One of the greatest things that has come out of the
Rupaul's Drag Race casting experience is that I have been able to connect and become friends with some incredibly talented queens from across the country! Many of these girls I might have never met or even heard of due to living in different cities. I started thinking about ways that we could get more exposure for drag queens outside of their hometowns and that led me to the idea for my new weekly blog installment, "Queen of the Week".
I will be featuring a different drag queen every week from various cities across the country (and around the world too eventually)! If you are an actively performing drag queen and are interested in being featured shoot me an email at artemis@artemischase.com
Now on to our very first interview!
Pandora Boxx was one of the finalists on the Rupaul's Drag Race site! Her hilarious videos and standout humor caught many people's attention (including mine) and she quickly became a crowd favorite. But enough of me talking about her. Let's hear a little bit about Pandora in her own words!
***Pandora Boxx***Age:21 - O, after 21 I went to lettersLocation:Rochester, NYSingle or taken?TakenWhat is your drag style like? Take a dash of sexy, a pinch of pretty and a touch of sass and shake it up and serve it over a big heap of hilarity.How long does it take you to get ready in drag? About 10 hours and a team of mulesDo you have a favorite number you perform? It changes all the time. Right now I really enjoy doing my crazy Britney number. I hope she stays crazy. Is that wrong?
Where can we see you perform? You can see me nightly on various street corners tap dancing for nickels or if you prefer a venue inside I perform weekly at Muther's (www.clubmuthers.com) in Rochester. The best way to know where I'll be is to check my calender at www.myspace.com/pandoraboxxHow did you first get into drag?I was wafting through a field of poppies one day, when I fell through a hole disguised as a flower petal pile. As I fell a long two feet to the bottom I landed in a pile of wigs and glitter. After climbing out of the pile I had to walk across a floor of high heeled shoes, a pair of which slipped onto my dainty feet. Sashaying down a darkened corridor, streams of sequined fabric draped from the ceiling and quickly wrapped around my body. As I began to run they ripped from the walls and clung to my body. Ahead of me I saw daylight but before I could reach it I received a quick genital... uh... er... adjustment from a piece of rogue duct tape. After I finally emerged from this pit of drag, I realized I had been forever changed.Who have been your biggest inspirations? Madonna, Dolly Parton, Courtney Love, Kathy Griffin, you know all the great drag queens.
What would be your three biggest tips for a new drag queen?Don't do it! Seriously though, research it. Learn about makeup. Watch what people are wearing. go to as many drag shows as you can. Practice. Practice. Practice. And above all realize there is an audience there and they want to be entertained. This isn't your bedroom anymore. Give them what they want to see. Don't know? Ask them! And I'm not saying your friends! The main show isn't on stage, it's how you talk to people off stage!If you could perform anywhere in the world where would it be and why? I'd love to perform in Japan or Europe, maybe Great Britain! I love Japanese culture and I am fascinated by it! I also love British humor and they seem to have less hangups then we do here. Honestly though it doesn't matter where I perform as long as there is an audience that wants to be entertained and have a good time. That's really all it's about.What is something that might surprise us all about you? I'm a huge dork. I'm a bit of a computer geek and I really love Sci-fi! I'm addicted to Doctor Who (the newer version. David Tennant is a hottie!) and Torchwood and Battlestar Galactica.What makeup items could you not live without? Black eye shadow! MAC makes the best in my opinion. False eyelashes, I can't imagine being without a pair or three! The biggest thing is my makeup brushes. Really good makeup brushes are the key! I use Trish McEvoy brushes and I've had them for years and they are still in excellent condition. Take care of your brushes and they will last for a long time.Do you design any of your clothes, create any of your wigs, etc?Yes, yes and yes. I don't make all of my clothes (some I do buy) but I do make quite a lot of them. I really love fashion and being able to imagine something in my mind and then create it for real. I'm not the best sewer and I don't know all the technical stuff with sewing but I think I get by quite well. I'd love to learn more and be able to design even better ensembles. I went to Cosmetology school so I know a bit about hair too. I really didn't like touching and washing people's heads so my career ended there. I also thought ok I can only handle one gay stereotype not all of them! I'm glad I have the knowledge though because it helps me create come fun styles. And for the etc. part I also make all my own mixes for shows and lately I've been incorporating video into my act as well. I'd love to do more videos and really combined my live act with video all the time. I work in television and I love it. It's really the medium I see myself going further with.
What has been your all time greatest moment in drag?There's two really. The first was when I won Miss Rochester. I had work really, REALLY hard to win and I had previously tried three times before. The local paper also did a story about me and entering the pageant. In it, I had said I wasn't going to enter again. After I said that and it was in print I thought, "Oh shit! I better really win! This is it!" So after about 5.5 hours of the pageant I actually did win! It was one of the highest attended years and when I did my talent number I really felt like I was in a rock concert. It was really exciting.The second one was being chosen to be on a VH1 documentary about drag queens called "Boys Will Be Girls." They followed five queens around in their life and then made it into an hour long show. I was featured as the Madonna impersonator. It was so much fun and the actual show turned out fabulously! It was cool because for the three days they shot it, radio stations were calling, newspapers, so many people. Of course, once they left my phone didn't ring for about two days and I thought, "oh no my fifteen minutes is already up!" I figure that was about 2.5 minutes of my 15. I'm waiting for the other 12.5!What else should we know about you? You should know I created a public access & internet sketch comedy television show called "the GAY (means happy) SHOW!" It's really campy and fun and features and features some amazingly talented drag queens from Rochester (who new this small city would have such a talented drag scene). You can watch skits from the show at youtube.com/gayshow and full episodes will be coming to www.pandoraboxx.com very soon!
Thanks so much to Pandora for taking the time to answer all our random questions! Stay tuned to Logo early next year to see if she makes it onto "Rupaul's Drag Race" and check out her
website or
myspace to stay up to date on everything else Pandora!
