Everything old is new again in ‘ Vaudevillians’ at Public Theater
It is to Pittsburgh’s benefit that wherever Marya Sea Kominski goes, the delightful combo of Jinkx Monsoon and Major Scales soon follow.
“Every time she becomes an artistic director at a new theater, she always reaches out and brings us to do our shows,” Jinkx said of Kominski, who arrived at Pittsburgh Public Theater last August. “So, we are eternally grateful for that.”
Jerick Hoffer and Richard Andiessen — Jinkx and Major are stage names — bring “The Vaudevillians” for four irrepressible cabaret shows at the O’Reilly Theater, Downtown, Thursday- Saturday.
The three met back in the day at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, where Hoffer and Andiessen were students and Kaminski was on faculty.
It’s been almost 10 years since “The Vaudevillians” was born. The cabaret program, said Major, “is very much our baby, this show … it is the biggest distillation of our sense of humor and our talents together.
“I think it best represents us and we have so much fun putting it together. We are reminded about how ridiculous we can be when left to our own devices.”
Here’s the setup: Jinkx and Major play a couple of 1920s vaudeville stars who were literally frozen while touring Antarctica. Decades later, they were thawed out, only to discover some of the songs they’d written ( but never copyrighted) turned into pop hits such as Janis Joplin’s “Piece of
My Heart,” Madonna’s “Music” and 4 Non Blonde’s “What’s Up.”
They’re back to do their songs, their way, dammit.
“We have a very strong interest in the past, so when we chose songs, we chose songs we enjoy that are more modern, that sound fun in a 1920s style,” Major said, adding that it’s tempting to add more contemporary hits: “But oh gosh, there are probably any number of Taylor Swift songs that would sound great with a different arrangement.”
“The Vaudevillians” contains strong language and sexual innuendo.
Jinkx Monsoon is well- known for winning season five of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and has, like Major, a background in musical theater. Her imitation of Little Edie Beale (“Grey Gardens”) on “Drag Race” is among the all- time series highlights.
Clearly, she and Major have fun with their act.
“I’ve studied music and theater my whole life, writing musicals, singing it, performing it, acting it out,” Major said.
“I’ve always tried to keep all those areas in my life; I can’t see living without them. It’s one of the reasons I love this how so much … we get to act it out together with these crazy characters.”
It’s been a busy summer. Jinkx lends her talents to “Stonewall OutLoud,” a short film from World of Wonder and Story Corps. First- hand accounts from people who were at the Stonewall riots in New York City 50 years ago are lip- synched by LGBTQ+ icons. It was released last week on YouTube.
“I was really excited to do it because I think any time we take a moment to look back on the history, nowadays young queer people are growing up in a very accepting time,” she said, pausing. “But then, we live under an administration that is actively trying to undo the process that our community has made.”
Jinkx and Major also are performing a residency of their newest show, “Together Again, Again,” at the Art House theater in Provincetown, Mass.
“This is us, playing ourselves in a kind of ’ 80s jukebox look at what we think we will look like in our 80s,” Major said.
Added Jinkx — who also is set to play one of the sisters in a tour of “Xanadu” this fall — “the show is kind of like ‘ what if all our dreams came true and then we found out that wasn’t what we actually wanted?’”