Interview: Jinkx Monsoon & BenDeLaCreme Always on the Same Team Uplifting Each Other in THE JINKX & DELA HOLIDAY SHOW & in Life

BenDeLaCreme & Jinkx Monsoon bring the 7th edition of their internationally acclaimed The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show to the Dolby Theatre December 16, 2024, as part of their 33-city U.S. and Canadian tour running from November 7th - December 29th in major theaters. Got to Zoom with both of these drag icons before they started their touring.

Good morning to Both of You! Thank you for taking the time for this interview.

So how did The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show come about? Do you two sit in a room with a bottle or two and throw out ideas to each other? Or is it all you, DeLa?

DeLa, oh, gosh, no! It's been collaborative since the beginning.

Jinkx: DeLa and I have known each other for about 15 years. Before either of us were on Drag Race, we had been working together in Seattle and different capacities for a few years, and then one night, we were hosting a Drag Race viewing party together, and we were three sheets to the wind and DeLa's co-producer Gus Lonza said, You could do this as a holiday show. You could just sit on stage and you two could drink and talk about the holidays, and that could be a holiday show.’ But of course, I'm a Virgo. She's a Virgo Libra cusp. We weren't happy with just sitting there and talking. We had to turn it into a whole, you know, spectacular, a whole circus. And now seven years later, here we are.

DeLA: It's so funny, because when Jinkx tells that story, I literally every time I'm like, ‘Oh, my God! I forgot that's how it started.’ I had done a holiday show in Seattle for 10 years, and I was moving on to new projects. Jinkx had been doing holiday work with her musical partner, Major Scales. And we were both like, ‘This will be a nice, easy thing to step into.’ Of course, we made it so complicated for ourselves. But I'm so glad we did, because now we've built something that we're both incredibly proud of. And you know that first year, I think we've maybe hit ten cities, and we're playing rooms like, maybe 100 to 200 people. It was kind of an experiment, to see if it would work. And it worked, and now we play to three or 4000 people in and do like, 34 shows in two months.

DeLa, this is your seventh year with The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show. What is the theme for your show this year?

Jinkx: Well, every year, the overall theme of the Jinx and DeLa holiday show, Jinkx Monsoon and DeLa are coming together to put on a holiday show. And every year, we take that simple premise and mix it with a beloved holiday classic or maybe a well-known movie and holiday tropes that you're used to. So in the past, we've done premises where it was like we were time traveling and it was a mash-up of A Christmas Carol and Back to the Future. So this year, we are tackling another holiday favorite. It's still secret, because we want to keep you anticipating things, but we're tackling another holiday favorite with the token, that signature Jinkx and DeLa way of doing things.

DeLa: Yeah, it's a holiday classic that we've never touched before, and we're really excited to dive into something completely new that's going to bring a whole new structure that people haven't seen before. But, you know, Jinkx and DeLa always turn it on their ear in a way that reflects the, you know, where we're currently at in our culture. Now, obviously, this is a difficult year. There is a lot of division in our culture and in our community. And, you know, we go in and we use song, we use comedy, and we use spectacle, and we use camp to address, really, the feelings that we are all experiencing, and to filter that through a holiday classic. So it's a lot of layers, but, you know, we've been able to make these things come together in ways that I think surprise both the audience and us, sometimes.

Jinkx: With comedy, pop music, dance and costumery. You know, it's like we use drag to do it all, Baby.

This year you’ll be including New Orleans, Houston, Charlotte, Orlando and Las Vegas in your 33-city tour. Did both your participation in Drag-Pac have anything to do with touring these cities?

DeLa: God, are we doing 33 cities this year? I underestimated when I said 34 shows. Yeah, I think that our involvement in Drag Pac and our desire to go to those cities, it's not that one inspired the other. They are both driven by the same thing, which is that we, as queens and as high-profile people in the queer community understand that we are part of a legacy of performers who have worked very hard to move the culture forward in the right direction and to fight for queer rights and the rights of people in other marginalized communities and that we are just as driven by the desire to uplift our community as we are, by the desire to make people laugh and to like sing and be the center of attention.

Jinkx: We love being the center of attention with a purpose, that's when it's not just entertainment, it becomes art. You know when you take entertainment and fill it with something true and something meaningful and something deep that your audience connects to and resonates with, it goes from being entertainment to being an artistic expression. And I think every year, we learn more, we learn more about ourselves, we learn more about putting on the show, and we lean more into artistic expression, making sure you're still entertained the whole time.

Would you say that you two have a one-up womanship?

DeLa: Oh God, no! I think, if anything, it's the opposite. When the two of us first met, we were very much a part of a small Seattle scene that was very collaborative and very supportive of one another. But we also are part of a queer culture, you know, specifically through the way people approach drag, through the lens of reality TV competition, where queens are pitted against each other all the time. But the reality is that comes from the outside world. That does not come from the culture of drag. What we have found is that when we are not in competition, but when we are working as a team, we are greater than the sum of our parts, and that we Jinkx and DeLa, for a long time, were sort of adversarial characters who had different perspectives, and that caused conflict. A few years ago, we made the very deliberate choice to make sure that Jinkx and DeLa were always on the same team and always uplifting each other, because that's the example that we want to lead with, and that's what we want to encourage the queer community to do. Not fight within, not get caught up in our petty disagreements, but realize that we are stronger when we are a union.

What’s the most outrageous lie told about you two?

Jinkx: Oh, well, this might be TMI for journalism, but there's a lot of fan fiction about us having a lesbian looove affair. That's not like outlandish, but they kind of have everything backwards, and that's all I’ll say.

DeLa: A lot of Jinkx as a dumb top and I won't go any further. If that were the dynamic, that wouldn't be the dynamic.

Are you both involved in the casting of your boys?

DeLa: We've got a really amazing diverse range of genders, and we are always very intentional about that. We have cis men, cis women, trans folks, non-binary folks in our cast. That is something that we always want our full audience to feel represented. Some of those artists are people that we have worked with for the 15 years that we've known each other. Folks from Seattle who we've done burlesque with or done other sorts of shows with, and some of those dancers are our new folks that we have met in L.A. But you know, it's really important to Jinkx and I that we really be resonating and building a family as we're building a cast?

Jinkx: I feel like you're hinting at something by asking that question. We definitely make sure there's sex appeal in our show. We make sure there's sex appeal for the whole audience, not just the drag queens who like to look at muscle boys and tight underwear.

Jinkx, do you prefer performing as Jinkx or as a scripted character (i.e, Chicago’s Mama Morton, Little Shop’s Audrey)?

Jinkx: I gotta say this isn't meant to be a cop out, but it's apples and oranges. It's really hard to compare the two, but at the end of the day, they're both scripted characters. There was a time when I spent a lot of time improvising as Jinkx, and that taught me a lot of what I use today. But nowadays, I like to get on stage with a really prepared script. DeLa is the one who made me love a script again, because I love improvising. I love being able to just come up with whatever comes to me in the moment. But when you work on a script for a while, you make sure that you are conveying your thoughts and your beliefs and conveying your art in the most effective way possible. When you're going improv, improvisational, magic can happen, but it's like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. When you work on a script for a while, you are really doing the work to make sure what you're putting out there is something you believe in. So I like doing scripted work period, whether I'm playing Jinkx or whether I'm playing an iconic character like Audrey, I treat it all the same. 

DeLa: Jinkx, in our separate work, is such an amazing improviser. She is a lot more free-form, often on stage when she's working solo or with her musical partner. I really come at things from writing, and I'm very structured about my storytelling. And when the two of us come together, it really brings the best of both of it. We have a really elaborate, meticulously put together story and scripts that we're telling. But you know, Jinkx is so incredible off-the-cuff, that it gives me permission to really find these magical moments of improvisation within it.

Jinkx: I've become a better writer working with DeLa, and I believe she's become a looser, more free performer,

DeLa: I’m looser now because of Jinkx.

Okay, there's the fan ficton quote there!

Jjinkx: Okay, that's why the fan fiction gets started.

DeLa, you will direct and co-write Jinkx Monsoon Live at Carnegie Hall for Valentine’s Day 2025. Do you prefer to be on stage performing or behind the scenes producing, directing and writing?

DeLa: You know, I'm going to steal straight from Jinkx and say it’s apples and oranges, because I really do love both so much. As I have been doing a lot more writing and direction for others lately, what I will say I love, I love performing so much. But one of the things I love about drag is that we have, there's a history of having total control over all the elements. I will say that if I were to only be able to do one, I would rather write and direct for someone else than be written and directed for. I like to perform my work. Acting in others’ work is less appealing to me, but I really love helping other people to create what highlights them best on the stage.

Jinkx: She'll be directing and co-writing my Carnegie show with me, but she also worked with Monet Exchange on a on a solo show she took to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. So queens are taking note that when you bring BenDeLaCreme in on a project, it gets good.

DeLa: I've written for a few other queens, and I have another writing/directing project coming on next year.

DeLa: Your costume designs are so coordinated for your Holiday Shows. Do you always design your own outfits first before Jinkx?

DeLa: Actually, Jinkx and I have started collaborating on that a lot. It did use to come primarily from me because I have such a specific vision about what the esthetic of the show was. I never came at it with one look or another, it was always about, ‘What is the unified look on stage?’ I think that is one of my strengths. I like to figure out was serves the show best, rather than what highlights the individual best. I think that because Jinkx and I respect and care for each other and uplift each other and trust each other, we are both free-flowing with ideas, whether it be costuming, other visuals, lyrics. We really share to the point where sometimes we forget who wrote what joke.

Besides Jinkx Monsoon: Live at Carnegie Hall, what else is in the near future, Jinkx & DeLa?

Jinkx: I have theatre work on the horizon, but nothing I can talk about yet. I did a lot of theatre work last year and I really fell in love with that work. I feel I’m doing my best work just by showing up to work every day and doing a good job. That’s all I can really say, but Carnegie Hall’s enough. Also I will be doing the concert version of Anything Goes with The Pasadena Playhouse in California in January.

DeLa: Similarly, Jinkx and I have both gotten to this specific point where you can talk about your career so much less. I have, as I have referred to before, some other writing and directing projects that are on the horizon that I am very excited to announce.

Thank you both again, Jinkx & DeLa! I look forward to finally seeing your Holiday Show when you get to the Dolby Theatre.

Jinkx: Thank you, Gil!

DeLa: Thank you! Can’t wait!

For The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show tickets in the 33 cities, click on the button below:

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