"Drag Queen Karaoke" with BJ Stephens!

 Singing and styling with BJ Stevens!

BJ Stephens will be hosting "Drag Queen Karaoke" at Buster's Bistro during the Art Walk portion of 'Art is a Drag', 6-9pm.

At 9pm, run over to the Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center for a classic drag extravaganza to watch BJ Stephens and 12 other featured drag queens perform and entertain you.


Highlights from 1/28/2017 interview with Diego Larenas

When was the first time you did drag?

I actually did drag for the first time while I was in college at the University of Florida. I did it on a dare for Halloween, like everybody else. 

How did you feel?

I felt like everybody else when they first do drag. I thought I was the dolly. I thought I was every inch today's woman. I look back at those pictures and realize I could not have been more wrong. I had this red gown that I made, this big tube I glued together (I still can't sew for shit). I had a  jet black China-doll wig and I painted with this white, white face, thinking I was everything with these black gloves on, navy blue tights and white sandals. 

I entered a talent show at the bar in town. I did well enough that I won. I was a musical theatre major, so I had a little bit going for me. The bar had a deal going, so that if you won the talent show, you got an invitation to a number that Saturday night. That tells you how long ago this was - they not only paid you if you won the talent show but they paid you to perform that Saturday night too. But then you had to sit out the next week. In the end, I ended up winning 6 or 7 of those talent shows. I was getting $50 for winning the talent show and another $75 for performing the following Saturday night - like I said, it was a long time ago, when they used to pay drag queens. 

The guy that owned the bar thought about it and said to himself "It's cheaper for me just to hire this bitch and put her on show cast, than to keep paying that kind of money for 2 little damn numbers." So he asked me if wanted to work on show cast. When I was at University of Florida, I had 2 part-time jobs. I worked at a Subway sub shop and I was a drag queen. And that was how I worked my way through college. 

I had no drag mother. My drag  just kind of crawled up from the earth like a mushroom. 

How did you learn how to drag?

Being a theatre person gave me the place to start. I did my make-up like theatre make-up, showgirl make-up, not drag make-up. But this was a college town and they were used to seeing a lot of bugger drag. The fact that this was bugger drag, but a little more polished than some. I was really lucky because I worked with a group of entertainers that were really helpful. Many of those girls are still doing it today. I see them sometimes in the different bar-rags and think to myself "Oooohhh, they're still alive!" 

I did that for 2 1/2 years. 

How did you create your drag name?

This is like the third drag reincarnation I've had. When I worked in Gainesville, I was doing drag as Maxine DelRio. 

I was part of a friend's act with 2 other musical theatre people. We used to get together and do all the old Bette Midler stuff and the Andrew Sisters, stuff like that. We were "the unique song-stylings of the inimitable DelRio Trio - Patty, Maxine and Laverne". We thought we were it! Eventually I went off on my own and I kept the name Maxine DelRio ... with my blonde hair and my Nordic self. 

The bar that I was working in was going very very strong into hormones and silicone and it became all about becoming a woman. That's fine. That was their journey. Two of the queens I used to work with have now completed their surgeries and live as women. That was the focus then. 

I was 21 years and 155 pounds and kinda pretty. Imagine me skinny with bones! At that time, everyone was talking to me about getting 'work', going to Orlando and getting tits and touching up the face. 

That is not what I wanted to do. So I thought, "I'm done here". I finished school and put it all in a box. I got out of drag for almost 17 years. 

Seventeen years later, I am living in Orlando and there is a fundraiser show for the Lake County Aids Resource Alliance at one of the bars up in Lakeland. It sounded like fun and a good cause, so I thought "Why not hall the old girl out?" I did and had a great time. Afterwards, the guy who owned the bar came up and said "Would you be interested in another booking?" And I said, "Sure". It was good money. A couple of months later the show director got into a big huge fight, walked out in a huff and the bar manager asked me to take over as Show Director. Did that for 6 years - Show director for a bar called Attitudes in Leesburg. The bar was sold eventually, so that job ended. But one of the people who used to come to our show all the time, bought a bar called The Night Zone. The owners contacted me and asked me to host Saturday night shows. Then I did that for another 6 years. 

I never had to go through normal hoops of trying to wrangle a guest spot at the Parliament House . . . hanging around all the regular drag queens and fetching their drinks, hanging our till 3 o'clock in the morning, sucking up to them hoping they will like me enough to give me a shot. I got booked because I was always more interested in working the mic, working the crowd, acting the fool, carrying on . . . not because I'm the goddess of femininity. Also, I don't show up late and I don't cause drama.

That is one of the good things about RuPaul's Drag Race. It showed it's okay to be a man in drag. You don't have to have breasts, your own waist length hair, hormones, silicones or your adam's apple shaved. It can be about the theatre of it. We're actors, or as Divine Grace puts it, 'we're clowns'. And that's good too.

What is one of your pet peeves in doing drag?

Drag Queens who bring an entourage backstage. 

If you had a talk show who would be your first guest?

Divine Grace. She's intelligent, funny as shit and knows what she's talking about. 

When was the first time you did drag?

I did it on a dare for Halloween, like everybody else. I actually did drag for the first time while I was in college at the University of Florida.

How did you feel?

I felt like everybody else when they first do drag. I thought I was the dolly. I thought I was every inch today's woman. I look back at those pictures and realize I could not have been more wrong. I had this red gown that I made, this big tube I glued together (I still can't sew for shit). I had a  jet black China-doll wig and I painted with this white, white face, thinking I was everything with these black gloves on, navy blue tights and white sandals. 

I entered a talent show at the bar in town. I did well enough that I won. I was a musical theatre major, so I had a little bit going for me. The bar had a deal going, so that if you won the talent show, you got an invitation to a number that Saturday night. That tells you how long ago this was - they not only paid you if you won the talent show but they paid you to perform that Saturday night too. But then you had to sit out the next week. In the end, I ended up winning 6 or 7 of those talent shows. I was getting $50 for winning the talent show and another $75 for performing the following Saturday night - like I said, it was a long time ago, when they used to pay drag queens. 

The guy that owned the bar thought about it and said to himself "It's cheaper for me just to hire this bitch and put her on show cast, than to keep paying that kind of money for 2 little damn numbers." So he asked me if wanted to work on show cast. When I was at University of Florida, I had 2 part-time jobs. I worked at a Subway sub shop and I was a drag queen. And that was how I worked my way through college. 

I had no drag mother. My drag  just kind of crawled up from the earth like a mushroom. 

How did you learn how to drag?

Being a theatre person gave me the place to start. I did my make-up like theatre make-up, showgirl make-up, not drag make-up. But this was a college town and they were used to seeing a lot of bugger drag. The fact that this was bugger drag, but a little more polished than some. I was really lucky because I worked with a group of entertainers that were really helpful. Many of those girls are still doing it today. I see them sometimes in the different bar-rags and think to myself "Oooohhh, they're still alive!" 

I did that for 2 1/2 years. 

How did you create your drag name?

This is like the third drag reincarnation I've had. When I worked in Gainesville, I was doing drag as Maxine DelRio. 

I was part of a friend's act with 2 other musical theatre people. We used to get together and do all the old Bette Midler stuff and the Andrew Sisters, stuff like that. We were "the unique song-stylings of the inimitable DelRio Trio - Patty, Maxine and Laverne". We thought we were it! Eventually I went off on my own and I kept the name Maxine DelRio ... with my blonde hair and my Nordic self. 

The bar that I was working in was going very very strong into hormones and silicone and it became all about becoming a woman. That's fine. That was their journey. Two of the queens I used to work with have now completed their surgeries and live as women. That was the focus then. 

I was 21 years and 155 pounds and kinda pretty. Imagine me skinny with bones! At that time, everyone was talking to me about getting 'work', going to Orlando and getting tits and touching up the face. 

That is not what I wanted to do. So I thought, "I'm done here". I finished school and put it all in a box. I got out of drag for almost 17 years. 

Seventeen years later, I am living in Orlando and there is a fundraiser show for the Lake County Aids Resource Alliance at one of the bars up in Lakeland. It sounded like fun and a good cause, so I thought "Why not hall the old girl out?" I did and had a great time. Afterwards, the guy who owned the bar came up and said "Would you be interested in another booking?" And I said, "Sure". It was good money. A couple of months later the show director got into a big huge fight, walked out in a huff and the bar manager asked me to take over as Show Director. Did that for 6 years - Show director for a bar called Attitudes in Leesburg. The bar was sold eventually, so that job ended. But one of the people who used to come to our show all the time, bought a bar called The Night Zone. The owners contacted me and asked me to host Saturday night shows. Then I did that for another 6 years. 

I never had to go through normal hoops of trying to wrangle a guest spot at the Parliament House . . . hanging around all the regular drag queens and fetching their drinks, hanging our till 3 o'clock in the morning, sucking up to them hoping they will like me enough to give me a shot. I got booked because I was always more interested in working the mic, working the crowd, acting the fool, carrying on . . . not because I'm the goddess of femininity. Also, I don't show up late and I don't cause drama.

That is one of the good things about RuPaul's Drag Race. It showed it's okay to be a man in drag. You don't have to have breasts, your own waist length hair, hormones, silicones or your adam's apple shaved. It can be about the theatre of it. We're actors, or as Divine Grace puts it, 'we're clowns'. And that's good too.

What is one of your pet peeves in doing drag?

Drag Queens who bring an entourage backstage. 

If you had a talk show who would be your first guest?

Divine Grace. She's intelligent, funny as shit and knows what she's talking about. 

Come to downtown Sanford on April 15 to meet BJ Sephens during "Art is a Drag"!

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