Dinner ? Theatre ?
I received an email from Debbie who worked at a restaurant in Fitzroy called Temple Bar. They were newly opened and were looking for a weekly drag show to lure customers in, since they were ‘struggling’ as Debbie put it.
At that stage, drag queens were popping up in “straight” bars and clubs fairly often, but they were no longer pulling in audiences to see drag queens”. Overexposure had made drag commonplace and I explained all this to Debbie and her partner Brendan.
I looked at their menu again and I thought about the film “Connie and Carla” and their ‘dinner-theatre” dialogue, and the thought came. I asked if they could do a bowl of spaghetti and a glass of wine for $10 and we’d call the night ‘Spag n Drag’ (Spag Bol or Veggie and a glass of wine PLUS a drag show.!) and so Spag and Drag was born. The venue was intimate, the food was excellent (you could order a la carte if you didn’t like spaghetti) and patrons flooded in.
Brendan built a stage and we installed some lighting and we were ready. I’d asked The Manly Sisters: Jillette Jones, Jackie Stevens and Kris Del Vayze to be involved and so we had our basic show format; solos, duos, trios and the four of us for the finale.
Templebar is where we filmed the “Drags Aloud TV Show”.
MCV the local gay paper described it as ‘the best value night out in Melbourne’ and the crowds seemed to agree.
All images and content
on www.dragsaloud.com
is copyright 2020