December is off to a great start with lots to do in the arts – and it seems that the drag queens are bringing their acts front and center.
THEATRE
The tranny “Golden Girls” will continue to impress with their Christmas episodes shows. Pollo Del Mar, the show’s Rose, had to back out opening weekend due to health reasons, but I hear she’s back and ready to resume her role this week. The show plays Thursdays-Saturdays at the Victoria Theatre. To learn more and get tickets, go to www.trannyshack.com.
Drag also makes its way to The Rrazz Room with Katya Smirnoff-Skyy’s “Holiday Spectacular” on Tuesday, Dec. 6 at 8pm. Katya adds her little Russian flair to new and classic holiday songs in an evening of song and misadventures. Check it out at www.therrazzroom.com.
Katya also looks surprisingly like one of the men in the terrific, taut ensemble piece “The Tempermentals,” playing through Dec. 18 at the New Conservatory Theatre Center (www.nctcsf.org). Shows are Wednesdays-Sundays so perhaps J. Conrad Frank is indeed Kayta!! (wink, wink) so he/she free to do her Katya show on Tuesday.
The New Conservatory also has one of my favorite drag queens, Trauma Flintstone, but as her male counterpart Joe Wicht in a musical spoof of the bad 1980s movie “Xanadu.” Don’t worry – this show knows the movie was bad and totally makes fun of it with great dialog by the wonderful Broadway writer Douglas Carte Beane.
The show is also filled with hotties including one of the lead muse’s sisters is a guy! This show just started and will run through Jan. 15; get tickets soon at www.nctcsf.org.
MOVIES
“Shame” isn’t gay per se even though there is a scene in a gay sex club and lead actor Michael Fassbender has a few frontal nude shots showing his magnificent package.
But this movie is worth seeing because it will be harder to seek out due to its NC-17 rating and is an amazing character study of a brother and sister who have are emotionally scarred to their very core. Both Fassbender’s sex addict Brandon and Carey Mulligan as his needy sister both might be courting Oscar next spring. You can catch it at San Francisco’s Embarcadero Cinema (www.landmarktheatres.com) and will open at more theatres Dec. 16.
On DVD Tuesday, Dec. 6 is a movie that also really isn’t gay yet it showed this year at gay film festivals. “Mangus!” is the story of a nerdy boy, who might have been a friend of Napoleon Dynamite, whose dream is realized when he gets to play Jesus Christ in a musical. Magnus isn’t gay but most of the actors in the movie are certainly icons: Leslie Jordan, Jennifer Coolidge and director John Waters as the real Jesus.
MUSIC
If you want to see everyone who makes an impact on the San Francisco music world, “Help is on the Way,” the annual fund raising AIDS concert is Monday, Dec. 5. This is a great benefit and opportunity to see local favorites Wesla Whitfield and Paula West perform live. They won’t be alone – they will be joined by “American Idol” finalists RJ Helton and La Toya London as well as theatre icons Sheryl Lee Ralph, Susan Anton and Sally Struthers. And let’s not forget the sexy Shawn Ryan and David Burnham. The event is at the Marines Memorial Theater and starts at 7:30pm. Get tickets at www.richmondermet.org.
And what holiday season would be complete without the Gay Men’s Chorus. They perform Thursday, Dec. 8 at Masonic Auditorium in a concert called “Joyous, Jolly, Jingles.” To learn more and get tickets, go to www.sfgmc.org.
TV/MULTI-MEDIA
This week also features the posting of the third episode of “Hustling,” an internet series about a porn star who is trying to break free from the life. It features the multi-talented Broadway dancer/actor Sebastian LaCause who seems to have worked on every aspect of the show – creator, writer, actor, editor – is he also craft service manager? I plan to talk to him soon about this fascinating show. But until then catch up and watch the three episodes thus far: http://blip.tv/HustlingTheWebSeries.
