Being true to SELF
DRAG QUEEN FEATURED ON ‘RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE’ TALKS GROWING UP IN CT
Benjamin Putnam moved into his grandparents’ house in Litchfield when he was 7 years old. He and his parents made a life in their old family farmhouse, but Putnam always felt a little different from the other kids his age.
He would round up his cousins to put on elaborate cabaret-style shows for family members. On a recent visit with family, his cousins recounted the good old days. He recalled the whole process being a collaborative art experience, his cousins laughed and informed him he was being bossy to get the show polished and organized.
“I was queer, very evidently queer, and like, just a real weirdo, and not capable of not being a weirdo,” Putnam said. “I just can’t help but express who I am. There’s no other way for me.”
He remembers a time when he commandeered one of his friends from painting class to help create a Halloween costume for him. He considered it his first formal foray into the world of drag. He dressed his friend up as Greg Brady and he dressed as Marcia Brady from “The Brady Bunch Movie.” They went trick-or-treating.
“Oh my God, I’m just realizing this is another example of me being bossy so I could do drag,” he said.
That bossiness paid off because now Putnam is a world-renowned professional drag queen by the name “BenDeLaCreme.” She’s done off-Broadway shows, toured throughout Europe, the Americas and Australia and has been featured in two seasons of the Emmy Award-winning show “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” in which she has been named among the show’s “15 Fan Favorites of All Time,” crowned “Miss Congeniality” in Season 6 and garnered more challenge wins than any other competitor in the show’s history.
She’s been in movies such as Hulu’s “Happiest Season” with Kristen Stewart and Aubrey Plaza, and directed and wrote “The Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Special,” also available on Hulu.
Putnam was first introduced to Drag by the documentary “Wigstock: The Movie” about New York City’s now extinct annual end-of-summer drag festival.
“I saw that documentary and it just clicked,” Putnam said. “I was like ‘Oh, this is who I am. These are my people. And there is a world out there for me. There is a community there’s people who appreciate what I am drawn toward. And everything that I already am that I’ve never known how to put words to, these people are putting a word to it and it’s drag queen.’”
BenDeLaCreme, affectionately called DeLa, is going on tour with her show “Ready to Be Committed,” which begins with DeLa saying she’s ready to find love and get married — even though she doesn’t yet have a cake, a dress, a ring or a groom — and ends with not-so-nice brides, “pervy Grindr guys, corpse-eating cats, song, dance and more puppets than you ever thought you’d see at a wedding,” according to the show’s news release.
The tour includes more than 30 stops across the U.S. and the U.K. through July, including one in Torrington at the Warner Theatre. Other nearby shows include stops in New Jersey, Massachusetts and New York.
The show premiered in 2019 with an initial run in New York City followed by a summer residency in Provincetown, Mass., and plans to take it to tour in 2020. Of course, like most travel plans during 2020, the tour was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Putnam calls the show a surrealist, Alice-in-Wonderland-style production. He plays 15 different characters and the show includes song and dance and puppets and interactive video elements.
“The heart (of the show) is really about all of our longing for connection and our longing to be connected to other people but also to feel secure in ourselves whether or not we are,” he said. “I think that’s an even more poignant set of thoughts right now after the pandemic… I’m excited to share something that I think feels, even more at the top of everyone’s minds right now, and hopefully it’s something that people find to be a lot of fun, but also something that gives them some stuff to think about and make them feel positive and connected.”