When you get the opportunity to see New York City icon Sherry Vine outside of New York City, you take it! Sherry joins “RuPaul’s Drag Race” alumni Bebe Zahara Benet, Latrice Royale, and Alexis Michelle for “Christmas Queens” at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa on December 17th. During the holiday season, Vine always has a packed calendar, but we found a few moments to sit down and chat. We talked about her upcoming Christmas show at Borgata, what it takes to stay fresh in the business, and continuing to make fresh and amazing material and content with her legendary sisters.
You are coming to Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa for Christmas Queens On December 2nd, 2017. This much be a big departure from doing your own show in the city correct? Oh absolutely, it’s completely different! We have a big opening and closing group numbers that have all four queens as well as four dancers, so it’s great working with that many people on stage at the same time. There is choreography and costumes, and lots of thought and planning all included. It is easier to show up for a bar show with one costume and be stupid and funny for the show, but this is definitely more thought out. It’s a big show and we want it to be absolutely gorgeous!
You are also featured on the new “Christmas Queens” album, and are one of the only non “Ru-Girls” that has been included. That is quite a lofty accomplishment! Yes, Jackie Beat and I are actually the only two. Our Atlantic City show is different from the other “Christmas Queens” and does not have anything to do with that album or tour. I wrote a Hanukkah song for Jinkx (Monsoon) and I, and it came out so cute! I really hope we get a chance to perform it somewhere together soon, so we will see. For this show, I wanted to work with queens that were not part of that tour and who I had not worked with before. I had worked with Alexis (Michelle) a little bit before, but I have never worked with Latrice (Royale) or Bebe (Zahara Benet), although I love them both, I had never gotten to do anything with them. It was the first time we really got to open it up.
The holiday season is always so busy for you. You have your shows with Jackie Beat, along with your new single “I Got You Bitch”. You have “Christmas Queens” at Borgata, and you have the Bar d’O reunion on December 17th with Raven O & Joey Arias. Can you believe people still flock to that show every year? Honey, thank God they do! I think that for people that were around for Bar Dd’O, it’s really nostalgic. Bar d’O started in 1993, so next year will be the twenty fifth anniversary of Bar D’o, which is crazy; I was the baby back then! This is the eleventh or the twelfth year of the reunion, so it is really crazy. I am excited about this year, because we finally get to have Raven O there. This is the first time in four or five years that it really is three of us.
Those shows are always like a New York City nightlife time capsule, with the three of you performing together; it’s almost like 1996 all over again. (laughs) well we don’t look like it’s 1996! LOL. It’s nostalgic for the people that we there during that time, and then we get great younger fans who did not get to experience it originally and now who want to. It is one of my favorite events of the year.
I think that one of the things about you that so many people love is that your material always manages to stay so fresh and fun. Your new material and show with Jackie is some of the smartest comedy around right now. Thank you! Jackie and I, more than any other queen that I have known or worked with, we are definitely cut from the same cloth and on the same page. We are both constantly working on new stuff and we like to both change stuff up. We are doing “The Golden Girls’ again in January, but then in March we start a new “Battle of the Bitches” tour. We thought it would be great to change everything; new costumes, new songs, everything. When I got to Los Angeles, we wake up, get a cup of coffee, and we both are like “let’s write a parody today”! There is no one like her. In my opinion, I always say that Lady Bunny is the funniest person in a completely stupid way, and Jackie Beat is the funniest person in a completely smart way.
In a scene where there are so many queens undercutting others and not working together, it’s great seeing queens like you, Jackie and Bunny working together and supporting what each other are doing. Absolutely. I mean, Lady Bunny’s last show “Transjester” I saw It like three times. It was perhaps the funniest thing I had ever seen. It was stupid, and silly, but political and right on. She makes me laugh! She can go places that most people truly can’t and Jackie does too.
Do you wonder why you still can cross lines, but some of the younger queens may want to play it on the safer side? I’m not sure that they want to play it safe as much as they feel that they have to. Everyone is so overly politically correct, nowadays. Also, it is very hard for someone like say, Courtney Act who is gorgeous to read and cross those lines because then people think she’s a bitch. When on the other hand someone like Lady Bunny or Bianca Del Rio because they are “clowns”, I mean that is a compliment! When Jackie first lost a lot of weight and she was at her thinnest, she started doing some more glamourous makeup and things like that. She was telling me that people were offended and were not having it. “If I am overweight and wearing crazy and kooky makeup they aren't” she would say. A lot of queens think that they can be like Bianca, and they're not funny. There is a difference between mean and funny, and sometimes, it’s just not funny. You have to write a show and really put thought into it; Bianca writes a show and writes jokes.
Ten years into “RuPaul’s Drag Race” do you sometimes wonder why they have not commissioned a “Legends” season of “Drag Race”? I know that they had talked about it. I think that in the past, it was because Logo really wanted to keep it young. For example, the season they had with Pearl and Violet Chachki, it was definitely young. I hope that they might be more open to it now, I definitely know nothing for sure at all. I think that they may be more open since they switched to VH1. For example, the Christmas album, they have Jackie on it. Bianca included Coco Peru on her television show, things like that. I would love to see it happen.
We are going to christen a new game with you, called #FastAndLoose. I am going to give a name, give me the first word or phrase that pops up. Ok...(laughs)
Sutton Lee Seymour Broaddddwwwwaaaaayyyyy showgirl!
Candis Cayne Goddess
Mona Foot (laughs)-Lady Bunny used to call her Big Lisa. So Big Lisa.
Raven O Mama
Monet X Change I Love her. Kooky...zany!
Coco Peru A Class Act. A Legend.
One thing about you, is you are so insanely smart and could teach the young kids so much. What is something you would tell them or some advice on how to stay in the game that you could share with them? You know, I think some of these younger queens like Monet and (Miz) Cracker, they already kind of know. My advice to anyone , whether they have been doing it one year or ten years, is to stay fresh and true to yourself. I think there always an exploration of how you can evolve as a performer., trying new things, but staying true to yourself. I had a moment where I thought I was not going to do parodies and I was going to do a show where it was all R&B and Motown. It was fine, but it was not what people wanted to see from me. After a while, it was like “ok, you’re Carol Burnett, stick to what you do”!
Pictures 3 & 4 courtesy of Jax Coyote
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