Joe Bembridge recently came off a two-week stint as artist-in-residence at the OU Gallery in Duncan. His artform? The art of drag.
The Gallery Merrick proprietor has been working with OU co-manager Barclay Martin on the staging and multimedia components for his first touring solo show, The Miss Ellen Q Show: A Drag Love Story.
“We’re trying to tell a really genuine, beautiful love story with the most unconventional leading lady,” Bembridge said.
The “one-woman show” follows Bembridge’s drag persona, Miss Ellen Q, as she retires from the glamorous life of a superstar drag queen to become a farmer on Vancouver Island.
“It’s not an ordinary farm. She’s started her very own drag farm,” Bembridge explained. “So she has a wig vine, she has a high-heel patch, she has an earring tree, she has a glitter bush. So she’s living off the land and she’s trying to get back to a simpler life.”
The tour stars with a pair of shows at the Harbour City Theatre in Nanaimo on March 1 and 2 before heading to Fernie, Banff and Canmore, Alta.
Bembridge grew up in Canmore and performed across the Rockies, including in towns that don’t see drag shows often. He said he was drawn to drag by the performance aspect as well as its history of political activism.
“I’ve used Miss Ellen Q as a way to bring joy and acceptance to smaller communities,” he said.
Although he’s been performing as Miss Ellen Q for years, Bembridge said he’s been getting to know her better since he started writing the show with a past collaborator from his days as a theatre student in Montreal.
“I approached him and said, ‘Hey, I want to write a one-woman show based on my drag persona and tell a story in and around her,'” Bembridge said. “And then he was like, ‘Cool, let’s do it … tell me about her,’ and I went, ‘I don’t really know anything about her.'”
Together they devised a love story, which Bembridge said is an unusual scenario for a drag queen.
“We try to see what happens to this character when somebody all of a sudden enters her world and genuinely falls in love with her. It totally throws her for a loop,” he said. “So we’ve gotten to get to know her through this show and the more time we spend on her the more insights we have in getting to know her.”
WHAT’S ON … Joe Bembridge presents The Miss Ellen Q Show: A Drag Love Story at Harbour City Theatre on March 1 and March 2. Doors at 7 p.m., show at 7:30. Tickets $20 at Funk Your Fashion and www.eventbrite.ca.
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