Sunday Brunch: "The Mad Kings"

Moving is dead. Long live moving! As an aside, I'm still floating on air over how well the show went, so for this Sunday Brunch, I give you a small snippet of last Saturday's entertainment, for those of you who missed out. Oh and, this one is PG rated, so no worries if you're at work.



I'll be back to a regular blogging schedule tomorrow, so prepare yourself for musings on the National Poetry Slam happening here in Madison, plus bits about ridiculous business practices in Belmont, and more.

And I'm spent

Wow.

Really, that's about all that needs to be said. But I'll go on anyway: what an amazing weekend. I am so, so grateful to so many people, I don't quite know where to begin. 422 of 'em paid money and came to see the show, and from the incredibly loud and enthusiastic sounds they were making, I suspect that they all enjoyed themselves. Which fills me with so much joy.

We managed to run a pretty smooth tech beforehand, which, as someone who has done theatre for some years, I recognize as a bit of an anomaly. We even had time for dinner before the doors opened. All of the performers were amazing, the emcee seriously rocked the house, I actually managed to be in one of the acts and then just sit back and enjoy the rest of the show, and we turned a profit. Holy shit, right?!

My heartfelt thanks to the Madison community and everyone who came out to support these talented performers and the performing arts scene in general. It was a resounding success, and I'm still not entirely sure how I managed to pull it off. I had help, of course, and should I ever do this sort of thing again, I will make sure to have even more help. But still, wow.

Expect photos and possibly some video of the whole shindig in the future, but for now, I'll just point you to a few fine shots taken by one of our performers, the lovely Olive Talique of Cherry Pop Burlesque.

And on a completely unrelated note, should you feel so compelled to do so, you can vote for my silly little blog in the Blogger's Choice Awards, which are linked in my sidebar. I'd be much obliged (I don't have any illusions of winning, but it's fun, nonetheless).

Photo by Timothy Hughes.

The one-man-band is overrated

I suppose "one-woman-band" would be more accurate in my case, but anyway...

This is the last time I will plug my show, I promise: Saturday, July 26th at 8:00PM, get your butts out to the Majestic Theatre in downtown Madison for the rrrreally big sheeew - "Hot Mess! the best in Midwest drag kings and burlesque." It's just $10, anyone 18 years of age and older can get in, and I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

To say that organizing, producing and promoting a show of this size pretty much all on your own is a bit exhausting is, well, the understatement of the year. I honestly didn't know what I was getting myself into when I decided to undertake this little project. I'm kind of glad I was clueless, though, because then I likely wouldn't have gone through with it.

You see, this whole idea got started late last year after I had the great pleasure of attending and performing at the International Drag King Extravaganza in Vancouver, Canada. I'd never actually done any drag king performance prior to that, but through my sister and a group of her friends in Chicago, I was asked to take part. I'm so glad I did, too. I'd always wanted to visit Vancouver anyway, and though it was to be a whirlwind weekend tour, I didn't want to miss out on my chance. Plus, the wildly diverse and creative bunch of people at the event were amazing and friendly. The acts were spectacular--there was so much talent on display, and it came in all shapes, colors, and sizes.

Basically, the whole thing inspired the hell out of me. I wanted to bring our own act back to the Midwest. I started kicking the idea around, and in the process I met the Mad Kings, Madison's own drag king troupe. They'd been stuck out at a dimly lit club venue for their performances, and I began to think of combining some of their acts with our own into a fun, small show--finding a better venue to showcase their stuff in the process. But then I went to Milwaukee for Kingstock, and I saw the Miltown Kings perform. "They should be part of my show, too!" went my fevered brain.

And it was at that critical mass that my plans started growing like crazy. If we had people from Chicago and Milwaukee coming, Madison needed more representation! I'd seen and enjoyed Cherry Pop Burlesque before, and happened to have a passing acquaintance with one of its stars, Olive Talique (aka the lovely Angela Richardson). I went ahead and popped the question, and a few of them agreed to participate in my hairbrained scheme. After that, I added Foxy Veronica's Peach Pies, another local burlesque style group, and my dear friends Irma & DeeDee to the line-up as well. Now we just needed a good venue.

My first thought was of the Majestic Theatre. Recently rennovated into a really classy space with good lighting and good sound, I thought it might just be the exact right fit for what we needed. I worked up my sales pitch and went in. Amazingly, possibly improbably, they agreed to let me, a relatively unknown quantity, rent the space for a Saturday evening. After my initial wave of joy had passed, I realized that I now had the somewhat daunting task of filling up a 600 capacity theatre.

Gulp.

But this was important. I had a fantastic line-up of incredibly talented performers ready to come out and strut their best stuff. I wanted to make sure they got the audience they deserved. But a good PR campaign ain't easy, especially when you're working out of your own small pockets. So I called in favors, made my dollars spread out as far as they'd go, and worked my networks as hard as I could. I was a PR machine. I'm really hoping that all of that work pays off tomorrow night, but regardless, it has certainly been quite the learning experience.

The biggest lesson in all of this, though? Delegate. Doing nearly everything on my own was not, perhaps, the best course of action. My health and mental well-being have both suffered noticably. I think the only thing that saved me from complete meltdown was assistance from a few good friends, who graciously agreed to design our posters for free, house some of the out-of-town performers, and serve as lines of contact with others. God bless them, every one.

Now I've done pretty much everything that can be done prior to the day of the show. Tomorrow we run a dry tech, cross our fingers, and then rock. Come Sunday afternoon, I expect to be curled up in a ball somewhere, nursing a bottle of rum, and thinking of nothing but sweet, blissful sleep (if only--I have to move apartments next week).

A Hot Mess on the radio and on the stage

Crash and Justin, two members of Madison's drag king troupe (the Mad Kings), joined me to record an interview with the always affable Lee Rayburn over at the Mic (92.1FM) early this morning. You can tune in and listen to the interview tomorrow morning at about 7:30AM, or check in at their website later in the day to download the podcast.

Learn all about drag king culture, performance, the thorough queering of gender, and the big show this Saturday! And then be sure to come check it out--seriously, it's going to be tons of fun, and possibly educational, too.

I've been eating, sleeping and breathing this thing for the past few months, turning myself into a one-woman show organizer, producer, and promoter. I don't recommend it. I'm going to need some serious downtime when this is all said and done, but I'd definitely say it's been worth it. A learning experience, to be sure.

We have pride in Madison

The rumors about the death of Pride in Madison have been greatly exaggerated.

While most cities celebrate Gay Pride in June, Madison (perhaps unsurprisingly) likes to march to the beat of its own, unique drummer and get their festivities on in July. Specifically, this weekend. There has been much said of the major tumble taken by the Madison Pride organization, wherein their now former bookkeeper did a not-so-legit job of keeping said books. Because of that debacle, this year's events hosted by the group have been scaled back considerably.

Still, I have to give kudos to them for sticking with it and making something happen despite the trouble. Madison Pride has done a good job of providing the more family and politically oriented GLBTQ celebrations of years past, and I'm hopeful that they'll see their way through the mess and grow bigger and better in the future.

It's definitely worth noting, however, that this door closing has lead to an impressively opened window. Liz Tymus of indie Queer fame, plus a gaggle of other dedicated folks, have put together an awesome weekend of Pride festivities that may very well foreshadow the future of this high holiday of queerness in Madison. While it's important to maintain the more traditional celebrations, it's great to see that a new generation of queer and queer-friendly people are continuing to carry the banner, creating newer and more diverse celebrations that help to elevate every corner of the community. After what seemed like a long dry spell for gay friendly events and organizations around Madison, the last couple of years have seen a welcome upswing--from Patrick Farabaugh and the founding of Our Lives Magazine, to the rise of indie Queer, to the opening of Woof's, and the Majestic being so accomodating to queer events, things are looking up.

So while getting your Pride on is much less confined to just one weekend these days, it's good to know that the big celebration will never die. In fact, it seems to be growing up and branching out, which is most welcome.

Happy Pride!

P.S. Yours truly is also doing her best to contribute by throwing what promises to be one of the coolest events of the summer. Find out more by clicking on that fancy banner to the right of this text, and then come out to the Majestic next Saturday! Seriously, it'll be worth it if for nothing else than to see me freaking right the fuck out over organizing and producing something of this magnitude, pretty much all on my own.