If you're a fan of RuPaul's Drag Race, you know that queens with theatrical backgrounds frequently become Ru girls. You probably also know that the term "theatre queen" tends to make some of their contestants—and the fandom—roll their eyes.
Well, look out, queens. Ginger Minj, finally crowned a Drag Race winner on her fourth outing on the reality series, is a bonafide theatre queen, and she wants to set the record straight. Well...as straight as drag queen Ginger Minj can turn anything.
"I always thought it was such bullshit, the way we're treated by the greater fan base," she says of the hateful phenomenon. "I mean, they love us and cheer us on, but they’re always like, ‘Oh my God, she’s such a theatre girl. Weaponizing the BFA.'" By Minj's estimation, the problem is that theatre people spend their whole life training to keep the truth and vulnerability at the surface, and that creeps into other parts of life, too. "Sometimes we do overshare. Or we're boisterous. We're not afraid to be sad or mad or happy or glad—anything. We're just used to sharing our soul!"
Lucky for us, Minj is readying to bring her most Broadway-sized drag show yet to New York City's Town Hall: Hokus Pokus Live!, playing NYC September 10. Inspired by the spooky film favorite Hocus Pocus and featuring Minj and fellow Drag Race stars Jujubee and Sapphira Cristále as the infamous Sanderson Sisters, Hokus Pokus is currently on a North American tour through October 26. You can find the full itinerary and ticket information at HokusPokusLive.com. You can also see Minj in full Winnie Sanderson drag in the Disney film Hocus Pocus 2.
We recently got to catch up with Minj before the tour launched to find out what we can expect from this year's show, why she wouldn't mind being the next Madame Morrible in Wicked, and the career-changing advice she received from Bette Midler. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
First of all, congratulations on finally winning Drag Race! What has it been, 10..?
Ginger Minj: Four seasons over 10 years. And it finally happened. And it couldn’t have happened at a better time, honestly.
Is there any part of winning that feels bittersweet? Because likely that also means we won’t see you on Drag Race again.
No! If coming back four times has taught me anything, it’s to expect the unexpected. The producers of Drag Race are always willing to try something new. I’ve wondered if this was it every time I’ve come back, and they’ve always surprised me by having me come back and do something different. I would love to go back not as a contestant. I would love to go back as a Snatch Game mentor, as the person who has won Snatch Game more than anybody in the world. I always tell people, if you’re thinking about going on Drag Race, take an improv class. Just one. All you have to do is listen and respond. It’s such a simple piece of advice, but a lot of people really don’t understand it, or they think it’s so simple that they don’t pay attention to it.
I’m sure everyone tells you this, but you’re definitely one of the Ru girls that was on another plane even before you were a winner. It must be nice to officially be able to say “winner” now.
I’ve always held myself to the standards of a winner, because that’s the craft, you know? I want to be a Jinkx Monsoon or a Trixie Mattell or an Alaska, so I just try to emulate them with how professional I hold myself and the standards that I have.
Well, if you’re emulating Jinkx and Alaska, does that mean we’re going to see you come to the world of musical theatre, too?
You know, Broadway has always been the ultimate goal. I got into drag because of musical theatre. I grew up on the stage. My mom—we didn’t have money when I was growing up, and the cheapest, safest babysitting that my mom could find was to volunteer me to play babies at the local community theatre. So at six months old, I was playing the baby in Fiddler on the Roof. I literally grew up on musical theatre stages. It’s what is home to me. All these years later, to come full circle and go back to it … that’s what the goal has always been.
So what you’re saying is that your mother did actually turn you gay.
Yes. Although my mother was the least Mama Rose you could ever imagine.
Tell us what roles you have your eye on.
My ultimate goal is to play Albin in a revival of La Cage. I feel like, unfortunately, it’s timelier now than it was four decades ago when it premiered, and I think that I know that I would do the role really well. I’ve done it before, and I got great reviews, often remarking how interesting it is to see that role played by an actual drag queen, that it makes it make more sense. But as for things that are currently running, I do have my heart and soul set on playing Madame Morrible in Wicked.
Oh my God, yes. I want that for you too. So, let’s talk about your Hokus Pokus tour. Other than, I’m assuming, seeing that movie as a kid, how did your journey with Hocus Pocus and Bette Midler start?
Well, I remember when the movie premiered, which was in the summer of 1993, the dollar theatre was down the street from my house. I’d ride my bike over there as often as I could, plop down my dollar and go and watch that movie. There was something about these three women who the world viewed as buffoons and villains all at once. They were funny, they were villainous, but there was this power that they all had. And when they combined their forces, they were capable of doing incredible things—particularly musical numbers! And I was just so obsessed with that.
As I got older, I realized it was a great allegory for the queer community. They look at us as villains. They look at us as baffoons. But we all have this magical power. And when we come together and use that, we can take over the world—sometimes also with musical numbers! To be asked to be a part of Hocus Pocus 2 was already this full-circle, incredibly cathartic moment for little me. And our last day on set … It was like 4 AM and we were outdoors—we’d been shooting overnight for two-and-a-half weeks. Bette Midler, just as beautifully bitter as you could imagine, just goes, “You. I want to tell you something.” I was like, oh, God… what is it. What have I done, Bette Midler? And she said, “I like the way that you do me. You should do something with this. Do a show. I don’t know, just do a show or something.” And then she turns and walks away. And I’m like, well, Bette Midler is my new drag mother, and whether she knows it or not, she has commanded me to take this and do something with it. So I did!
We did our first iteration of this the year that Hocus Pocus 2 came out, and we’ve been slowly building on it, making it bigger and better every year. This year, of course, it’s an all-star cast. We’ve got myself, Jujubee, Sapphira Cristál, and Landon Cider, who’s one of my favorite drag artists in the world. We’ve got original music in it this year, which as the kids say is a bop. And we have fully rooted ourselves in the world of Broadway-style musical theatre.
How do you go about bringing the Broadway?
I’m a Broadway baby, and there was something really exciting about this cast in particular. Sapphira is known for being this beautiful opera singer, and she actually told me that the reason she decided to sign on was not because of Kathy Najimy as Mary Sanderson, but Kathy Najimy as Sister Mary Robert in Sister Act, singing all of those big, high belty opera notes. She told me that was the moment she connected with her as an actress, and realized she could take what she does and put it with a character and have it make sense in that world. So now we’ve rewritten the script to tailor it a little bit more around that, and she does have this incredibly fun and beautiful operatic aria that she performs in the middle of the show, which strangely makes perfect sense with the character. Jujubee is known so specifically for her brand of comedy, which we have tailored her material towards.
There’s something for fans of Drag Race and fans of Hocus Pocus. And even if you don’t know anything about those touchstones, it’s just so musical theatre, beautiful, over the top, campy Broadway that you’re going to have a good time.
It's funny hearing you put it in those terms because I’m reminded of that stupid conversation that tends to pop up periodically, about whether or not cis women can do drag. And what else are those performances in Hocus Pocus if not drag?
You’re drag queens, ladies!
Honestly, that’s the staying power of Hocus Pocus. Drag queens have kept those characters alive in gay bars around the world for the last 30-something years at this point. They’re so over-the-top drag. The costumes, the makeup, the mannerisms, the voice, the performance—everything is so drag. My actual favorite, favorite, favorite drag artist in the world, her name is Venus Envy, and she is a cis woman who does fabulous drag. It’s the coolest thing to me. Drag is, I think at least in my opinion, it's a celebration of over-the-top femininity or masculinity. It’s a gender play. And when you can have someone who is already a hyper feminine persona and pile it on and become 100 times bigger than they already are in their everyday life, that’s what is exciting about drag.
What were the musicals that were big for you?
So I’ve got three favorite Broadway shows that I can’t choose between—they’re all number-one for me. It’s Gypsy, Sweeney Todd, and Little Shop of Horrors. I’ve actually done all three of them. But I love them because there’s no fat. You can’t cut a single song or a single line without it destroying the entire piece. Me as a writer now, I try to emulate that in the sense that we don’t write this bit or this line if it doesn’t build to something bigger in the end.
Do you think of theatre as different from drag at all?
No. The only distinction is the way that maybe the audience approaches it. For me, my roots are in musical theatre. I grew up in that world, so all the world is a stage. I approach everything from that sensibility.
How do you feel about the way theatre girls get treated on Drag Race? We tend to get a bad rap for being too earnest.
I always thought it was such bullshit, the way we’re treated by the greater fan base. I mean, they love us and cheer us on, but they’re always like, ‘Oh my God, she’s such a theatre girl. Weaponizing the BFA.” Like, it’s just so crazy to me because, yes, when we’re on stage, we’re always striving to find the truth in every moment. That’s what you’re taught as an actor: find the truth in every moment, to keep it all grounded. And that way, when there is a payoff, it comes from a real place. I think that can creep in and affect other aspects of our lives, so sometimes we do overshare or we’re boisterous. We’re not afraid to be sad or mad or happy or glad or anything in between. We just share that—we’re used to sharing our soul!
Well, as a theatre girlie who watches Drag Race, we see you and we love it.
Thank you. That’s the thing, what I’ve always said. I may not ever have the biggest fanbase, but I have the most loyal, because the people who get it really get it. And that’s who it’s for. I don’t do it for the people who don’t need what I do. I do it for those little queer theatre kids out there like me.
We’re also in a tricky time with queer issues and especially drag. What does it feel like to be taking this on tour with that going on in the background?
Drag queens are at the forefront of every big political movement. Everything that the gay community has achieved, you’ve had drag and trans artists out there on the front lines, fighting the battles. We’re big, we’re loud, we don’t back down. And I think that if we were to back down, it would be a disservice to the people who came before us who fought for us to be able to do what we do on such a big, beautiful platform right now. So I certainly won’t back down from it. I also think that if we can bring drag into mainstream audiences in all these different towns, for people who wouldn’t necessarily go to a typical drag show, it’s showing them on their terms how accessible and beautiful and wonderful drag is and can be.
And also just fun. I get frustrated seeing people so up in arms about something that, I say this with so much love, something that is so stupid. It feels like such a waste of time to be angry about.
Well and it’s the same people who have cheered on the Medea movies for years, or Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire, or Bugs Bunny dressing like a woman. Drag is always a part of theatre. It’s always a part of culture. To specifically go after one subset of what drag culture is and try to blow that up into this big, awful, terrible thing … it’s just so silly to me. So if we’re doing our part to show the world that is up in arms against us, that we’re something to be embraced and not pushed away, I think we should take that opportunity.
This feels like the perfect season for all of this, too, because Halloween is kind of the one night a year the straights get to do drag.
Yeah. There’s something so liberating about it. I grew up in a very small Southern Baptist community in North Florida. In Florida, we always say the further north you go, the further south you actually are. There was nobody else like me, so I always looked forward to doing theatre or Halloween, when I could put on a different persona and have a little bit more freedom to just kind of express myself and be a little over the top, because I wasn’t that in my everyday life. Many decades later I’d found out that I am autistic, and it made a lot of other things from my life make sense. But that’s what drag and Ginger has always done for me, give me permission to put on a different persona and be a little louder, a little prouder, a little more boisterous.
