TransTainment 8/29/22
A Puerto Rican trans woman is making musical waves beyond just her island. Villano Antillano is the first trans woman to become prominent in Latin rap, El Movimiento. The 27-year-old identified as queer in her teen years, which led to her being ejected from her conservative parent’s home. Her story then was dominated by survival. She was 17 and while she did what she had to to keep body and soul together she also began her music career. Her early EP, Tirania, was released with her portrayed as a male-presenting artist. But she did not feel as if her music was being authentic. It became clear to her that she was a woman. Now she stands tall as a trans woman and makes music that is loved by her fans. Here is a sample track
Angelica Ross
Angelica Ross, star of Pose and American Horror Story, will make her Broadway debut in the Tony-winning revival of Chicago beginning September 12 at the Ambassador Theatre. Ross is stepping into the role of Roxie Hart. Hart is one of the two villainous protagonists of Chicago in all of its adaptations. She’s an aspiring actress who gets into trouble with the law after murdering a man she was involved with. She calls on the show’s other villainous character to get her out of jail and into the spotlight. Ross will appear in the show for eight weeks. Get more info from Playbill.
Also from Playbill comes the news that John Cameron Mitchell, the creator of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, has a role in the Netflix show The Sandman. Mitchell plays Hal, a drag queen who gave up his Broadway dreams and retired to the coast to operate a bed-and-breakfast, playing host to a group of “unusual” tenants. In all his scenes Hal belts out familiar show tunes and gets lost in lavish costumes and the darkness surrounding him. Get more of the story from Playbill.
Callum Francis as Lola.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to take to the stage in glamorous drag to dance in kinky boots five nights a week with two shows on Saturday and Sunday? Callum Francis is the performer who has taken on the role for the just-begun off Broadway presentation of Kinky Boots. Francis is no stranger to the character, having played Lola in London, Australia, and for a run on Broadway. How does he cope with wearing those boots seven days a week? He said in a recent interview that he has a daily routine that helps. He said, “I wake up and eat before waking my body up. This show is fun, but it can hurt at times being in the heels. So I will roll out my legs and back to ease into the day. I shower and move the voice a little before heading out to get fresh air, be it a walk with friends and their dogs, or lunch. I’ll squeeze/force myself into a gym session before heading in to work to start makeup.” You can read the whole interview in Playbill.
Akihiro Miwa
A popular Japanese anime Princess Mononoke, produced by the animation house Ghibli, features a character known as Moro the Wolf Goddess. Fans of the film recently learned that Moro was voiced by a well known drag performer named Akihiro Miwa. A clip from a documentary on the making of Princess Mononoke has been circulating on social media and shows Miwa working on the wolf’s voice and laugh. Perhaps Miwa does have some godly powers as she survived the atomic bomb blast that destroyed her hometown, Nagasaki. Learn more from Out.
A new book is titled How You Get Famous: Ten Years of Drag Madness in Brooklyn. It is a history of the new drag scene in Brooklyn and it opens in 2011 as two teenage drag wannabes make their way into Manhattan to compete in a drag show for cash prizes. While neither won any money that night one went on to appear on RuPaul’s Drag Race twice. The author Nicole Pasulka interviewed hundreds of people in the drag scene and documents how things in Brooklyn were from 2010 to 2019. Written novelistically and in the third person the book chronicles the journey of several queens who were instrumental in shaping the rise of new drag in that borough. Read a review in The New York Times.
Category: Transgender Fun & Entertainment
About the Author (Author Profile)
Angela Gardner is a founding member of The Renaissance Transgender Assoc., Inc., former editor of its newsletter and magazine, Transgender Community News. She was the Diva of Dish for TGF in the late 1990s and Editor of LadyLike magazine until its untimely demise. She has appeared in film and television shows portraying TG characters, as well as representing Renaissance on numerous talk shows.Subscribe
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