Mira Shatters started doing drag just over a year ago, performing her first show at the end of July 2021.
Before becoming a drag performer, Shatters was in a band called Hooded Eagle. The band was together for five years, released an album and played the Music Farm and Tin Roof. When the band broke up, Shatters said she felt a little lost in regard to her artistic prospects. She wasn’t sure she wanted to continue with music, or art in general. Then she saw her very first drag show at The Royal American.
“This is what I want to do,” Shatters said. “And this is actually something I didn’t even realize is something that had been buried deep down inside me for a very long time that I needed to express.” She’s worked with Charleston Pride, has performed at The Hive and Dudley’s, and she’s now the head of her own drag series at the Tin Roof.
“After being a musician playing Tin Roof for so many years, I thought of this place because it has the aesthetic of being open,” Shatters said. “It’s queen friendly. It’s everybody friendly: punk, metal, goth, whatever you want. And all those things kind of roll into the same area as drag does.”
The Spicy Saturday Drag Show at Tin Roof has been running on the final Saturday of each month since April 28. Shatters co-hosts events with collaborator Shesha Manson, whose help she sought immediately to start the Tin Roof shows. The duo organizes Spicy Saturday, bringing in both local and out-of-town performers each month.
“I’m the high elf queen of Charleston,” Manson said about her act. She brings great hair, flips and dancing to her performance. Manson has been doing drag for five years, and hosting events for the last three.
“It’s just chaos,” joked Shatters of her own act. “Once I get on stage, I just go for it. I very much have a punk rock, metal background. That’s what I used to play when I played music. I’ll do a lot of Top 40, but then I’ll do female vocal covers of My Chemical Romance.” Shatters brings high energy to her lip-sync, and interacts with the crowds a lot.
“It’s fun here too,” Manson added about working the audience at Tin Roof. “A lot of times people in the crowd are not used to drag shows because they’re usually coming here for a band. So it’s fun to mess with them because they don’t know what’s going on.”
Manson and Shatters eschew having a unifying theme for each show, instead preferring queens to simply be themselves and do their own acts each time. “I personally don’t really like themes,” Manson said. “We want you to do your best at what you do.”
The Sept. 24 show, called Sour Saturday, will feature Misster, Aphrodite Valentino, Papa Xanax and Electra Lyte. Misster is the host of Charlotte’s horror-themed drag show, Carolina Creepshow. The “Slenderman-esque Glamazon” Electra is a talented Carolinas performer. Papa Xanax is a newer performer on the scene whose style is a nightmare made manifest. Aphrodite, a Charleston native, is super new to the circuit, and someone the queens are eager to see rise because of her excitement and dedication to the craft.
They’re also bringing in a big special guest: Priscilla Chambers. Chambers is the first television guest booked for Spicy Saturday. She was a runner-up on the third season of The Boulet Brother’s DRAGULA, and also was a contestant on the first season of The Boulet Brother’s Dragula Resurrection. A meet and greet with Chambers will precede the drag show.
Attendance to the Spicy Saturday shows has been great according to Shatters and Manson, including a sold out performance during Pride. Advanced ticket sales are something the crew is still working to increase, but they are always surprised by the turnout on the night.
“Even the day that we sold out, we only sold 10 to 15 [in advance],” Manson said. “People don’t typically buy the tickets ahead of time; they just show up. So honestly it’s really just like, we’ll find out when the show starts.”
The shows are proving popular, and business has been good enough that they’ve been able to now bring in big names like Chambers. Shatters and Manson, who both continue to work all around Charleston, hope to bring drag shows to even more venues. And a new sponsorship with Holy City Brewing will hopefully lead to more events, including plans for drag brunches in the near future.
Right now, the team is focused on the Saturday show. Get your tickets, bring plenty of $1 bills and have a good time at the Tin Roof.
Sour Saturday is 8 p.m. Sept. 24; meet and greet is 7 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance or at the door, and $10 for the meet and greet.
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