If you frequent Brooklyn's gay bars, you may recognize Mary Jo Cameltoe as the charming bartender mixing cocktails while wearing a flowing sun dress or maybe a cat vest.
But she is also a performer and her popular show, "The Mary Jo Camel Show," is back for its second run after a sold out debut.
What makes Mary Jo's show different from the other queer performances you may see throughout New York City is the concept: "The Mary Jo Camel Show" is framed as a talk show of sorts, and each performance is considered an "episode." By fusing together drag, comedy, dance and other types of performance, Mary Jo acts as the coordinator by enlisting queer artists to help realize her personal vision of "The Mary Jo Camel Show."
In this second episode of "The Mary Jo Camel Show," set to run on Sep. 23 and 25 at The Celebration of Whimsey, Mary Jo has enlisted an all gay men's musical improv troupe, performers Charmin Ultra (as alter ego Ceclia), Brittany Alexandra Campbell, Thorgy Thor and Candi Shell, among others.
In order to better understand her vision for "The Mary Jo Camel Show" and how she curated the line-up for this second "episode" of the talk show performance series, The Huffington Post chatted with Mary Jo this week.
The Huffington Post: How did you choose the performers for this installment?
Mary Jo Cameltoe: This is the second live "episode" of the Mary Jo Camel Show. It is a live talk show, based on late night network programs such as the "Tonight Show." I grew up watching these shows nightly, and find them to be such a part of my pop culture history. I came up with the name, and then the idea, seven years ago while living in Chicago, though at the time I envisioned it as a web series. Once I moved to New York I quickly found myself performing in the queer nightlife circle, with a dance company of drag queens and fellow F2F drag performers. I have found that I have met the most magical, wonderful and talented people in nightclubs all over Brooklyn, and even Manhattan. I also started taking classes at Upright Citizens Brigade three years ago and found so many similarities between drag and more "traditional" comedy, and I wanted to be able to bridge these two worlds together in my own creative circle.
I pick my guests by asking myself two questions: "who do I like watching?" and "who do I like talking to?" I tend to pick from a pool of mostly queer artists because that is the world I am most familiar with and those are the people I most collaborate with. My dream is to have a large variety of performers and artists on as guests, and to keep the show entertaining without taking itself too seriously. It is booked the last Tuesday and Thursday of every month at The Celebration Of Whimsey starting January 2015.
What make this talk show performance series patently queer?
As I mentioned I pick largely from a community of queer artists, with a focus on drag queens. This is partly because a lot of my friends are drag queens, but also, while I appreciate that we "keep drag for ourselves" by mostly having shows late at night at bars, I think that bringing drag out of that element and into a theater space is always so great. I think this partly to expose a new audience to just how brilliant some performers are, and partly to let a queen shine under the stage lights with a sober(ish) audience. Having spent years bartending in queer bars and nightclubs, a large portion of my audience is queer -- gay men mostly. While I hate labeling comedy "gay comedy" or "straight comedy," it is hard to deny that traditional comedy is generally very heteronormative and errs to the side of "bro-y. While times are getting better for women, minorities and gays in comedy, it is still a white male dominated industry. I try to give my audience something that they can relate to, so I try to keep my artists varied to give everyone something to identify with. While there are hetero performers, this show definitely leans queer.
You've booked a gay men's improv group for this installment of "The Mary Jo Camel Show." What do you hope they bring to the production?
Fancy Man was recommended to me through my improv teacher and coach from UCB. I told her about my project and explained that I had sketch and stand-up in the first "episode" so I was looking for an improv team for this "episode." but that I didn't know where to start looking in the indy scene. I expressed that my main concern was that the show is queer and I wanted the team to at least have some queer representation. She pointed me to Fancy Man because not only are they a gay -- and hot -- but they are also really funny improvisers. Anyone who has sat through bad improv knows that it is the most painful thing in the world, even if they are gay and pretty to look at.
What do you want viewers to take away from this show?
I hope viewers walk away from this show feeling entertained. I hope that they go home and google the guests because they want to see more of their work or because they can't get Brittany's song out of her head. I want them to wonder if there's a music video for that dance the Camel Hoes did for Bpro Soundz' new project. Maybe they go see one of Thorgy Thor's other shows, or find Dan Paul's art online. I want to build a large community of collaborators.
I basically hope the audience walks away loving all the weirdos that I love.
"The Mary Jo Camel Show" will run on September 23 and 25 at 9 p.m. at The Celebration of Whimsey in New York City. Presale tickets are available -- head here.