World-famous drag performer Sasha Velour describes The Big Reveal Live Show in this year’s Spoleto Festival USA as an immersive evening of storytelling through “gesture, costume and a little magic.”
Velour, the season nine winner of RuPauls Drag Race, is known for her mastery in the art of the reveal. In the finale episode of her season — in one of the most talked-about moments of the entire series — Velour took off her long red wig to reveal a cascade of falling rose petals while lip syncing Whitney Houston’s “So Emotional.” Drag Race judge Michelle Visage called the reveal an “iconic moment in Drag Race history” in Glamour magazine.
Velour takes the art of the reveal to new heights in this Spoleto season’s 90-minute show which she’s toured all over the U.S., Canada and Europe and brings to Charleston for the first time. The Big Reveal is entirely written, directed and produced by Velour.
“With this show, I thought, let me show how many different kinds of reveals I can do – sometimes that’s putting something on that’s surprising,” she said in an exclusive interview with the Charleston City Paper. “Sometimes things transform without being removed… A good reveal is harmonious. It makes sense after you’ve seen it, but you can’t possibly predict it.
“I kept trying to infuse the show with that because ultimately, I think drag reminds people that the seemingly impossible is within reach; that this world is full of surprises and transformations; that we’re all capable of a lot more variety than we think we are.”
From the page to the stage
The Big Reveal was first the title of Velour’s book, published in April 2023. Part-memoir and part history of drag, The Big Reveal: An Illustrated Manifesto of Drag was heralded as ”a rousing tribute to a revolutionary art form and its practitioners,” according to Publisher’s Weekly.
“I wrote a script that was very inspired by my book, which is my life story, but [I also wrote it] as an excuse to celebrate the history of drag and my ideas about what it can accomplish in the world.”
The book’s publication last April felt eerily timely as Americans have witnessed more political attacks on trans folks, gender nonconforming people and drag artists.
Velour is really a scholar of drag history, as she’s been researching the art form for over a decade. She wrote the book, she said, that she always wanted to read but could never find. She saw an opportunity to combat misinformation about the art to which she has given her life. Specifically, she outlines how drag is ancient and has existed in all societies across the globe since the dawn of time.
“Drag is a natural human expression,” Velour said, and it’s a form of art that’s deeply invested in social justice. “There was drag as soon as there was clothing,” she said. And the show takes those ideas even further — bringing together classic drag humor, parody and pop culture references, alongside more intimate “reveals,” like childhood videos of Sasha Velour.
“The show talks about my childhood, and what I was like as a kid, showing just how, after all, being queer is natural, how drag is natural, and how it makes sense for children to be able to see drag.
“Even though I grew up in a house that accepted me for being queer, the world felt like it wasn’t welcoming or a safe place for me. I was really ashamed of who I was, and for a while, I did just want to disappear… Drag really saved me.”
The June 6 show also gets into questions about the political backlash that drag faces. Velour said it contends with “the give or take of a culture that sometimes wants you to be a part of it, and other times pushes you to the margins — and how that affects your mind and your creativity.”
Velour explained she was inspired to bring The Big Reveal from the page to the stage for the purpose of transformation that happens in the theater.
“There’s just something about being together, watching a performance… I love how drag speaks directly to the audience in a way that theater sometimes pretends there’s no one there.”
Embodying camp
The Big Reveal is over-the-top, and yet intimate, which points to Velour’s artistic philosophy and ideas about what drag can provide to individuals and communities.
“Drag encourages people to try things, take risks, and indulge in a little fantasy for the sake of survival.”
Another important piece of Velour’s work is defining — or more accurately, embodying – camp.
While some may try to ground camp’s meaning in Susan Sontag’s “Notes on Camp” (which became the Met Gala theme in 2019, and has since become an overused and largely misunderstood buzz word), Velour’s work shows audiences camp’s inherently queer roots.
Former longtime New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley may have put it best: “In ‘The Big Reveal,’ Sasha Velour defines, demonstrates and defends camp, putting both Christopher Isherwood and Susan Sontag in their places.”
Velour elaborated: “I’m really fascinated by the way that the work camp began as kind of a way to make fun of gay people for being ‘too’ something,” she said. “And we used it for ourselves, to read other queer people for being over-the-top — which I think is also an internalizing of the judgments put on us by the outside world.
“When people think of camp, they usually focus on the sense of humor or the love of the superficial, and that’s definitely part of it. But that comes in part from being told by society that you are lacking in good taste because of who you are…
“So that’s something I try to tease,” she said, “how cultural forces shape what we think of as beautiful, as good, as tasteful. Drag is meant to be pushing those buttons and rearranging things — expanding people’s ideas of what actually is or isn’t good taste and what is beautiful.”
Though the show will certainly be thought-provoking, it also shows Velour at her most playful and hilarious. She uses comedy in The Big Reveal as a way to disarm audiences and present what she called an “anarchic approach to carving out space for queer people.” She brings in music from Stevie Wonder to Britney Spears, Stephen Sondheim to Deep Purple, plus video art, artful oration, drag performances and a thrilling homage to drag icon Lypsinka.
“I think this show fits right in with other works of theater, but brings a uniquely drag sense of humor,” she said. “Hopefully people will see in this show how drag continues to push us for ways to survive and innovate.”
See Sasha Velour’s The Big Reveal Live Show at the Charleston Gaillard Center, 8 p.m. June 6. Tickets start at $44 at spoletousa.org. Plus, keep up to date with the Charleston City Paper’s latest Spoleto and Piccolo Spoleto coverage at charlestoncitypaper.com.
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