There’s a summer tour spicing up Western Canada promising to be a night to remember — or in this case, regender.
For the rest of July and beginning of August, four drag queens from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, are touring small towns and communities with their saucy act: the Crazy B—–s.
Usually, the troupe performs at the Luna Lounge, a Mexican bar, but it’s closed every summer. So, the star-impersonating crew pack up their Cher and Beyonce weaves and trade their pesos for Canadian dollars.
Now, some of the performers have never been to Canada before and are enjoying exploring the country on tour.
The Calgary Eyeopener caught up with one of the performers, Miss Angie, on Friday.
Canadians flocked to performance in Mexico
“We mostly have a Canadian audience every year [at Luna Lounge],” said Miss Angie, one of the queens. “People come on vacation and stay for months during the winter and they keep coming along every year.”
She said that after six seasons, their regular audience and fans suggested it might be time to take the show on the road and take the act to Canada. So they made a plan last summer to do their first tour abroad.
But initially booking a group of “gay drag queens” wasn’t an easy sell. Angie said that out of the 25 shows they wanted to do, only 10 came through.
“Everyone was skeptical,” Angie said. “After the shows, we would come and ask the managers what they thought about the show. And they would go: ‘Are you guys coming next year? We want three shows.'”
This time around they are set to perform more than 30 times across Alberta and British Columbia.
Name too spicy for some locales
Sometimes, because their name includes the “B” word, they perform under another name.
“Last night, we finished one of the first shows of the tour and we’re called the Crazy Senoritas — they couldn’t use the word,” Angie said. “It was a blast … after the show was done everyone was laughing and clapping and having a good time.”
So far, she said, their Canadian audience has been supportive and respectful, and the group has sold out shows in Ponoka and Innisfail.
But it’s not all work. The “Crazy Senoritas” love Canada because of the shopping — Dollarama is a favourite.
“There’s a lot of props we can find,” Angie said. “We do a lot at Payless. Mexican drag queens have big feet — I mean, all drag queens have big feet. We can’t get some shoes in Mexico.”
With files from the Calgary Eyeopener.