TRAVESTY by Sasha Velour to Make New England Tour Debut at The Adams Theater
The show comes to Williamstown, MA's '62 Center for Theatre and Dance, with a talkback hosted by Bella Santarella.
The Adams Theater presents the New England Tour debut of Travesty by RuPaul's Drag Race Season 9 winner Sasha Velour on August 29, 2026, at 7:30pm at the '62 Center for Theatre and Dance, Williams College, 1000 Main Street, Williamstown, MA, 01267. Tickets will go on sale on June 12, 2026.
Internationally beloved drag icon Sasha Velour is coming to Williamstown, MA, with her new theatre show, Travesty, which traces the secret queer history of a single spot throughout time: a witch burns in a field; a clown builds a theater; an underground gay bar rises up against the police. As Velour embodies different characters through a series of jaw-dropping lip-syncs, she invites you to take part in the cycle of existence, resistance, and camp that IS drag. Part performance art, part history, part call to action, Travesty will have you screaming at the top of your lungs, dancing in the aisles, and inspired to "change the muthaf*ckin' world!"
Velour is known for her unique fusion of lip sync performance, video art, and storytelling. She is the winner of Season 9 of RuPaul's Drag Race (2017), the founder and host of New York City's legendary drag revue NightGowns (since 2015)-considered one of the best drag shows of all time-and has toured two celebrated one-queen theater shows around the world, Smoke & Mirrors (2019-2022) and The Big Reveal (2023-2025).
The presentation of Travesty will also include a curated talkback at The Adams Theater on Sunday, August 30. Hosted by Berkshire's drag producer Bella Santarella, the conversation will focus on the craft and significance of queer art, creating an open space for local youth and residents to engage with the work.
This collaboration between The Adams Theater and Williams College is made possible by a prestigious New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) Crossroads grant.
Sasha Velour's first one-person show, Smoke & Mirrors (2019-2022), toured to 90 theaters around the world, including the Folies Bergère and the London Palladium. Her second, The Big Reveal (2023-2025), toured to 63 theaters, with hit runs at Steppenwolf, La Mama, and Berkeley Rep. Critics wrote: "Velour is an artist, through and through, and [The Big Reveal] feels the beginning of a larger and genre-bending body of work" (SFist).
Her namesake production company, House of Velour, has produced live shows and video for HBO, Quibi, NY Fashion Week, MAC Cosmetics, Audible, Lyft, Absolut Vodka, La Jolla Playhouse, and more. House of Velour has been praised as "disrupting the business of drag" (Fast Company) for its artist-driven, transparent, and multi-disciplinary approach.
In 2023, Velour released a best-selling book, The Big Reveal: An Illustrated Manifesto of Drag, which explores the untold history of drag, interwoven with stories from her life as a young queen
(Harper, 2023).
In 2017, Velour gained international attention when she competed on and won the 9th season of RuPaul's Drag Race, the same year the competition won its first Emmy. Her finale lip-sync to "So Emotional" (Whitney Houston) increased streams of the song by 500%.
In 2020, she executive-produced her own limited TV series, an adaptation of NightGowns, directed by Sophie Muller and co-produced by The Documentary Group, which received a RealScreen Award and was hailed as one of "the most life-affirming shows you could find on any platform" (The New York Times). In 2023, Sasha joined the cast of HBO's Emmy and Peabody Award-winning We're Here, which was nominated for two Critics' Choice Real TV Awards, Best Ensemble Cast and Best Structured Unscripted Series (won). In 2025, she served as a head judge on King of Drag, the first televised Drag King competition in history.
As an illustrator and designer, Sasha has produced several comic books and an anthology about drag called Velour (2013-2018). She drew the Google Doodle for Marlene Dietrich in 2018 and created a self-portrait for the cover of The New Yorker in 2023.
About The '62 Center for Theatre & Dance
The '62 Center for Theatre and Dance at Williams College is a vibrant venue for performance, learning, and collaboration. It supports the work of the Departments of Theatre and Dance, student ensembles, and a wide range of campus and community events, hosting classes, rehearsals, performances, lectures, and festivals. The '62 Center also presents CenterSeries, a curated program of leading national and International Artists who perform and collaborate on campus through residencies, public performances, and additional programming.
The Center is named in honor of the Williams College Class of 1962, whose members envisioned the state-of-the-art venue for performing arts at Williams. The '62 Center for Theatre and Dance was designed by William Rawn Associates.
About The Adams Theater
The Adams Theater's mission is to create a long-lasting multimedia arts institution that fosters community engagement through a diverse range of programming. We create a cultural hub that bridges rural communities and world-class culture, strengthening access, inclusion, and downtown revitalization in Adams. Collaborating extensively with independent artists and other cultural organizations in the Berkshires, the Adams Theater celebrates creative partnerships and promotes cultural dialogues.
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