Jinkx & DeLa are primed to bring drag-tastic holiday cheer to The Uptown this December
Photo by Mettie Ostrowski
Think your yuletide couldn’t get any gayer? Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme are about to prove you wrong with The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show. For the past eight years, these drag superstars have turned their musical theater chops into glittering, riotous holiday spectacles, co-writing and co-starring in a brand-new holiday extravaganza every season.
We caught up with Jinkx and DeLa, who were buried in tinsel and sheet music, putting the finishing touches on the show. This year, their sparkling creation lands at The Uptown Theater on Thursday, Dec. 11.
The duo, who forged their friendship climbing the drag ranks in Seattle, shot to national fame thanks to RuPaul’s Drag Race and have never looked back. We chatted with them about their upcoming tour, Jinkx’s whirlwind Broadway year, their improv obsession, and, of course, how to maximize festiveness when decking the halls.
Photo by Mettie Ostrowski
The Pitch: Remind me how this works. You spend an entire month each year collaborating and creating a new show from scratch and then unveil it to the adoring masses, yes?
Jinkx: That is traditionally how it goes. But, this year was shifted just a little bit because while we would have been doing that writing retreat you just mentioned, DeLa was very generous and encouraged me to play Mary Todd in Oh, Mary! So, that’s what I was doing this September while DeLa was taking the lead on writing our script.
But we had many writing sessions where we bashed our brains against one another’s. And now we’re both in Seattle rehearsing the script that DeLa wrote, with help from me as her real-life AI companion.
Do you workshop at all on the road and tweak stuff accordingly for each city?
DeLa: It’s very much live theater, and I think, especially from the backgrounds we come from, it‘s always evolving as you’re on the road. But we work really hard to create these shows in a way that they pretty much remain intact.
We really pour our hearts and souls into these things before we hit the road, and we do a couple of preview shows. Those really serve the purpose of finding out what the audience is—and isn’t—responding to.
I do have to say, I think we understand each other—and our form, our audiences—enough at this point that there’s really very little that gets rethought once we’re on the road. But we do continue to sort of find new deliveries, or find small, new jokes here and there.
Last year, you both cracked each other up so much in KC that the show stopped, not once, but twice. I remember Jinkx doubling over. Like, literally—Jinkx down, Jinkx down!
Jinkx: I remember that. Was that the night that someone sneezed and it sounded like something else, and then I couldn’t keep it together?
DeLa: Someone in the audience farted. I love when something like that happens, because I am not quick to lose it like Jinkx. Jinkx is faster to break than I am at stuff like that.
Jinkx: When it comes to our shows, yes. Yes!
DeLa: And that’s not a read. Because the more I stay in character and lean into the moment without breaking, the more Jinkx will break. That’s one of my favorite things—to just basically keep us in that loop for as long as possible.
I just interviewed Ginger Minj a month ago. Her tour bus broke down, and she never made it to Kansas City.
Photo by Mettie Ostrowski
Jinkx: Oh, don’t even talk about that!
DeLa: Oh, no!
This is a safe space. What did you think about her winning All-Stars?
Jinkx: My thought is, I’ve seen the kind of talent Ginger Minj holds inside her, and I’m not the least bit surprised. I think nowadays, especially when you make it to All Stars, we see how a lot of different people would take the crown and what they would do with it. And I think Ginger and I have a lot in common—like ever since we rehearsed the ill-fated production of Xanadu that never saw the light of day. But I’ve seen her work ethic, and that’s what matters to me: a person’s work ethic. Because talent is great. You have to have talent, but talent without work ethic is kind of like having—I don’t know—a bow and no arrow.
DeLa: Listen, I think the way that competition and drag are linked at this point has its uses, and it doesn’t. People don’t love when I talk about it in this way. But the reality is, I think it’s amazing she won. And I think it would be amazing if somebody else won. I think there’s plenty for everyone. I think the idea that only one person at any given moment gets to be the person, and everybody else is not the person—like drag and queer culture, all of it, we runneth over. It really is, the more the merrier. The more joy we can put into the world, the more like queer irreverence and celebration we can put in the world—fucking get it. Everybody get it! Ginger, get it! Everybody get it!
Jinkx, I don’t need to tell you, but you’ve had the most bonkers-bananas year ever since we last talked. What was your biggest “I have to pinch myself” moment?
Jinkx: Well, there were a bunch of them this year, and it’s hard to name one. I think one of my favorite things is getting to work alongside people I’ve admired. Like, I got to work with David Hyde Pierce, and he’s just been someone I’ve looked up to for a long time.
Not only am I a fan of his TV work since a young age, but I got to tell him this year about how his first Tony acceptance speech inspired me. It was seeing him claim his identity publicly—and make that a part of his award acceptance speech many years ago—before that was commonplace. For a queer man to talk about being queer on live network television? That moment inspired me through my whole life. And I got to talk to him about it and then co-star in a show with him. Like, it’s very surreal.
But I think my most “pinch me” moment was—as a young person, I always wanted to know what it would be like to perform at the Tonys and be one of those people. And this year, I got to do it! And nothing can prepare you for trying to sing a song while you’re staring at Oprah, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Mia Farrow, who just happens to be one of your best friends’ moms. I was like, this is strangely familiar—and also, there’s Oprah.
Photo by Mettie Ostrowski
What do you both have up your big, billowy, haute-couture sleeves for this year’s holiday spectacular?
DeLa: We’re always bringing what people have grown to know and love in terms of the music and the spectacle by always exploring new ideas and always challenging ourselves. And we’ve gone on a lot of wild surrealist adventures over the years. Jinkx and DeLa are usually navigating some sort of, like, format glitch. Like, we’ve been thrust back in time, or we’re trapped in our show or whatever.
And this time we are subject to—and at the mercy of—an anthology. So, The Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Show has four plots this year, and they’re all these lovely little chestnuts that we have put in the vaults over the years. And we’re finally getting the chance to pull them back out and explore. It’s fun because we get to do a lot of these wild ideas that maybe wouldn’t make sense for a full 90 minutes or two hours, but really pack a punch in 20 minutes.
On the fly, which one of you is a better improver? I feel like it’s evenly stacked.
Jinkx: We’re both pretty damn good at improv. I think we have different strengths when it comes to improv. We’ve just both been drag queens with a microphone in our hands for a long time. It’s like we’ve both hosted a variety of events with homosexuals in a range of intoxicated-ness. And if we can hold their attention while improvising, we can do anything.
DeLa: But Jinkx and I, we’re always working as a team, and we understand how to set each other up and how to knock ‘em down. So, we’re a good little two-person improv troupe.
Do you guys need any tour guide recommendations when you get to KC? Are you gonna have any downtime?
DeLa: Hell no. And if we do, we’re gonna be sleeping.
Jinkx: I think KC is one of the places where we normally get some barbecue for our post-show dinner, and that’s something to look forward to.
The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show will take over The Uptown on Thursday, Dec. 11, with the show starting at 7:00 p.m.
Interview gently edited for content and clarity.
