Alaska and Manila Luzon bring ‘Drag: The Musical’ back to Los Angeles
Two star drag queens and New Kids on the Block’s Joey McIntyre will be battling out on stage this month when an award-winning musical about two rival drag bars returns to Hollywood.
“If you love drag you’ll love it. If you don’t love drag or have never heard of drag, I think you’re still going to love it,” said Alaska, the winner of season two of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” and one of the creators of “Drag: The Musical.”
The show, which won best new play or musical at the 2022 Broadway World Los Angeles Awards and the 2023 Queerties Award for Live Theater, returns to The Bourbon Room in Hollywood on March 15-30.
Besides Alaska — who created the musical alongside songwriter/producer Tomas Costanza and songwriter Ashley Gordon — the 10-member cast includes McIntyre and Manila Luzon, a former contestants on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and current host and head judge of Prime Video’s drag reality competition “Drag Den with Manila Luzon.”
“What I really love is that this is an original musical. It’s not a jukebox musical, it’s not made from some movie from the ’90s. It’s an original story created with drag in mind and it’s nice to be able to tell our story,” Luzon said.
The show made its debut at The Bourbon Room in 2022 and highlights two rival drag bars. The Fish Tank is the hottest club in town, but is nevertheless facing financial difficulties. When the queens of The Cat House, the drag club across the street, catch wind of their rival’s financial troubles, they do whatever they can to make sure the Fish Tank sinks.
“There are musicals that have drag queens in them and we love that, but this is the first one that takes place on the drag queen’s turf, so it’s their world,” Alaska said.
It’s also obviously a very musical world with a live band on stage performing the rock-heavy music that drives the show.
“It’s rooted in rock and roll so that’s where we start, but then it branches off of that. It rocks,” Alaska said. “The music is very catchy and it’ll be stuck in your head after the show for sure,” she added.
For Alaska, this is also a musical that will let people see drag queens in a different light.
“People are used to seeing drag queens do a certain type of thing. They get on stage and they lip sync and that’s that. But we’re seeing our favorite drag stars up on stage singing and dancing and being hilarious and really being these fully flushed out characters.”
“Drag: The Musical”
When: 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. March 15-16 for previews, 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. March 22-23 and 29-30
Where: The Bourbon Room, 6356 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles
Tickets: $69-$125 at dragmusical.com