[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in SoHo. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. Pride Month may be wrapping up tomorrow and as with all the months dedicated to the awareness of certain groups, honestly, here at All Of It, those folks, including queer artists have been and always will be part of this show's fabric. It's just during these months, we give them a little extra jeuje, which brings me to our next guest who is sort of walking jeuje, Portland-based Drag Queen, Jinkx Monsoon.

She's on her largest tour yet spanning more than 40 cities. Jinkx is singing, lip-syncing, and performing comedy all across America. She's no stranger to the stage or the screen. Monsoon is a two-time winner of the reality competition series, RuPaul's Drag Race. She's sashayed on the runway while wooing audiences and judges with her campy fashion, sly humor, and spot-on impressions of legends like Judy Garland.

Jinkx Monsoon: Now that we're at the midway point, is that my camera?

[laughter]

Jinkx Monsoon: [singing] [unintelligible 00:01:07]

Alison Stewart: Her love and knack for musical theater led her to Broadway where she played Matron 'Mama' Morton in the revival of Chicago earlier this spring. She was the first drag performer to play the role. Now, Jinkx is back in the New York at Brooklyn's Kings Theater this Saturday, July 1st at 8:00 PM. The show is titled Everything's At Stake. Joining me now is Jinkx Monsoon. Jinkx, welcome to the show.

Jinkx Monsoon: Hi there. Thank you so much for having me.

Alison Stewart: You've had several tours already. You've had cabaret shows, you had a rock and scat album, Ginger Snapped. How did these shows and these past tours help prepare you for this large-scale tour?

Jinkx Monsoon: Well, I've just been doing all kinds of work for a solid decade now since my first time on Drag Race. It's just like there's no way to synthesize life experience. You can go to school for acting like I did and then you don't figure it all out until something like Chicago comes along and it all clicks into place. I feel like at this point in my life, at 35 years old, with 20 years of performing under my belt, with 10 years of performing at this level under my belt, I'm just really galvanized to put on a damn good show. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: As you said, for people who can do math, that means you started in your teens doing drag. Did you have a particular moment when you knew drag was going to be something that you could do for a living?

Jinkx Monsoon: I really convinced myself as a young artist when I went to Cornish College of the Arts for theater, I convinced myself that I had to give up drag to be a legitimate actor. Immediately after graduation, most of the roles that I got in regional theater were playing female roles because the directors just saw what worked best on me. It's funny because, at that time, I was still presenting as male, I still identified as male, but everyone could see that I was meant to play female roles. [laughs] Since then, I've come out as non-binary. I'm extremely fem-presenting in my day-to-day.

The roles that I play range anywhere from drag queens, to non-binary characters, to cis-gendered female characters like in Chicago. My mission statement as an artist is to just play the role well. Whatever role I've been cast in, I just want to play it effectively, whatever the gender is. I think I've gotten to this point now where both me, and our culture, and our society, and our communities are all ready for that mindset. There's just a handful of very loud individuals who are making it hard for us. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: We'll talk about those individuals in a little bit. This is a little bit of an essay question, but I'm really curious since you've been in the business for a long time. How do you think drag helps people?

Jinkx Monsoon: Oh, at its core, the way it helps people is teaching us to create our own rules. If you would have asked me this 20 years ago when I started drag, I would have said, it helps people because we all desired to explore the boundaries and the limits of our gender identity. We're all pushed into a box from birth, everyone, not just queer people, not just trans people.

Right now, we're talking a lot about how queer people and trans people respond to the construct of gender, but the point is everyone is affected by it. Straight people, cisgender people, people who are totally happy with their assigned gender at birth, you're still being put into a box. You're still being conditioned by society, you just happen to be cool with it. There was a time when I would have said that it allows all of us the room to explore our gender identities. That's still true, but what I believe in it even deeper than that now is that drag teaches us to create our own rules.

You were born with this genitalia but you feel like presenting like this gender and you're attracted to these people, who in the world has the right to tell you not to be all the things that you want to be in your life? It's your life, you have the one life, you should get to make all of those decisions for yourself and create all the rules for yourself. That's what drag teaches people. Is like, we were taught to present the way that we were assigned at birth, and drag tells you, "Nope, make your own rule around that. Don't worry about what you were taught from birth. Worry about what you know now."

Alison Stewart: When was a moment in your own life that you know drag made a difference on a real personal level?

Jinkx Monsoon: Well, in a huge way, just like what I was talking about in defining your own rules and exploring your gender identity, drag allowed me the space to truly figure out who I am as a human being. I've known my entire life that I didn't identify as male but I didn't identify as female either. I was really resolved at that at a very, very young age, but my whole life I thought because of what's going to make life easier, I'm going to have to present as male and be male because I also don't identify as female, so I don't really see where else I could go.

Then in my adulthood, I learned terms like non-binary, gender fluid, gender non-conforming, trans-fem, trans-masculine. I learned all of these words. I know the idea of learning about new genders in adulthood is daunting for some people because you've heard one thing your whole life but now we're telling you something new, but the thing is, is it all already exists, we just needed to name it. It already exists everywhere. You already see it everywhere. You already know butch women and fem men. Whether they're queer or not, you know people. You have your aunt, Shirley who likes to work on trucks or whatever, right?

We know these people. All we did as the queer community is put names to it. When I found the right names that resonated with me, it opened everything up for me. I realized that I can be a feminine person, be extremely fem-presenting, people can even see me as a woman and I don't need to change my body. I don't need to change anything because that's not part of my journey. I'm non-binary because I don't feel trapped in my body. I feel trapped in the gender that was assigned to me.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Jinkx Monsoon. Jinkx has a concert called Everything's At Stake at the Kings Theater this Saturday, July 1st. You're set list has a wide range of songs, pop songs to Vaudeville show tunes. How do you decide what the mix is going to be? Is there a flow? Is it just as the- -mood hits?

Jinkx Monsoon: It has to do a lot with what is going on that year. I work with my music partner, Major Scales, and we've been working together for 14 years now. We met in college. We started by doing ragtime covers of pop songs a long time ago. That was our first niche. Now we create original music together with a very queer edge. This show, as you mentioned, has a wide range of music references and a lot of the music is original. There's also some covers, but what we really like to do is emulate the music that inspired us.

Between the two of us, we're inspired by a lot of vaudeville ragtime, a lot of 1940s jazz, a lot of ‘80s synth and electro-pop music. Major Scales was very inspired by the ‘80s. Then I'm very inspired by witchy aesthetics, and folk music, and obscure references. Together our musical set list is a rollercoaster, but when you see the show from start to finish, it all makes sense because you've got the standup comedy in between the songs to weave us from one song to the next. That's what's really fun about doing these shows as a hybrid between mine and Major's talents.

Alison Stewart: How did somebody born in late ‘80s, grew up in the ‘90s discover old-timey vaudeville?

Jinkx Monsoon: I just always had an antiquated taste in music. I think my first album I bought for myself was a B-52’s album. There's been musicians for years who have made references like Cyndi Lauper had a Helen Kane cover in the ‘80s. She was doing a 1920s song in the ‘80s. With certain people, we just have fascinations with old-timey things, [laughs] but I think probably the movie Bugsy Malone as a kid was my first exposure to that yesteryear aesthetic. They have a song, Fat Sam's Grand Slam in that show, and I just always loved that song as a kid, so I always gravitated towards music that sounded like that.

Alison Stewart: Jinkx, the title of your tour is Everything's At Stake, and you said a few minutes ago that you do respond to what's going on around you. When did that title become clear to you?

Jinkx Monsoon: Well, when you're planning a show months and months in advance, the things that are going on right now with the GOP and Conservative zealots scapegoating the queer community to take the heat off of them, that wasn't happening to this extreme. When I came up with the show title, the show title was inspired by the fact that a lot of people resonated with a look I wore on Drag Race, where it was a large white ball gown that was rigged with LED lights to make it look like it was on fire. I was making a commentary on witch hunts and innocent women being burned at the stake for being accused of being a witch, and I'm someone who self-identifies as a witch and wants to reclaim that word.

People really loved that look. I thought it was a great place to start for this tour. Since then, my community has been under vicious attack. As a community leader, I try to step up to the front lines like drag queens are want to do. My show is very pointedly and unapologetically a show written to discuss those things in a fun, entertaining way, but also not hold any punches. If you're looking for me to be diplomatic between the two sides of this argument, I'm sorry, I've run out of that patience. At this point, it's an all-out war. It's a battle for our lives. It's a battle for our survival yet again in this country. I am considering myself dressed for battle when I get into drag, and I am considering myself on the front lines of this battlefield when I'm out there making pointed jokes. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: On a serious note, when you're on the road, what are your safety considerations? How are you taking care of yourself?

Jinkx Monsoon: Well, I have a wonderful, wonderful team. This tour is comprised largely of people I've been working with for years, decades. We unfortunately had to up security from what we've done in the past. We are traveling with a dedicated the security personnel and he manages the local security. Our top concern is keeping everyone in the audience safe and feeling safe while they're here at the show so we've upped security as far as metal detectors. We've made sure that we're trying to make the environment feel as safe as possible.

Then we are also concerned with keeping the band members, myself, and all the members of our crew safe because you never know who's going to be inspired to try to make an example out of-- which would be extremely unfortunate, but it's just not something that I am-- I've had to do this for years. When the Pulse nightclub shooting happened, me and seven other drag queens, and Michelle Visage were on tour together. It was terrifying to keep performing when you knew that our community, because of what conservative zealots who call themselves politicians, what they are spewing into the world inspires the violence that leads to shootings like Pulse nightclub and Colorado Springs, and which makes people like me terrified to keep doing our job, but we do it because this is how we fight back.

Alison Stewart: States like Montana and Tennessee have passed laws that have restricted drag performances in certain venues. One of the areas getting big pushback are Drag Queen Story Hours where drag performers read kid’s books to kids. Florida governor Ron DeSantis has described it as "child in endangerment." How can people be allies and support drag artists and queer entertainers? Sometimes I think we read these stories and we understand them, we think, "Oh, that's terrible," and then don't really know what to do.

Jinkx Monsoon: Well, what I want to say about the Drag Queen Story Hour that's so asinine about it is it implies that a drag queen, a drag performer, is inherently sexual or inappropriate for children. Now what makes me really upset about that is it implies that all drag queens are the same. We are human beings. We are multifaceted like all human beings are. We are artists, and artists do all different types of art. Let's say if like, I don't know, I'm pulling someone out of the air, Kid Rock. Kid Rock does explicit music. If he wanted to read books to kids, would conservatives have a problem with that because his music isn't for kids?

Adult human beings know how to behave around children. My material, the show I'm doing right now, it's 18+ because it's not appropriate for kids. But if I were to go read a book to kids, I would know how to do that because I'm a human being with common sense. The way that they talk about drag is in such blanket terms. They are trying to ban an entire art form based off of one slice of the truth. By that token, by that rhetoric, why aren't we banning everything?

Because every art form has aspects of it that's not appropriate for children, but we know that parents are there to make sure that what their kids watch is what's appropriate for them. The whole argument is asinine. It's insidious because it uses children as a shield. It uses children as a way to tug at your heartstrings because we as human beings want to protect children. If you want to be an ally, you have to call this out for what it is. You have to call it out constantly. You have to shut down the rhetoric when you hear it.

When you hear people, and I know it's uncomfortable, but I'm sorry, people are being attacked, people are being killed, you can stand five minutes of discomfort with your group of friends to shut down some destructive language. If you hear people using language or spreading misinformation, shut it down. That's how we do it. That's how we stop the spread of misinformation. Shut it down wherever you see it, wherever you hear it. That's how you be an ally. I'm sorry if it's inconvenient, but that's my whole life. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: That laugh belongs to Jinkx Monsoon. Everything's At Stake is the concert, it's series, and the standup comedy, it's a show, it's a performance. It's at the Kings Theater on Saturday, July 1st. You made history is the first drag performer to play Mama Morton in Chicago on Broadway. One of your performances at the Ambassador Theater was so full, it had standing room only. Let's listen to a little snippet of you performing When You're Good To Mama from Chicago.

[MUSIC - Jinkx Monsoon: When You're Good To Mama]

Don't you know that this hand

Washes that one, too?

When you're good to Mama

Mama's good to you

Alison Stewart: How did you prepare for the role?

Jinkx Monsoon: I feel like I've been preparing for that role since I was like 14 years old.

[laughter]

Jinkx Monsoon: Honestly, I've been preparing for any role in Chicago. At 14 years old, I saw the film of Chicago with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Queen Latifah, and oh my gosh, Renée Zellweger. That movie changed my life because when I saw that movie, I saw all the roles I would be so good at. The only thing stopping me from playing those roles is that I was seen as male and so I started doing drag at that moment.

I was really lucky because I lived in Portland, Oregon, which had multiple places for me as a young queer person to go to meet other queer people. I had safe spaces as a young person to be a young queer person and go through my adolescence as myself, not having to pretend to be someone else like so many people have to do. That's a really hard thing to go through your formative years, go through your adolescence and your puberty pretending to be something you're not.

It means when you do actually come out later in life, you go through a whole second adolescence. I'm really, really lucky because I didn't have to do all of that. I got to be myself my whole life. That means I started drag at 14 and it means I have been wanting to play any role in Chicago since I was 14 years old. If there was any musical that I could step into with nine days of rehearsal, it was Chicago. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: What's the next dream role, the next one if wand we're waved today and it happened?

Jinkx Monsoon: My dream role will always be Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd. They just began a new production of it with Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford. I think I'm going to have to wait 10 years before I'll get to originate my own version of Mrs. Lovett again. If they were waving a wand, Mrs. Lovett, maybe the witch in Into the Woods, maybe Mama Rose. There's a ton of iconic roles that I've always wanted to take a swing at and show what that role could look like through a queer trans femme drag queen lens, why not? [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: You have put it out into the universe. That's all we can do at the moment. Jinkx Monsoon will be at the Kings Theater this Saturday, July 1st. The name of the show is Everything's At Stake. Jinkx, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us today.

Jinkx Monsoon: Thank you so much for having me. Have a great rest of your day.

 

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