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Official Pride Guide • NOLAPride.org • June 7-20, 2016 • Official Pride Guide • NOLAPride.org • June 7-20, 2016 • Official Pride Guide • NOLAPride.org • June 7-20, 2016 • Official Pride Guide • NOLAPride.org • June 7-20, 2016 • Official Pride Guide • NOLAPride.org • June 7-20, 2016 • Facebook.com/AmbushMag • • • • • The Official Mag©©©©©: AmbushMag.com • 3131313131

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Sisterly LoveJust as I sat down to write this column, I realized the day was the 36th

anniversary of the creation of Felicia Phillips, yes high school graduation nightMay 31st, 1980. I actually had panty hose on under my robe, and the minute thatgraduation cap was tossed I hit it to meet one of my first sisters who was to putme in face for the first time, under a street light while straddling over me in thefront seat of my little and I mean little Chevy Monza. I entered and won amateurnight and the rest has been a four- decade blur so to speak. Now I was temptedto once again get sappy and chat about life’s ups and downs, but as I am in themiddle of being a Southern Decadence Grand Marshal, or as I like to be calledthe first Mini Marshal, I just don’t have time for that and know that you would allrather have a good laugh than another tug on the heart string. So I’m going toinstead stray off into the world of drag sisters and some of the do’s and dont’sof sister relationships.

est; I wish Emily Padgett, cute as thecomic relief, had had Elless’ part.

Bright Star may not have the ge-netic disposition to survive in New York,so, if you’re inclined, hurry to see itthere. But with its country-flavored dis-position, I expect it will flourish west ofthe Hudson River and south of theMason-Dixon Line.

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible(Walter Kerr Theatre) has been flour-ishing for over 60 years. So do wereally need another Broadway revivalof it when the last one wasn’t that longago? When it’s Ivo van Hove’s abso-lutely gripping one, the answer is anenthusiastic “Yea!”

Blowing the mustiness away thathas accrued around this classic, vanHove reinterprets Miller’s original textwith probing clarity. From a measuredstart, as exposition is smoothly laid out,he builds sexual heat and tension byextracting raw elemental passions fromthe flinty New England characters. Buthe also adds special effects, TalYarden’s prickly videos, and PhilipGlass’ subliminally eery music to pro-vide an exhilarating theatricality.

On Jan Versweyveld’s set, a largeplain contemporary schoolroom, theentire cast digs in to deliver perfor-mances that burn with an immediacythat endows the script with the appear-ance of being freshly written. Sadly,given some recent headlines, The Cru-cible has lost little of its topicality.

Ben Whishaw makes us feel JohnProctor’s agony, not merely becauseof the blood marks on his whippedback, but because we sense his shameat what he’s done to his family cannever go away. As his wife, SophieOkonedo boils with just-below-the-sur-face righteous indignation at what Johnis faced with, Whishaw’s supportivepartner in every way, even if she hasnot entirely forgiven her straying hus-band.

As Deputy-Governor Danforth,Ciarán Hinds embodies stern evil, de-

by Felicia Phillips Email: [email protected] Photo by Hubert S Monkeys

the real cheese

trodding the boards...from 30

were talking about this very subject justa few weeks ago, and about how thingshave changed and we are now seeingqueens date each other and even marry(blame RuPaul), I conveyed to her thatall the sisters I knew in the past thatbulldogged ended up badly, a coupleeven went totally crazy. That’s whenshe said, "Oh yes girl don’t you know?Sister dick make ya sick!" Now I’m notsaying that two queens can’t make itwork together, I’m sure there are someout there that can, but if they are evenclose to the same size I can’t help butthink they are really just subconsciouslytrying to double their wardrobes!

And that is The Real Cheese!Til next time dahlins, I’m Felicia

Phillips, the Cheese Queen of NewOrleans...

I can start with the sister that putme in drag that first time, I had knownhim all thru high school, he was a yearahead of me, and completely out of thecloset, before I knew anything aboutdrag, I had the biggest crush on him,and until it was time to show all my truecolors I managed to spend time aroundhim by dating his biological sister. Thatnight when he was to straddle me in thefront seat, painting away, I thought ohthis is it, I’m going to get some longawaited nookie, but as soon as thesmell of clown white, foundation andpowder hit, all sexual tension ceased. Itwas later explained to me by older andwiser queens that sister on sister ac-tion was just a no no.

Not that it never happened, it did,usually by accident, or while under theinfluence of mind and body alteringsubstances, or just plain boredom. Backthen it was called bulldagging, or bump-ing puss, more recently known as a KaiKai, not to be confused with a Ki Kiwhich is perfectly acceptable and en-couraged. One example was way backin the book store days of Houston,Texas. One of my closest sisters of alltime, Andrea Mikels and I drove up tospend the weekend with some sistersof notoriety, Charlie Linez and JerryHarper, both current title holders andheadliners. After a long, shot fillednight of partying, but no trade we allwent to get out of face, I was luckyenough to get a little from Miss Charlie’sroommate, so I stayed in. They hit thebookstores till dawn, the story the nextday was priceless, seems that after anhour or so of cruising the hallways withno luck they both went their separateways to find a booth to duck into.Andrea gets lucky and sees a fingermotioning thru the glory hole (yes this isa lascivious story), So she did what weall did in those days ,whipped the freshlyuntucked tallywacker out and pro-ceeded to take care of business viaglory hole, it wasn’t until turn about timedid the whole thing fall apart, when theoccupant of the adjoining booth pre-

sented their ‘manliness’ first glancethrew Andrea off, for it had traces ofwhat appeared to be baby powder,figuring it must be cocaine (after all itwas the 80’s) she went down for thekill, but as soon as she got close, theoverwhelming odor of Chanel #5 hit,and she knew the gig was up, as it wasMiss Charlie’s manmeat! Definitely adon’t.

Now a few years later on in mydrag career I somehow got involvedwith a married man of the most gor-geous kind, one of the most beautifulstriking men I have ever known, and thesex was AMAZING, at least for the firstlittle while, seems there was a catch ascome to find out it was his wife whowould point out queens for him to se-duce and once the bait was taken hewould want to bring her into the picture,just to watch. Now I was a slut and wasknown to be a freak in the sheets, butI was not about to be a freaky slut. Itgot to the point that the wife wouldchase me around the bar, only place Icould safely dilly dally with him was inthe men’s bathroom. This was beforeall the gender neutral bathroom discus-sions.

One big show night, that featuredall the current and former Texas Enter-tainers of the Year I had finally hadenough, I thought ok, I may be prettybut there are some much prettier sis-ters here, so as the husband followedme up the stairs to the dressing room,the door swung open and who poppedout none other than Miss Gay Universe,Naomi Sims! The most beautiful of alltime, I quickly say Naomi this is Barry,grabbed her hand shoved it on hiscrotch and ran! They were together forover a year, she had no shame in hergame and told the wife, watch all youwant Mary, just make sure to ordersome Chinese takeout for later. Sopassing off a crazy boyfriend to a sisteris a Do as long as they are really hot!

Many more stories could be re-called, but I want to move to presentday, Monica Synclaire-Kennedy and I

termined to hold everyone accountableto the letter of the law. And Oscar-nominee Saoirse Ronan, as John’s erst-while fling who hopes to get him back,embodies the kind of tough schoolyardQueen Bee you don’t want to f*ck with.When she leads the other witch-accus-ing girls through Steven Hoggett’s cho-reographed madness, it’s as chilling asa political rally gone out of control.

This powerful production playsthrough July 17. After that, the politicalconventions will begin. I’m not surewhich of these is scarier this year.

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