men who did just that.
Drag artist Varla Jean Merman's new show, WONDER MERMAN, pays tribute to inspirational women throughout history, both real and fictional. The idea that "behind every great man, there's a great woman" feels tone-deaf, at best. But a more arcane expression that may actually hold true is that behind many a great drag queen, there's a great man.
Of the many great parts of the Broadway community and the performing arts community at large, perhaps the greatest is its ability to come together and provide support for one another. BROADWAY BABY MAMAS, held at Feinstein's/54 Below on March 15 little more than a week after the unthinkable tragedy involving Ruthie Ann Miles, was an incredible example of just how deep that support runs.
Already this year, Justin Sayre is working on a new book, a musical album produced by Julian Fleisher, and 'an episodic comedy-horror soap opera' called RAVENSWOOD MANOR, set to be performed like 'a live TV show,' among numerous other projects. But first, the ever-busy performer will return to Joe's Pub with a new series called JUSTIN SAYRE'S GAY-B-C'S: A BRIEF HISTORY OF GAY CULTURE IN 5 PARTS.
Returning to Cafe Carlyle, fashion designer-plus-TV personality-plus-performer Isaac Mizrahi was far too controlled to fall prey to anything remotely resembling a sophomore slump.
'We're gonna keep it up upbeat. Right, kids?' Finding light in the darkness was a dominant, if not the dominant, theme in 2017, so in closing out the year with SANDEMONIUM, it tracks that Sandra Bernhard would work it into her New Year's show---in her own distinctly Sandyland way, as her patented snark is a feature, not a flaw---and the crowd during her December 29 performance at Joe's Pub seemed just fine with that.
In SNOWFALL at Birdland, Christine Ebersole and Billy Stritch offered up a holiday show that was equal parts holly-jolly and melancholy. Through it all, though, there was an undercurrent of warm insularity, each bolstered by the other's presence, even when one would sit a number out and simply watch their friend perform.
The holidays are all about excess, and what's more extra than a drag queen named Alaska Thunderfuck 5000?
Endlessly imaginative and full of bravado, with his new show, HOMME FATALE, Sven Ratzke set out to ensure that femme fatales don't get to have all the fun.
Early on in her Cafe Carlyle debut this past month, Mandy Gonzalez remarked on how excited she was to be uptown, though, while the HAMILTON star was at the mic, it was anything but quiet.
Bubbly and charming as all hell, from the moment Rita Wilson took the stage at Cafe Carlyle, it was as if there was nowhere else she'd rather be.
A unique queen in the pantheon of RUPAUL'S DRAG RACE queens, in just a few years' time, Trixie Mattel has risen from promising also-ran to cult fave to full-blown drag superstar (with a number one folk album, to boot). Fans coming in expecting to hear tracks off of that album, TWO BIRDS, during Mattel's new show, NOW WITH MOVING PARTS, won't get them, but the show maintained the spirit of those songs. Beyond that, her bold performance at the Laurie Beechman Theatre on September 22 marked the rare show where the musical numbers were few and far between, and, yet, there was nothing lacking.
Over the course of the September 19 performance, Agron split her time between a whole host of male-fronted acts of the '70s, though, technically, many of the songs did hail from the decade prior.
Raja's debut one-woman show, RAJA: GAWDESS, was an exercise in charisma, in the best possible sense of the phrase.
From the minute BLAKE SINGS BARBRA: THE CONCERT began, Blake McIver truly tapped into-and never lost-the magic in Barbra Streisand's music.
Welcome to CAMP KWEEN, where Sutton Lee Seymour is devoted to teaching the mystical art of drag. At the Laurie Beechman Theatre on August 11, the drag queen's methods were a little unconventional-just look at the list of scheduled activities, which include 'throwing shade' and 'water sports'-and, at times, perhaps a little haphazard.
Creating and starring in a solo show in which the late Whitney Houston, an undeniable legend with a complicated legacy, 'comes down from heaven and is reincarnated' in your body is a swing for the fences. But Kevin Smith Kirkwood does just that in CLASSIC WHITNEY: ALIVE!, which mostly sets the darkness of the singer's later years aside to focus on Whitney's 'good times.'
Part coming-of-age story and part lighthearted Hollywood expose, one thing you can't say about Leslie Jordan's latest show is that the star is lacking in material.
'These songs are fucking great, even if you don't like me.' Seth Sikes was right, and humility aside, during SETH SIKES SINGS JUDY, LIZA, BARBRA, ETC. at Feinstein's/54 Below, he was pretty great, too.
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