Queer Voices
Queer Voices
August 14th 2024 Queer Voices - Mayor Annise Parker, Ru Paul's Drag Race's Nina West and the Catastrophic Theater
Firstly, we speak with former Mayor Annise Parker about her time serving as CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Fund. We talk about her accomplishments while leading this organization as well as what might be in the future.
Then, we speak with legendary Nina West from Ru Paul’s Drag Race. We discuss her time on the show as well as her life performing in drag. We also touch on her work in the community.
Finally, we speak with the founder and artistic director of the Catastrophic Theater, Jason Nodler.
The Catastrophic Theatre is an ensemble-based theatre company dedicated to creating a meaningful exchange between artists and audiences through the creation and performance of new works of all sorts.
Queer Voices airs in Houston Texas on 90.1FM KPFT and is heard as a podcast here. Queer Voices hopes to entertain as well as illuminate LGBTQ issues in Houston and beyond. Check out our socials at:
https://www.facebook.com/QueerVoicesKPFT/ and
https://www.instagram.com/queervoices90.1kpft/
Hello everybody, this is Queer Voices, a home-produced podcast that has grown out of a radio show that's been on the air in Houston, texas, for several decades. This week, brian Levinca talks with former Houston Mayor Anise Parker, who is retiring from the Victory Fund.
Speaker 2:We also now act as a political consulting group. We can be a SWAT team and come in and help campaigns that are floundering. A candidate will be attacked and they'll call us and we'll help them craft the appropriate messaging response.
Speaker 1:Brett Cullum has a conversation with Nina West of RuPaul's Drag Race, we have Brett's community calendar for the second half of August and Brett talks with Jason Nodler, the founder and artistic director of Catastrophic Theater.
Speaker 3:It's 12 actors facing out. They never get up pretty much, and yet they take you on the wildest ride and the language itself creates a sort of cacophonous symphony. One reviewer said that the play was sort of more to be conducted than directed.
Speaker 1:Queer Voices starts now.
Speaker 4:This is Brian Levinckin. Today on Queer Voices, I have the honor of interviewing Anise Parker, a former mayor of Houston. Welcome to the show, Anise.
Speaker 2:Thanks. It's always great to visit with y'all.
Speaker 4:I wanted to talk about the Victory Fund, but first I wanted to talk about passing in our community, Sheila Jackson Lee. Can you talk about her and what she did for our community?
Speaker 2:I had the honor of attending her memorial service on Thursday, a truly star-studded event event President Clinton, secretary Clinton, vice President Harris, a multitude of civil rights leaders and other public officials. Stevie Wonder came in and did two songs. It was an amazing outpouring of support and it was the fourth of the events that were done here in Houston for Congresswoman Lee Just an example of the regard. And she's been held.
Speaker 2:I met her oh I don't know 35 years ago. I'm feeling really old when I say that Before she was ever in office she ran for judge here in Houston three times and lost. Then she was elected to the Houston City Council, served a couple of terms. Then she was elected to the Houston City Council, served a couple of terms. Then she was elected to Congress, and this would have been her. This was her 30th year in Congress. But the reason I met her so many years ago is that in those early races she sought out what was then the Gay Political Caucus for our support and endorsement. So she has always been an ally of the LGBTQ community and proved that over and over again by showing up, speaking up, voting on issues that were important to the community.
Speaker 4:At the time you were the president of the caucus. Is that right?
Speaker 2:No, this was before I was president of the caucus. The caucus was founded in 1975 in 1975, and I wasn't president until the mid-80s. So these were the early 70s Again, before her political career really took off and when the caucus was still very young and it took a lot of courage and empathy for politicians at that time to want to be affiliated with the gay community and to seek a public endorsement. Not that we're totally popular today, but it was a very different time in the late 70s and early 80s. I think that she came to Houston for her husband, elwyn Lee, dr Lee she grew up in New York, I believe she's from Queens Went to Yale I mean bright, bright woman Went to law school, I believe, in Virginia and came to Houston to start her family. She and Dr Lee, who was a longtime professor and administrator at University of Houston, have two adult children and she leaves behind two grandchildren also.
Speaker 4:Can you talk about her political accomplishments and what she did in office?
Speaker 2:What she is known for across the country is the creation of the Juneteenth National Holiday. Clearly, juneteenth is something that is important to Texans because it was first it references an event in Texas when enslaved people in Texas first learned of the Emancipation Proclamation, which I believe had been signed two years earlier. But it was first celebrated in black communities across Texas and began to be picked up nationwide. And Sheila led the charge in Congress to create this national holiday as a marker of holiday, as a marker of and the only one really of finally eliminating slavery here in America. She also was champion of the Violence Against Women Act. She served on the Judiciary Committee Remember. She holds, or held, the seat that Barbara Jordan held, that Mickey Leland held. Her media predecessor was Craig Washington, but she followed in the footsteps of two hugely consequential politicians in Barbara Jordan and Mickey Leland. So there was a lot. There was a lot riding on her.
Speaker 2:One of the things that was said at her memorial service and I'll have to take it as fact is that she managed to put amendments in every bill that she had an opportunity to vote on, and I can see her doing that. I will also tell you that she was very smart and very strategic. But she was also relentless and there were a lot of comments at the memorial service about that that, frankly, some of the things she accomplished she just wore people down because she did not give up and she might make a principal compromise to get something passed but she would come right back to try to get what she wanted. Very just, absolutely relentless. A number of folks talked about that. I mean, I worked with her as a public official as well and I certainly experienced that. She was great when you were on the same side because she never quit. She was really tough to deal with when she was on the other side because she never quit. She just kept coming back.
Speaker 4:Let's talk about you. You're serving seven years, as is it seven years as president and CEO of the Victory Fund.
Speaker 2:Just over six and a half. I intend to leave at the end of the year, which will give me exactly seven years.
Speaker 4:What is your biggest accomplishment, do you think?
Speaker 2:I was able to come in and stabilize an organization that had stumbled, kind of lost its way a little bit, that had stumbled, kind of lost its way a little bit, and doubled the budget, at least doubled the number of elected officials that we work with each year, build up the staff, build up the political expertise on the staff. The LGBTQ Victory Fund is a more than 30-year-old political organization that has a very narrow mission. We help LGBT leaders achieve public office, either elected or appointed. Our focus is on the electoral side of politics, but we also have a really strong appointments program at the federal level. But within that mission, we go, we find candidates, train candidates, we endorse candidates and then, once they're elected officials, we work with them, we invest in their careers long term, provide networking and leadership opportunities. We keep filling the pipeline with LGBT leaders because we believe that democracy only works when everyone's represented and our community is severely underrepresented. There are about 1,300 out currently serving elected officials. Among the tens of thousands across the country, we're less than 2% for sure. I don't know what the current percentage is, considering what portion of the population calls themselves LGBT. But we need to constantly fill the pipeline and while Victory has done that for a long time.
Speaker 2:One of the things I'm really proud of is that we've shifted a little bit from just finding candidates and endorsing candidates and trying to generate money for those candidates. We are a PAC, but we also now act as a political consulting group candidates and endorsing candidates and trying to generate money for those candidates, because we are a PAC, but we also now act as a political consulting group. We can be a SWAT team and come in and help campaigns that are floundering. A candidate will be attacked and they'll call us and we'll help them craft the appropriate messaging response. So we've increased the number of tools that we have in our toolkit and I'm proud of all of those things. But the proof for me is not that we've elected more people. It's where we've elected them and as we see them achieving ever greater success.
Speaker 2:We're the only national organization that works in down ballot races the organizations that people have heard of, hrc, for example. Hrc is a policy shop. We don't do any policy. We don't do any lobbying. Our focus is not Washington DC. We do endorse congressional candidates and we're really proud of them, but we do most of our work in the state houses and in city councils and school boards and the down-ballot races, where people start their political career, but also where politics is really granular and we really can change the narrative and change hearts and minds. And we see what happened in legislatures, particularly in the South. There is only one out member of the Mississippi legislature, one in Arkansas, one in Alabama.
Speaker 2:But we started with one in Georgia, we started with one in Texas and now I believe Texas has 10, my last count and Georgia, I believe, has eight, and we are helping create the change we want to see in the world.
Speaker 4:I think I should disclose that I'm on the National Campaign Board for the Victory Fund.
Speaker 2:You are part of our donor board.
Speaker 2:We are what's known as a bundling pack, and Victory does give money to candidates directly, but we have a network of people who are committed to seeing LGB representation in politics, and the most dedicated of those donors of which we're one, brian make a personal commitment to a certain dollar amount to candidates of their choice that we've endorsed and help us make the selections.
Speaker 2:Across the country, we filter through hundreds and hundreds of LGBT candidates every year to find the ones that have a chance of getting across the finish line, and we invest in those candidates. But even the ones that we don't believe are viable and in a particular race, we have a range of services that we provide them, and we do candidate training. We'll talk to them and try to convince them. You know, maybe this isn't the right race for you, but if you find the right race, we help you successfully run that race, and then you have an opportunity to serve your constituents, because that's what it's about. You know, we don't want to hold office. We want to do something in office, and our folks are stepping up all the time.
Speaker 4:You mentioned viability. Can you talk about that? What does that mean exactly?
Speaker 2:There has to be a path to victory. There is no shame in running a race that you know you're going to lose. There's absolutely no shame in that. Maybe you want to raise an issue that you know the incumbent won't talk about, or you feel it's important that everyone is challenged every time they're on the ballot. No one has a free ride, Whatever the reason. A lot of people run and, yes, lightning can strike. Your opponent can drop dead, for example. God forbid, but that's not a winning campaign.
Speaker 2:Doesn't depend on something like that A winning campaign is one where you actually say these are the voters, these are the issues, you know, these are the demographics. How much money I can raise? Put all those things together Is it possible? You know, a Democrat running in a Republican plus 20 district is not a viable candidate, or vice versa. But a Republican running in a Democrat plus two race might very well be viable under the right set of circumstances, or even a Democrat plus five race. And we are nonpartisan, although almost all of our candidates are.
Speaker 2:Democrats or DSA or Green, you know, on the left side of the ballot.
Speaker 4:I think in my time that I've been on the Victory Fund campaign board we've endorsed maybe three Republicans in like 12 years.
Speaker 2:We've endorsed more than that, but not a lot In 2022, and we're still in the process we've gotten through the primaries for this year, but we'll still be endorsing candidates who either didn't have primaries or just discovered us all the way up through, you know, into October, although really by the end of September, by Labor Day, most of the fields are set. So we're going to have a very busy August, but two years ago we had 504 endorsed candidates and two of them were Republicans, but only we had 1,100 races we tracked and only 13 were only 13 Republicans sought our endorsement. I believe that's a reflection of the fact that the Republican Party is no longer the Republican Party. It's the Trump Party and it has been taken over by, you know, maga cultists, frankly, and they have been running on anti-LGBT platforms, particularly anti-trans, but not solely so.
Speaker 2:A moderate gay Republican who's out of the closet has almost no chance in surviving a Republican primary these days, which is why there's so few Of the two we endorsed. One won, the other did not, so it is possible, but there's just few who choose. There are many fewer gay Republicans than Democrats, and then the political landscape is incredibly challenging. Victory remains nonpartisan or bipartisan. We do endorse across the political spectrum because we believe and I absolutely believe that our rights become at risk when they're only protected by one party. We want all political parties to believe that we belong and that we are worthy of respect and dignity.
Speaker 4:Is there a candidate that surprised you, that won? Is there somebody out there that you're like wow, how did this happen?
Speaker 2:There's a lot of them like that, you know, when we all, many people in the community know Danica Roe she wasn't the first trans person to hold office, but she was the first member of a legislature to win and beat a more than 20-year incumbent in a partisan election, made it through the primary, beat an incumbent, was successfully reelected several times and is now in the state senate in Virginia, so again representing the South.
Speaker 2:Breonna Titone, another trans woman who beat a Republican incumbent in a rural area of Colorado. Mari Turner in Oklahoma, a member of the legislature there, black, muslim and non-binary, not representing a black district, a Muslim district, and I don't know if they even know what non-binary is in a good part of Oklahoma. But those are the kind of races that really make you stop and think, because it goes back to the right candidate with the right message can and does win anywhere, but you do have to have the right candidate, you have to have the right message and they have to be able to put together a capable campaign, and that's where victory comes in. One of the things that we we're still marking milestones, and milestones are important. If you mark milestones, however, it means you haven't reached the end of your journey. We helped elect the first member of the Mississippi legislature last year.
Speaker 2:Fabian Nelson, louisiana. I'm still kind of astounded at this. Louisiana is the only state in the country that has never had a member of our community in their legislature. You would think that with New Orleans, that somebody but key is being out. The other, the second, the penultimate state was Mississippi, and Fabian Nelson now represents the Jackson area.
Speaker 2:And Fabian ran two years before. He didn't know what he was doing. He didn't put together a campaign. He's kind of put his name on the ballot. He floundered around a little bit. I think he got 30 votes in the race. But we connected with him and said you know, you didn't have a viable campaign. We couldn't be with you this time, but we want to work with you to make you a better candidate, to teach you the nuts and bolts of campaigning. And Fabian crushed it and is now a member. He's the only one in Mississippi but he is now a member of the Mississippi legislature. He's just a heck of a nice, nice guy.
Speaker 2:And so those you know. Every time we get to one of those where people say like really. Every time we get to one of those where people say like really. But our one Republican who won last year is a Republican trans woman who's on the city council in Garden City, new Jersey. So again, we work with candidates where they are to represent the communities in which they live. You know, there's a lot of folks who I'm going to, I guess, forum shop or shop for I want to be in office so I'm going to look around and see where I can win. No, that's the wrong way to do it. We look for people who want to serve their community and who are of and from that community. They make the best candidates and they also make the best office holders.
Speaker 4:What is your greatest memory as being president of the Victory?
Speaker 2:Frankly, it's when we got the Respect for Marriage Act passed and it's not I mean again Victory, doesn't? We don't lobby. So we weren't up on the hill with the other national organizations, but that would not have passed without Tammy Baldwin. Tammy Baldwin is the poster child of what it means to be in the political pipeline and to always know who you are and never forget the organizations and the people and the issues that brought you in politics. She started I believe she was 24. She was a county commissioner in Wisconsin, in Madison, and then became a state legislator, then was elected to the US House, then was elected to the United States Senate and she was the whip on the Respect for Marriage Act. And it was the relationships that she had built and the respect that she had garnered from her colleagues there that allowed her to have the quiet conversations and pull was it? 10 Republicans into the vote. And that's I. Partly. It's amazing because I've known Tammy since the mid 80s, but also just, she's that perfect example of why we do the work.
Speaker 2:Probably the second best night that I have had as victory president is when we elected Tina Kotek and Mara Healy as governors two years ago. They joined Jared Polis. We now have three governors of the United States who are from our community, and Tina Kotek, in Oregon, is a legacy. He took the seat of following Kate Brown, who was our first LGBT governor ever in the United States, and so to elect two amazing women in two very different states on the same night to a governorship was another peak moment. But see, you know, it's kind of like. You know I have my wife, kathy, and I we have four kids. It's sort of like well, what's your favorite kid? Ask me what day it is and I'll tell you which one's my favorite kid.
Speaker 4:I have one final question what's next for Anise Parker?
Speaker 2:I am leaving the job at Victory at the end of the year. I gave my board, I was brought in for a short-term gig and I spent two years riding the ship and getting it refocused and then COVID came and that took me two more years and then we came out of COVID and I didn't want to leave yet. But I gave the board 18 months to find my successor and they are looking. There's a search, national search going on. I'll serve until the end of the year. I have never left then. I was born here, I spent my entire working life living here and I'm tired of being on a plane, but I'm also not ready to retire, so I don't need to be in public office to continue in public service. But I will look for an opportunity to serve in some way where I don't have to get on a plane every week.
Speaker 4:Anise Parker, former mayor of Houston, talking about Sheila Jackson Lee, another great Houstonian, and her work at the Victory Fund. Thank you for coming on, Anise.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you. I always appreciate the opportunity to talk about Victory and anyone who might be interested in learning more about the premier national organization with a very singular focus. Victoryfundorg victoryinstituteorg those are our two websites. Victory Institute is our 501c3 side, and if you want to get inspired, go to outforamericaorg F-O-R. Outforamericaorg, where we list every out LGBT elected official that we're aware of across the country. Whether we put them in office or not, whether they ran out or whether they came out, it's a great place to be inspired.
Speaker 4:Thank you, Anise, for coming on. You're welcome. This is Queer Voices.
Speaker 7:Hey, there, I'm Sean.
Speaker 5:And I'm Roxanne, and we're the co-chairs for Red Dinner 5. On Friday, august 23rd, the University of Houston LGBTQ Alumni Network will be hosting the Red Dinner Gala at the university's Athletic Alumni Center.
Speaker 7:Since 2016, the University of Houston Red Dinner has raised funds for emergency crisis aid and academic scholarship for LGBT students at the University of Houston. However, with COVID, we had to take a brief hiatus, which directly affected our students. This year, we need our community's help more than ever.
Speaker 5:We have a great event planned. Red Dinner will be emceed by Pooja Lodia with ABC 13 Eyewitness News, and we'll have a great keynote from award-winning radio personality Eddie.
Speaker 7:Robinson. We're also be honoring Tammy Wallace of the Greater Houston LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce and the Houston LGBTQ Political Caucus. Cougars and allies are all welcome. We hope to see you there.
Speaker 1:This is Queer Voices.
Speaker 8:I'm Brett Cullum and I'm joined today by Nina West or Andrew Robert Levitt. He is an Ohio-based drag queen and was named 2008's Entertainer of the Year. He's been on RuPaul's drag race as a competitor in season 11 and more recently in the race for the title of all-stars. Season 9 now the all-stars run was the first time rupaul did a show solely to raise money for charity and nina was, oddly perfect for that cause. Nina has her own foundation probably the only drag queen in the country that I know that does and has raised millions of dollars for her causes and that's millions. Nina, or Andrew, has also appeared in the Broadway tour of Hairspray as Edna. She's coming to Houston this holiday season as the hostess of Murray and Peter's A Drag Queen Christmas on December 17th at the Bayou Music Center. Welcome to Queer Voiceices. Nina West.
Speaker 9:My gosh. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so honored to be here, so hello, happy holidays.
Speaker 8:I'm so honored to be in front of you. Yes, and happy holidays. Like way early. But first up, how are you after All Stars? What is this like after this?
Speaker 9:It's been great, it's been a joy to be back on people's televisions these you know for those 12 weeks over the summer and to celebrate one of my favorite organizations that exists, which is the trevor project, to get to show the world who I am now, after you know the five years that it's been since season 11's been lovely to kind of reintroduce myself to a new batch of fans and to remind the people who followed me who I am and what I'm all about and what I'm up to right now.
Speaker 8:This All-Stars was wild. I mean, who comes in to the workroom with outfits designed by Gautier or McQueen? I was like what is up with these fashion queens? Not me, girl.
Speaker 9:They don't make black guys wear, okay they should. Maybe they can get on that. I didn't come in with goatee, I'm a fan. It's lovely to see.
Speaker 8:One thing you did come in with was great sense of theater. You're one of the best performers. Everybody had their skill and I think everybody was so fierce and it was so hard. It was so nice to see you guys not get eliminated because we got to see the whole package. We got to see everything. We got to see all of you represent all your talents, so it was really fun to see you. I do notice you've got the perfectly timed releases. You've got let me see a Trevor Project shirt that came out.
Speaker 9:Yeah, so I paired with a Columbus-based company called Homage, which they're a pretty famous national brand based here in my hometown, and I've partnered with them in the past during season 11. They did a charity t-shirt for Kaleidoscope Youth Center. So again like this is no stranger to me, like doing these kind of activations and working with brands that I have a long history with to raise money and awareness for organizations. And so this time we're doing we did a brand new t-shirt and it's the Go Big, Be Kind, Go West shirt, and 20% of all the proceeds go to the Trevor Project. So that's on sale now and we're excited to make another sizable donation to that wonderful life-saving organization.
Speaker 8:I already have ordered mine, so there we go. And then also you've got an EP that dropped recently, and of course it includes the anthem that you unleashed during the finale.
Speaker 9:Yeah, the Drag is for Everyone, which I did on the finale, which was choreographed by Mark Kinamara, who's a fantastic friend of mine, and co-written by my friend, mark Byers, aka Markaholic, who's written for everybody from rupaul to you know, incredible artists and, like renton lincoln and me so, yeah, yeah, so you know, so it's.
Speaker 9:The song is a great joy. It's a send-up of, you know, of the billion broadway style, you know, kind of an ode to some tony openings that I really, really loved, delivering a message in a really camp, fun way that I think is really accessible and palatable to people who may not otherwise receive it.
Speaker 8:You also did a video and it was a spoof of a Gilbert Sullivan song, modern Major General, but listing every single competitor, at least in the original RuPaul's franchise. Like how many? 160-something?
Speaker 9:Hold on, I had to do the math. It might be 206, or it's 190. I forget what it is. Or 209, I think maybe. But the task of that is to get the rhyme in and the reference in for every single person from every single season. In the meter of Modern Major General.
Speaker 9:So I was attracted to the idea of doing a patter song. I had watched Only Murders in the meter of Modern Major General, so I was attracted to the idea of doing a patter song. I had watched Only Murders in the Building and it was the episode where Steve Martin was doing which of the big quick triplets did it in the group? And so I was like I want to do a patter song, I have to do a patter song. And I was like, well, what's the best, what's the biggest and best patter song of all time?
Speaker 9:Modern Major General from Pirates of Penzance. And so I was like, well, I'm going to task myself with this idea of naming every single person who's ever walked in the workroom of the original RuPaul's Drag Race. So the American version, from season one to season 16. I mean, it's a Herculean effort to fit milk with lactaceous, which had to rhyme with punicaceous. I mean there's like it is free-form rhyme too, so it's like we're making up some words which they do in the Gilbert and Sullivan version. We're definitely paying homage while also creating something new.
Speaker 8:Well, let's walk it back a little bit. I have always been curious about what made you become the drag artist, nina West. What were your roots? I know you were in Columbus.
Speaker 9:I think I was a kid who really wanted to do theater and I didn't have the theatrical opportunities in front of me to do that. So I went to college for theater, I had my degrees in theater and then I didn't move to New York City like I wanted to because of 9-11. And so I had to kind of create my own opportunity, and that's kind of my life story was kind of carving out and creating my own space, and drag was always the method with which I did that. So Nina kind of became this like vessel for me to do theatrical drag, or drag that was, you know, inspired by some musical that I'd seen on the Tony Awards or if I was lucky enough to save my money from serving tables in Columbus to go to New York City and go see a show and then be like, oh my God, I saw this show. Wait till the cast recording comes out.
Speaker 9:The first people that ever booked me for shows were charities. Yes, I had an incredible drag mother who welcomed me and who taught me the ropes of doing drag. And then I was surrounded by organizations that were like, hey, we're raising money for this cause. Would you come to our show for free? And I was like, well, wait, no one else is asking me to do a show, but the columbus stompers, who were a country line dancing lgbtq country line dancing group, wanted me to come perform at a fundraiser for them or columbus eight's task force, and so, like that's how I connected the drag to Charity.
Speaker 9:So then here I am now doing drag and it's like I could connect all of the pieces, and so that informed Nina and then I created a character that I was trying to distance myself from, but it became intrinsically personal and very much Andrew, which was not my intent. But then you know, as you go on many years later, fast forward to RuPaul's Drag Race and it it's like, well, wait a minute, the line is so blurred between the performer and the character. The line between RuPaul Charles and RuPaul is really thin. It's there. I mean there are some differences, but it's there, right. But like Nina's, informed by, I think, charity, broadway, disney, political activism, activation, lgbtqia+ equality.
Speaker 8:One night that we have here in Houston we have a weekly drag show called the Broads Way and it's all Broadway numbers and that's all they do. I could just see Nina like completely taking that over It'd be a lot of fun.
Speaker 9:I mean, listen, I love a showtunes night.
Speaker 8:So how many times did you actually audition for Drag Race before you got on season 11? Nine times my actually audition for Drag.
Speaker 9:Race before you got on season 11? Nine times. My ninth audition was my lucky audition, lucky number nine, which is kind of weird. You know I love numerology, so lucky number nine and I was on All-Stars nine.
Speaker 8:Was that your lucky number nine? Your Taylor Swift lucky number, hers, is 13. It is. But, I'm saying like she has 13.
Speaker 9:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a Swifty too. Don't even try it, I am a Swifty.
Speaker 8:What do you think sealed the deal for you with that final audition?
Speaker 9:I think I had stopped with kind of the errors, the false errors of it all. You know, like the first eight audition tapes I was giving them what I thought they wanted and the ninth audition tape I just gave them myself and I think I was like, think I was cutting through the noise and just saying, ah, this is me. It's a hard lesson for anybody to learn, especially in this world where drag is such a pretense, where it can be so heightened and drag queens can be really great chameleons and you can figure out oh, I can adapt quickly, quickly. That's one of the skills we learn as performers and especially in a like a bar or an environment where it's loud, you have to adapt quickly.
Speaker 9:So you're constantly on the balls of your feet, like doing a dance. You want to become what they want, right, even like any actor, you're like oh, I can be, I can do this, this is what the audition is calling for. I can do that. I'm malleable, I'm flexible, I can be what they want. When in Drag Race, reality television world, they want the person they're looking for, who you are. They need to see who you are before all that is built up and future auditionees show up as yourself, because you're going to naturally put a wall up when you walk into that workroom and that's the thing they're going to try to break away, so they get good television.
Speaker 8:Well then, nina West, after Drag Race you got to put on a character again with Hairspray. So how did Hairspray happen right after that?
Speaker 9:I was offered Hairspray in July of 2019. So our season had wrapped in May of 2019. Came to me because I had done Harvey Fierstein as one of my characters for Snatch Game and Jerry Mitchell, who is the Tony Award winning director and choreographer he was the choreographer for Hairspray. He saw my Harvey on Drag Race Season 11 and said whoa, this person could do Edna. And Cold called me out of the blue and said hey, we think you should be Edna, what do you think about that? And I was like who is this? I was like what is happening here?
Speaker 9:I went to New York and I did a work session with Jack O'Brien. I was like, oh my gosh, I don't know how this is going to go. When I walk out of the session, my agent called like literally, it was a 42nd Street Stages and I'm walking up 42nd Street, I think, and my agent calls me and says you booked it, they want you, and I was like I started crying. I was like I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe this dream is happening. And so that's how it happened.
Speaker 8:That's interesting because you know who I recently interviewed was Greg Califatis, who took over for you as Edna I think I read that interview and you were rooting for God.
Speaker 9:Who are you rooting for in the season? You said oh, I like Nina, but I'm rooting for somebody else. I read that interview.
Speaker 8:Oh my gosh, my words come back to haunt me. But I remember drag when it was rebellious and you went to like little basement bars and saw it. Now it's like at every bar and now it's it's kind of this omnipresent thing and I we can probably blame rupaul for this, but because it just kind of came out into the light it's a lot of things right, because I think people it's the apps.
Speaker 9:You know people don't necessarily feel like they. They need to go out to, you know, meet somebody to date or hook up with. They can do it on their phone. At home they can stay in. People think that there is an idea and a false narrative or sense that we have equitable, we're equal under the law, which I think is not a safe assumption, especially depending on where you live in the country where there are laws on the state level that might be against LGBTQIA plus people. Actually, now more than ever, the need and identity for queer space for people to feel safe in, for people to gather in, for people to tell their stories, whether that's through drag, burlesque, queens, kings, however it kind of unfolds queer theater, whatever that might be that storytelling has to have a space that's safe and preserves that.
Speaker 8:Well, I'm in Texas so I completely get it. It's definitely a hot point here, but this is why we are here today. You, nina West, you're hosting Murray Peters, a drag queen Christmas. It will be here on December 17th at the Bayou Music Center. Are you a big Christmas queen? Are you going to give Chanel a run for her money here? Are you a big Christmas queen?
Speaker 9:Are you going to give Chanel a run for her money here? Honey, honey, honey. I am the biggest Christmas queen. I mean, chanel might have a Christmas business, fine, that might make her the Christmas queen.
Speaker 9:But what I love about the holiday season is the kind of the overness of it all, how it is just so decadent and over the top and just fabulous right. It's like it's not the Chanel, it's not the like Coco Chanel rule of leave the house and take one thing off before you leave the house. It is like the opposite. It's like put five more things on before you leave the house. It's gaudy, so done and it's so fabulous. A season that is reminding us to be our best selves and to give of ourselves and to to maybe approach the world with a little bit more kindness and joy, and so in that sense, yeah, I think I'm the christmas queen because those are things that I intrinsically believe at my core. Yeah, it's my favorite time of the year because it's it's about joy and hope I'm gonna get back to the tour in just a second.
Speaker 8:But you hit on kindness and you're known as the kindness queen. How did that start with you? Because I think that a lot of drag artists really kind of shoot for something a little bit different than that space. There's maybe more of a cattiness.
Speaker 9:It was. My exit line was go big, be kind, go west. And I think people saw that and were like oh yeah, and I am. That's something I really lean into because it is who I am. I'm not pretending to be anything, I'm not and I think that I wanted to give it. I really have just kind of embraced it because I personally think it's okay to be nice to people. I personally think it's okay to engage with compassion. It's just how I want, again, the world that I live in to be and you know, I think it's okay for me to stay to people Like I'm a pretty badass entertainer.
Speaker 9:I have accomplished a lot in my 25 years of doing drag and I also am on the other side of the other. I'm on a different chapter of my career. That allows me the ability to say I just choose not to engage with that. That allows me the ability to say I just I choose not to engage with that, and I think that kindness and love and compassion are the weapons that I choose to use in my arsenal. There are types of drag, again, like I would never want to do a big brushstroke on scientists, or a brushstroke on doctors, or a brushstroke on lawyers, all lawyers are whatever. Or a brushstroke on lawyers. Or all lawyers are whatever. Or a brushstroke on reporters, right, you know, like? And I, and I don't appreciate people wanting to do a brushstroke on drag drag. We each have our own identity and our own autonomy and mine exists in a world that I think is really authentic to the creator, to andrew. I choose to exercise that and perform that in a way that is resonates true to me and I think a lot of people, a lot of people, respond to that.
Speaker 9:There is a time and a place for the cattiness and I think it it does well in its own space and time and I think the people who do really well with it also are couching it in there. That there is the queer nature of our art, right, like our queer language. It's not really not all cattiness and bitchiness is actually rooted in, like there's nuance to it. Right, it's nuanced, and I'm not sure when people consume the show they understand the nuance of what that is.
Speaker 9:Bianca Del Rio is one of the nicest people I know. She is one of the most fabulous, kindest people I know would give you the shirt off her back. I'm not sure if people, when they consume her comedy, actually understand that there's a nuance to what she's doing. It's couched in a language that is deeply queer and deeply historic in our own engagement with one another. This hour, everyone talks to each other Tongue pop, tongue pop, nasty comment, nasty comment. When actual, in all actuality, when people engage like that, they're missing the nuance and they're missing like it's just not, it's not an elevated way to engage when the art of reading and the art of insult is actually. It has a much deeper history than that. But I like to be the queen of kindness.
Speaker 8:Well, who all is with you on this?
Speaker 9:tour. This tour is so, so fierce. It's Murray and Peter's 10th anniversary for Drag Queen Christmas and it is stacked. Anniversary for drag queen christmas, and it is stacked. It's sasha, colby, jimbo, brooklyn height, plasma, sapphira, cristal plain jane, shea coulain, some cities. It is a crystal method. It is a really rocking lineup. Some of these people I've toured with before on this tour and so it's like a family reunion, like roxy, andrews, angeria, paris and michaels. I mean like it's a really great group of people and we're gonna bring the joy and celebration to the. I mean like it's a really great group of people and we're going to bring the joy and celebration to the cities near you.
Speaker 8:And it's booked in one of the biggest venues that I've seen for a drag tour. You're in Bayou Music Center, which I mean popular bands play it. I mean like Megan Thee Stallion started there and things like that. I mean it's like it's not just a little teeny tiny.
Speaker 9:We're in Surrey.
Speaker 8:It's amazing that you have that pull and that this tour is so big that it could be housed in a center like that. I mean, who would have ever thought that drag would have done that 20 years ago? All right, Queer Voice is exclusive. Everybody wants to know are you single? Are you taken? Are you married to your art form? What's your status?
Speaker 9:Who wants to know, not so exclusive. She's very single. I mean, I'm dating. It's not like anyone right in my life right now, especially on a holiday tour when I'm going to be on the road for two months, it makes it a little bit difficult. But hopefully on my manifestation list for the next year someone comes into my life, that'd be great. You know, on my manifestation list for the next year someone comes into my life, that'd be great.
Speaker 8:You know, this is one of the things that I always ask touring artists is how does it affect your personal life, because you are literally on the road? I know you're home based in Columbus, right, but you, how much time do you even spend there?
Speaker 9:I mean, I mean like it's very little, it's like it's like maybe one or two days a week, depending on if I get the chance to come home and change my bags out. So like yeah, I mean it wreaks havoc a little bit on the personal life, but like also I really love what I do and you know, I love the fans and I love the art and I love, I just love it. I love seeing the country and if I can find somebody who can, you know, meet me there and like is fiercely independent and also loves all of those things, loves the road, loves meeting people, then like that could be really magical, you know, but in the meantime I'm having the time of my life you certainly bring a sense of joy to your art form that is just so infectious.
Speaker 8:And I will say that before the all-star season I said if there was anybody that I would pick for a friend, it would definitely be n Nina West, because you always seem to be just the most authentic. You bring so much of this in here and all of your activism, all of your just attention to things like charity work and of course you're the ultimate theater. But luckily Houston gets to see you December 17th at the Bayou Music Center doing the and I didn't realize this was the 10th Murray and Peters at Drag Queen Christmas.
Speaker 9:We've gone that far. Yeah, it's the 10th anniversary. This is my third one hosting. I'm excited to host this big blowout for 10 years. It's fantastic.
Speaker 8:That's amazing. Who would know? It's one of the biggest Christmas tours ever. That's pretty exciting.
Speaker 9:It's us and Mannheim Steamroller Look out.
Speaker 8:Yes, and the Siberian Trans Orchestra? Okay, and I have your community calendar for the last half of August. On Sunday, august 11th, fort Bend County Pride is happening. They're going to be at the fairgrounds, which are the Fort Bend County Fairgrounds, and the event will last from 2 pm until 8 pm. It's a family-friendly event, so bring everybody, bring the kids, bring your relatives.
Speaker 8:Whatever Fort Bend County Pride happens on August 11th, I wanted to mention running through August 10th at the Match Complex in Midtown, melville and Hawthorne, presented by Thunderclap Productions. That will go through August 10th and it's about two of our greatest American literary artists getting together and becoming romantically involved. You don't want to miss this one. On August 24th, rupaul the all-stars from Season 9, invade the 713 Music Hall. This is going to be a big event for people that are fans of the show. There are going to be several of the queens that competed on All-Stars Season 9, including Miss Vanjie and Gottmik, so this will be a great one for fans of that show. On August 30th, we have Galveston Gay Beach Weekend. It will run that last weekend in August and that's your last chance to blow out the summer with all your friends. That is the Galveston Gay Beach Weekend they're starting August 30th and the 31st and going back to Melville and Hawthorne.
Speaker 8:I actually got a chance to discuss this play with both the writer and the producer. We talked a lot about the themes and different things and what they're hoping to accomplish with this particular production and it's very interesting because they're trying to really tie it to our current time and it's very interesting to think about the 1850s to now. This is Brett Cullum. Today. I am joined by Jason Nodler, a founder and director of the Catastrophic Theater. The company was formally launched in this current incarnation in 2007 and rose from the ashes of another popular theater troupe. They are known for their wickedly delirious presentations of avant-garde and experimental theater. Thank you, jason, for taking this time to talk to me about your new season, and welcome to Queer.
Speaker 3:Voices. Thanks so much for having me, Brad. It's wonderful to be here.
Speaker 8:All right, let's run through next year's shows you open with Spirits to Enforce and that's going to be coming to us in late September. Tell us a little bit about that one.
Speaker 3:Well, this is a Mikkel Maher play. It's played by Mikkel Maher and we have produced his plays more often than anyone's, but Tamarie's her very popular original summer musicals. I often feel like he's the greatest American playwright that you've never heard of. His plays are deceptively complex. They feel just like really fun rides, or mashed up of disparate elements that don't seem to make any sense together and in the end they all sort of converge and the whole thing comes true and you realize that it's been something far more than a simple entertainment.
Speaker 3:Spiritstone Force is a mashup of Telefondraisers, the Tempest by Shakespeare and superheroes. So the premise is that there are a series of 12 telefundraisers sitting at a phone bank dialing for dollars. You know. I mean they're calling to raise money for the production itself and to sell tickets to a production of the Tempest to be performed by the local superhero team, the Fathom City Enforcers. So it's like, first of all, it's going very poorly. They're not raising any money, they haven't sold any tickets, rehearsals aren't going well, some of them don't particularly seem to like each other and every line is delivered into a telephone. So the actors are not speaking to one another. It's 12 actors facing out. They never get up pretty much, and yet they take you on the wildest ride, and the language itself creates a sort of cacophonous symphony.
Speaker 3:One reviewer said that the play was sort of more to be conducted than directed, and I feel that way very much. It's a real tour-de-force aspect of the production. If you get it right, it's also incredibly funny, and it becomes tremendously moving and you are thinking along the way like what do these three things have to do with each other? And when you realize, it becomes a deeply profound experience. Mostly, though, I just want to say because people like this, it's hilarious, the cast is tremendous, it's a super fun play. I can't wait to get into rehearsals.
Speaker 3:We did this once before in 2008, as we were just forming as Cast Traffic. I think it was our fourth production. The time between that production and this one was a person that would probably have their driver's license by now, so the people who saw it the last time and we were just forming at that time too have not seen it. I mean, that will be in our audience this time Somewhere. Around 90% of your audience has never seen that play before and never will again, and so your production is the one that they'll see.
Speaker 8:I think what surprises me the most about when I see Mikkel's work, particularly in your company's hand, is that it's funny, like you said. I mean, it makes you think, it makes you feel certain things, but it's also very funny and very unexpectedly funny, and it's a good vehicle for a lot of your company to kind of show their comedy chops. Okay, so second up, brian Yuka presents Love Bomb, so I'm assuming it's dance. Presents Love Bomb, so I'm assuming it's dance.
Speaker 3:Brian makes experimental dance theater that is extremely informed by ensemble work. So they get together and they create compositions together. It's viewpoints-based. Brian was in on the ground floor of Viewpoints Theory. His plays are just. They're imagination machines. They defy description. Is he solo usually?
Speaker 8:Or does he have? A whole company behind him.
Speaker 3:We're his company. He had a company for many years in New York. He was in a company that Anne Bogart led, but that company has been defunct for some time. We're the ones that he makes theater with now, which is sort of extraordinary given that he was the first collaborator outside of our core group that we worked with Brian just. He's extraordinarily creative and the work that we do with him is unlike any other work that we do. It's one of maybe five or seven different types of work that we make that we feel like is unique to us.
Speaker 8:One of the things that I think is interesting about you guys is you collaborate over and over with these same artists, and one of the things that I'm excited about coming up next season, candice DeMesa is going to give us Miss LaRage's House of Dystopian Futures, and I am assuming that last year was her first collaboration with you guys. Is that correct?
Speaker 3:We produced three short films by her, fully produced short films during the pandemic, called 30 Ways to Get Free A Maroon's Guide to Time and Space, which was thrilling, wasn't? It Was a sort of a follow-up to that and certainly concerned itself also with very broad definitions of freedom and how we can achieve it. Candice is the sort of artist that makes a theater like ours go, that makes a theater like ours go, that makes a theater like ours move forward. She's a seeker, so her imagination is off the charts. I mean the the world of her mind is.
Speaker 8:It's incredible well, and I think that anybody that hasn't seen it. It is an absolute collage of spoken word, sound film, lighting effects, sets, I mean. And then she has this afro punk sci-fi. It's like if Prince were alive and dialed into the future. This is what you would get. She is so exciting to see and to interact with. If I was going to pick who is the next voice just so impressive to see.
Speaker 3:She is going to be a very important voice in the American theater going forward and outside of it. I mean she works in so many mediums, as you just referenced. She's busy being boring all the time, you know. I mean she's never the same artist from one day to the next.
Speaker 3:This is why we work with the same people over and over time, because we believe very deeply in ensemble. We believe deeply in creating safe and open spaces for people to express themselves in ever-evolving ways. And that happens when they feel the trust from the theater that they're working with and they don't feel like they're writing in order to please them or writing in order to have a hit or something like that. And in all of our years we're very proud that we have never programmed a single play because we thought it would do well at the box office. We do the work that we feel like is important to our audiences, to our artists, that we feel like will get through to them, that we feel like will be meaningful to them. And if we do well at the box office based on that, then how wonderful. If we get through to one person over the course of a production, then we have if we really get through to them, then we have so very much more than done our job.
Speaker 8:Another voice that I'm excited about seeing is the Frozen section, a comedy on aisle nine by Lisa D'Amour. So this one's her latest.
Speaker 3:This is a world premiere production. Lisa is an old friend of the company's and a lot of these people, people, a lot of the more, a lot of the more, let's say, famous, well-recognized nationally or internationally, artists that we've worked with. We worked with them very early in their careers, before most of them before they had really blown up black francis. We collaborated with daniel johnston, we collaborated with they. They were already very established music stars. But lisa we met when she was performing with her multidisciplinary duo, pearl DeMoore. With Katie Pearl I saw a very small production in sort of the upstairs of a bar or something like that. That production went on to win an Obie Award several years later. When we met her I mean she was just an experimental playwright pretty much straight out of UT Austin she came down to Houston to talk to me about making new work with our company. That was right around the time that I was leaving. So I encouraged her to stick around and meet the company and see what might come from that and they wound up developing a new play called Hidetown. Her play Detroit was the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. It won a lot of awards. She's a very important playwright in modern American theater history, but mostly to us. She's a friend who we love working with. Jim Parsons we did 16 plays with in three years. Lizzo made her acting debut on our stage.
Speaker 3:We don't work with these people because they're famous or because they're important, nationally or internationally recognized. We work with them because we love what they do and we love working with them. We're not only collaborators, we become friends, we become chosen family, you know, and we don't fall out of touch with these people. I mean, we're still in touch with them. Jim remains a very close friend of the company and our largest annual donor, and Lisa, having received the accolades that she had, came back to us and said I've done that thing that maybe people want to do as artists. I want to get back to doing the thing that really fed my soul, which is working with groups like yours.
Speaker 3:So we went back and forth on several plays that she had been working on and this one really just really rang a bell with me. It's subtitled A Comedy on Aisle 9, but it's very much about the existential dilemma being. You know, I used to say all Infernal Bridegroom or all Catastrophic plays are about this one thing, because people wanted us to say what's it about? What does your theater do? And so the only shorthand I could come up with at the time was it.
Speaker 3:And so the only shorthand I could come up with at the time was it's about how strange it is to be a human animal living on the planet Earth, and that's what this play is about. I mean, it's about we came from nature, we're animals, and now we walk upright and we're civilized and we go and get our food from air-conditioned buildings with pre-packaged produce that's under plastic, frozen cuts of meat or that sort of thing. I mean, we're so far afield from our roots and these people are very alienated from one another and they're struggling existentially to understand their place in the world and what seems off, what seems wrong in their lives, which they can't quite put their fingers on, and they create a chosen family, which is a theme of many of Lisa's works.
Speaker 8:Speaking of longtime collaborators, chosen family. You wrap up the season as you do every year it's the start of summer, if you know that Tamari Cooper launches something, and this year we've got another ding dang tamri show. So no reveal of what the subject material is, but there is the title came from not knowing yet.
Speaker 3:This was a challenging season announcement. It took us a while to get it out, and one of the reasons it was is that 80 of the work is new work. Two of the pieces are created during the process. Tamri shows the book is written in advance, but it's not written a year in advance because she's in the middle of the prior one. I mean she's creating an original musical every single year. Normally it's around the end of the run that Tamri and her writing partner, patrick Reynolds, have the idea and start to flesh it out, and so maybe we have something to and start to flesh it out, and so maybe we have something to write about in the season announcement. So we didn't yet.
Speaker 3:When we were writing that, I didn't know what to write about Brian's work because it's not been developed. It's developed in the room. So these two plays were very challenging to write about, and Candice's work, too, is always changing and she's so filled with ideas and those ideas are ever-changing, and so it was hard to nail that one down too. Lisa's also a work in progress. So here are four plays that we're not sure how to talk about yet.
Speaker 3:Tamri said I said, well, I could just write something around the phenomenon of the Tamri Cooper show. She said I'll just call it another Ding Dang Tamri show and maybe that is the title. And then the next day she was like you know, we have been talking about a few things. It turns out that there's absolutely a concept for it and it is very much a behind-the-scenes. Look at how these plays are made, why these huge casts keep coming back, why the audiences keep coming back. What's the trick, what's the secret recipe. Think of it as Catastrophic's Noises Off, because it's very much a look, a peek backstage. Everything in our season is going to be very, very surprising, I think.
Speaker 1:That was Jason Nodler of Catastrophic Theatre in conversation with Brett Cullum. For more information, visit CatastrophicTheatrecom. This has been Queer Voices, which is now a home-produced podcast and available from several podcasting sources. Check our webpage QueerVoicesorg. For more information. Queer Voices executive producer is Brian Levinka. Andrew Edmondson and Deborah Moncrief-Bell are frequent contributors. The News Wrap segment is part of another podcast called this Way Out, which is produced in Los Angeles.
Speaker 6:Some of the material in this program has been edited to improve clarity and runtime. This program does not endorse any political views or animal species. Views, opinions and endorsements are those of the participants and the organizations they represent. In case of death, please discontinue use and discard remaining products.
Speaker 1:For Queer Voices. I'm Glenn Holt.
