You will be forgiven if you have no idea what Quibi is or have already forgotten about the short-form streaming platform that crashed and burned during the pandemic. The $1.75 billion service was designed so that people could watch short-form content on their commute or during a quick coffee break at work, with show episodes only lasting a few minutes. However, between the rise of TikTok (an even shorter-form streaming platform) and the fact that Quibi launched during April 2020 when people had plenty of time to binge long-form content, the site quickly went under, selling its entire catalog to Roku for less than $100 million.
However, if you did happen to log into Quibi that April, as I did, you would have found NightGowns, an eight-episode drag docuseries following RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Sasha Velour and her intrepid ensemble of drag performers (including another eventual RPDR winner Sasha Colby) as they stageone of Velour’s genre-pushing Brooklyn drag shows that predate her time on Drag Race.
“I pitched that idea for a show to everyone who would take a meeting with me,” Sasha Velour says five years later, following a successful run of NightGowns anniversary shows celebrating 10 years since its creation. “I really thought it would be great to do a docuseries about this drag show where everything is produced and made and directed by the artists themselves, and then all the crazy adventures we get into behind the scenes, culminating in the performance itself.”
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Sitting in my Queens bedroom during lockdown, I was mesmerized. I hadn’t yet watched Sasha Velour win RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 9 with her infamous rose-petal reveal, but I felt an immediate connection to Velour’s posse of drag kings, trans burlesque stars and genderqueer artisans. This was something special and unlike anything I’d seen before.
“It was really fun,” Velour says about filming the series, “and then it came out during COVID, when no one had seen a drag show in months. So it actually felt very needed at that time.”
Since NightGowns‘s brief run on Quibi, Sasha Velour’s written a bestselling book, The Big Reveal: An Illustrated Manifesto of Drag, hosted HBO’s We’re Here and served as a judge on King of Drag, but through it all she has continued to stage NightGowns shows in New York, highlighting an exciting mix of drag artists across the drag spectrum and not just “Ru Girls.” Since NightGowns’ premiere at the now-closed Bizarre Bushwick in August 2015, Velour has championed the best and boldest drag entertainers, inviting them to use her celebrity to catapult their own art.
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To mark the 10-year anniversary of NightGowns, Velour hosted a series of shows from Aug. 27 through Sept. 1, complete with Quibi alum like K.James, Neon Calypso and Untitled Queen as well as the legendary Kevin Aviance and fresh faces like Julie J and King Molasses.Following the successful run, Velour sat down with Parade to talk through the show’s 10-year history, why she feels it’s important to highlight drag artists outside of RuPaul’s Drag Race and what’s still on her bucket list.
Read Parade‘s full interview with Sasha Velour below:
Mettie Ostrowski
Matthew Huff: You created NightGowns before you competed on RuPaul’s Drag Race. I’m sure after you won Season 9, you had plenty of offers to do all kinds of things. Why was it so important to you to continue producing NightGowns?
Sasha Velour: NightGowns was always the most fun for me to work on. It’s the kind of drag show I wanted to go see where it’s a mixture of many, many different types of drag—everything drag could be, including always something that even surprises me, that I haven’t seen before. There’s care put into the performer’s vision so no one’s stressed. I mean, we all are so nervous before we go on stage because it’s so vulnerable to do drag and share something that you’re passionate about. But thankfully, the audience is always really receptive, and you can count on them to be encouraging at NightGowns.
How does it feel to be hitting the 10 year anniversary of this and to have created this art for a decade?
It’s surreal. I can’t believe it’s been that long. I still feel like I’m learning things and trying things, and the show’s hit a new peak every year. I don’t feel like we’re done growing. It was never the goal to last for 10 years. At the very beginning, I was like, “If we do one season, that’s great,” but it’s a place that means something to people. People tell me they want me to keep doing NightGowns. They want to go back for another year. Personally, it’s the place where I develop all my best new work, too. Then I get to go out and share it in other places, and I hope it can serve that function for lots of people.
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aj jordan
How did you decide which performers would get spots in the 10th anniversary shows?
It was so hard to narrow down the list, but we went with people who have all performed at NightGowns before and made a big impact. A mixture of many, many different kinds of drag. And for the opening show, I wanted it to be all people who did NightGowns before it blew up — the core. We’re all elders in the Brooklyn drag scene, but to me, we’re still the best of the best.
For a typical NightGowns show, how do you find performers? Do people pitch you? Do you pitch other people?
All of the above. There’s a lot of people who’ve been with NightGowns from the very beginning, doing tech, stage management, taking photos, and then some of my core collaborators, like Miss Malice, Neon Calypso and Untitled Queen. I ask them for recommendations about who they think would be great at NightGowns. And then I watch a lot of videos of people online. I go out and see people at drag shows and just try to come up with fun, exciting evenings that yield something surprising, and a mixture of people that I know, and people that I think are up-and-coming and starting to make a huge impact.
How do you determine what numbers you yourself are going to perform?
Very last minute, but I still take NightGowns very seriously, so I try to make sure I’m trying something new and also doing something I know is going to be good. I’ve flopped at NightGowns before, and it’s a terrible feeling. It still happens though. A lot of times I’ll start planning something, and then it won’t be ready in time, and I’ll push it to the next NightGowns, but months before the season even starts, I have a plan, and I just try to hit those targets. Then inevitably, they move around, and somehow, it all works out. Sometimes, someone who works with NightGowns will be like, “Oh, we really want to see ‘blank number’ again.” Something I learned from the burlesque community that NightGowns has always been adjacent to, is that we think of our drag numbers as acts, and they are forever useful. You can bring them back and redevelop them and make a new costume, and people are always happy to see it.
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Mettie Ostrowski
I remember seeing your armchair number a few years ago and being so blown away. I was telling everyone about it for months. How did you come up with that idea?
I developed that number for the debut of my book [The Big Reveal] because I thought it was so funny that for book events, there’s always an arm chairs on the stage, and that’s the only set design. So I was like, “Let me do the drag version of that.” I tried it at NightGowns, and that’s been my approach for a while. When I’m coming up with something new, I have to try it at NightGowns first because that audience lets me know if it’s a hit or if it needs some editing. And that night, it was a hit.
When the blanket came off, and you were in the chair, I was gobsmacked.
It’s just the right amount of stupid that I feel like is an essential part of a good drag number.
You could easily book NightGowns full of RuPaul’s Drag Race alumni, but you very purposefully book people from across the spectrum of drag. Why is that so important to you?
I think that’s just where the best drag is. No shade to my Drag Race sisters — and I love bringing people from Drag Race on, and I feel like they always get to show something beyond what people know them for when they come to the NightGowns stage — but there’s great drag from people who are not auditioning for Drag Race from people that Drag Race can’t find a place for. I want to make sure audiences are getting to see that too, especially drag kings. Yeah, I did get to be on the drag king television competition this year, but there still is not representation for kings equal to drag queens in the world, unfortunately. I try to make sure the NightGowns stage is that at least.
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AJ Jordan
How did King of Drag come about?
It’s because I’ve always booked drag kings, so the drag kings know my judgment can be trusted somewhat more than an average queen hopefully. Murray Hill texted me and asked me to be part of it. I would do anything for him, a true legend. And he had done me a big favor, doing a book event with me, and he even lip-synced and danced with me on stage under my strange choreography. So I was like, “I really owe this gentleman.”
What was it like being a judge on a reality show rather than a contestant?
It was great. I loved it. I much prefer that to being a contestant. I could just see how nervous [the contestants] were, and I remember what it was like to know the least amount of information of everybody on the set and just be under the lights trying to do your best. So I tried to approach it with compassion, but also take it seriously because drag, as campy as it is, is our livelihood.
I know you’ve been asked numerous times about an all-winners season of Drag Race, but are there any other reality shows you’d like to either compete on or host? The Traitors? A cooking show?
I don’t think cooking shows are in the cards for me. I’m quite rusty. I’m a takeout girly, but I’ve always had fun filming television shows. So sign me up. I’ll do anything. The best thing about me is you know I’ll show up with some good looks.
Mettie Ostrowski
Looking ahead, what’s next for NightGowns? Are there things still on your bucket list that you’d like to try?
I’ve always dreamed about doing a NightGowns tour and figuring out a way to bring this all-expansive, beautifully realized drag theatrical extravaganza to many different places and be able to connect with the local drag scene in all the cities. I know every city has a local drag scene that’s worth giving a gorgeous stage and a spotlight to, so I think that would be the big dream. It’s really tough to do because I’m committed to being an independent production. I know what it’s like to feel a little distant from the actual decision making, and I want to make sure that it feels right at hand for all the performers.
Lastly, looking back on this run, do you have a favorite memory from the past 10 years?
I feel like the the best moments, the most meaningful moments, to me, are always behind the scenes, where we are learning makeup techniques from each other. Just like how the art gets made is so fascinating to me. Who’s nervous? Who’s taking shots? Who’s really loud? Who’s really serious? There’s no connection to the quality of the art. It just shows me what a cast of characters and a drag show is, and it’s always surprising.
Are you nervous? Are you taking shots?
A surprising mixture. I’m very inconsistent. I go with the flow. Whatever we’re doing that night, I’m in for, and I’ll cope when I get to the stage.
This interview was edited and condensed for length and clarity.
