'RuPaul's Drag Race' winner Sasha Velour returns to her birthplace of Berkeley for a one-woman show at the Berkeley Rep. (Greg Endries)
Drag artist Sasha Velour knows the power of a good reveal.
In 2017, she cemented her place as the ninth winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race with grace and ingenuity, stunning host RuPaul Charles and a worldwide television audience by secretly stashing a cascade of rose petals under her wig, then allowing them to dramatically flutter down upon her bald head during a lip-sync battle with fellow finalist Shea Couleé.
In the seven years since Velour was crowned “America’s Next Drag Superstar,” she’s continued to perform and advocate for drag as both an art form and a life source. A former graphic designer, Velour’s creative output includes a comic book about the Stonewall Uprising (Three Dollar Riot), her monthly Brooklyn drag revue NightGowns and a coffee table tome, 2023’s The Big Reveal: An Illustrated Manifesto of Drag.
Born in Berkeley, raised in the Midwest and based in New York, Velour will return to her birthplace with a new one-woman show, also titled The Big Reveal. Set to run at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theater from June 4–15, the performance draws inspiration from the extensive research Velour conducted for her book on drag as well as autobiographical elements, including home movie footage. Speaking over Zoom, the show’s star and creator shared that bringing The Big Reveal home to Berkeley feels like a milestone in an already exceptional career.
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“It’s very full circle to bring this show to Berkeley,” she said. “In fact, it actually begins with the setting of that living room and telling the story about my childhood as a young person who was already curious about drag and gender fluidity and identity, and how I exploded from there into learning about the world and pop culture and all the big reveals of life.”
Delving into the reveals that have defined her own journey to date, Velour spoke with KQED about her new show, her Bay Area roots, making the cover of The New Yorker and the time she hit the road with Heklina.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Zack Ruskin: What place does Berkeley hold in your heart these days?
Sasha Velour: It’s funny to be speaking with KQED because I grew up with a Christmas soundtrack recorded from KQED in the ’80s with all the radio intervals. That was the soundtrack for putting up the Christmas tree in my mainly Jewish family. It was an early association with the fluidity of identity, which is why it feels so special to do this show in Berkeley.
Sasha Velour leans into camp in her Berkeley Rep show ‘The Big Reveal.’ (Greg Endries)
How does performing in a space like Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theater compare with, say, a drag nightclub like Oasis, where I know you’ve appeared several times?
Oasis is one of the best stages for drag in the world. When I do these one-person shows, I feel like they’re like all adaptations of the best drag that I first tried out in gay bars. Everything is adapted from some reveal that I had success with on those sacred stages.
This show consists of ten different big reveals while also teasing out the different ways you can do a reveal beyond the one that I’m most known for, which is taking my wig off — but I promise there’s a little bit of that in there as well. I think the theme is drag as truth-telling. There’s a RuPaul quote I love: “Drag doesn’t disguise who you are; it reveals who you are.” We’re telling the truth not just about ourselves and our own complex identities and experiences of gender, but about the world and the way it works — the horrible things and the beautiful things — and finding ways to make it intellectual.
You are, in every sense of the term, an artist. I love that you’ve kept your passion for comics alive with work like Three Dollar Riot. What was it like to work on the book version of The Big Reveal and then transform that into a stage show?
It felt like a translation process. At first, I had to translate all my drag speeches and numbers into a book, and then I had to translate it all back into performances. As part of that, I wanted to capture some of the artwork and the imagery that I put into The Big Reveal book, but I decided to remix it and turn it into something else.
I feel like this show has taken on a life of its own. The biggest themes are camp and pop culture. I thought about the experience of selling a book about drag. It was something so political and so urgent, and I was doing TV appearances defending why drag should not be criminalized and why queer people should be allowed to live our lives openly, while selling this book about my life as well as the history of the art form. It was such a surreal and disturbing yet also empowering experience, and I wanted to try to capture that on stage.
I think “camp” is the ultimate theme of the show, presented as a celebration of survival in times of disaster and oppression and judgment. Overall, I think the process of putting the book together is what inspired the show.
Are you still an avid comic consumer?
Absolutely. That’s my favorite thing to find in any library or bookstore, and I judge bookstores by how good their graphic novel collections are. My collection is still growing. Comic artists and graphic designers will definitely appreciate the color palette of my show, which is built entirely around the CMYK process in various combinations. I learned that it takes a lot to translate color into printed manner when I was working behind the scenes of a publishing house.
Sasha Velour is a visual artist in addition to being a performer. (Chloe Mary)
Your monthly Brooklyn drag revue NightGowns is set to celebrate its tenth anniversary later this summer. What does it mean to you to be able to have a show like this run for such a long time? At a time when queer rights are seemingly hanging in the balance, does putting NightGowns on feel like a radical act?
Yes. NightGowns is a part of history now, which is wild to say. It’s rooted in knowing that it’s possible to keep existing through changing political environments. We’ve also been so true to the same mission with that show. It’s centered on the art, led by drag artists and built on a really expansive idea of who can take part in drag. It also features a good blend of politics and escapism, and especially these days, it seems like the audience is more eager than ever to take part in it. So far, we’ve been able to raise over $30,000 per year for direct mutual aid through the art raffle that we do. I think people are eager to use drag as an amazing platform for making a difference in the world, or at least for having some hope of making a difference. I hope NightGowns can keep being that difference for another ten years.
How did it feel to be a guest judge on the upcoming debut season of Revry’s King of Drag, the first reality television competition series devoted to drag kings?
It was everything. I’m so thrilled that it exists. I wanted to be there just to witness what the kings brought, and I can confirm that it is unlike anything I’ve seen before on a drag competition. I think it’s going to more than prove what we’ve all been saying this whole time, which is that the art of the drag king is just as incredible as every other form of drag and needs to be given the same opportunities.
Do you have any special memories from the many shows you’ve done here in the Bay Area over the years?
It’s always been a big deal for me to come perform in the Bay Area, because I still have family who live there. My dad and aunt and uncle will gather and come support me at those shows, so it feels like a family event.
I think I’ve performed at Oasis at least five times. I was blessed to be booked by Heklina, who I had so much fun with. The first time she ever brought me out, we did two back-to-back gigs at Oasis, and then she drove me in her car to Sacramento. We stopped at a diner and talked about our families and everything.
Later, I also did this mini tour with her and D’Arcy [Drollinger] for their Golden Girls drag show. I got to play antisemitic author [Barbara Thorndyke] in one Golden Girls episode and someone who falls in love with Rose in another one. It was like the best acting or theater experience I’ve ever had. Since then, Tito Soto has brought me out for Princess, which is such an incredible show and so in the spirit of everything I love about drag. I feel a great connection with him and his drag family as well.
Sasha Velour says San Francisco’s Oasis is one of the best drag stages in the nation. (Greg Endries)
One fascinating element of The Big Reveal is your use of childhood home movies. What’s it like to interact with old media of yourself as part of creating a high-concept drag show?
I think of my use of childhood video as proof. I first brought it into NightGowns when it was in a bar. That very first year, my dad sent me a digitized clip of me in drag as a kid. I didn’t even remember doing but it speaks to the consistency of who we are as little creatures. We kind of know who we are, but we need the context and the language and the tools to fine tune it and hone it and pursue it. It proves to me how natural queerness is in the world, and that I was born to do drag, or at least that I always thought I was born to do it.
How did it feel to design a self-portrait featured as a New Yorker cover?
It was a gag. I kept trying to edit the image to make it cleaner and more polished, because I was convinced that the first version, which was really intended as a rough draft, was not up to the standards of The New Yorker, but [art editor] Francoise [Mouly], who was my boss many years back, told me that the urgency of my rough draft was the magic she was looking for. I still think about that a lot when creating art.
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Sasha Velour’s ‘The Big Reveal’ takes place at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theater June 4–15. Details here.
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