Interview: Nicole Halliwell of HILARIOUSLY INAPPROPRIATE DRAG QUEEN BINGO: A COMEDY SHOW WITH BALLS at the Triad

Nicole Halliwell has balls. Yes, I'm almost embarrassed to use that trite analogy to announce the return of what is arguably the most popular drag bingo show on tour in the US. Hell, it may be the ONLY touring drag bingo show touring the US. However, you cannot argue with success, and Halliwell is succeeding on every level. It's rolling back into New York for another wild night of totally filthy, inappropriate comedy at The Triad. Halliwell's first engagement, on March 18, was so successful, with patrons clamoring for a seat, that she's returning on April 8 and, again, this summer, in June. I had the chance to sit down with Nicole and talk about her show, touring the US, the drag bans happening around the country and more. So YES, Miss Halliwell has balls - as you'll soon see.

This article has been edited for length and clarity

You call this two hours of raunchy, ridiculous fun. What does that entail?

It's essentially everything you wouldn't expect a drag bingo to be. Really outrageous! Definitely not the usual : some queen sitting up there, barking numbers, then shuffling through a couple of lip-sync performances. I flip the script entirely so my audiences are caught off guard and get to see something really off-the-wall. The show was written for the types of audience that attend these events, so it's extremely relatable, while I cram in two hours of raunchy stories, jokes and innuendos. I roast the living daylights out of everybody! People tell me that their faces hurt from laughing so much. I tend to have a lot of fun picking on the people in the audience that come just for that type of thing, because they know that drag queens can be raunchy and sassy and outrageous. I give them the full show. They come in thinking: "Oh, I don't know if I want to sit up front because I don't know If I'll get picked on the entire night." It's all in good fun. People have such a blast with it. They don't even have to play bingo if they don't want to, but I give away some really funny and ridiculous stuff like adult toys, and a hilarious grand prize. But, I won't give away what that is!

This is part of your national tour. You've done 740 shows in 26 cities. How did this all start?

I had been doing bingo shows since 2010, and then the pandemic struck. When everything shut down, I was stuck in the house for six months thinking: "How do I make the best of this?" So I used the free time to restructure the entire concept of Drag Bingo, write a comedy show to flow around it, and partnered up with a venue in Fort Lauderdale that had outdoor seating so we were following the CDC guidelines. The show was a huge hit and exactly what people needed - laughter! We sold out, show after show. It was a great way for people to get away from the monotony of sitting at home for a couple of months. Then, I started getting calls from places with people saying "Hey, I heard about this, can you also do it here?!" I jumped into a few new locations and the ball started rolling. Fast forward to conversations with a couple of national entertainment venue chains, and, before I knew it, 26 cities had picked me up, and I was on tour fulfilling my dream, comically terrorizing people from state to state! A big goal was coming there (NY).

By the time this has been published, you've already had your first show at the Triad. How did that go? Was the New York audience what you'd hoped for?

It was a sold-out smash hit success. Better than I ever thought it would. New York's audiences relate to my material so much more because it's a more forward and blunt type of place, where people speak their minds right off the cuff. The jokes and the material I was giving them was very much right up their alley, so to speak. The first thing I ask any audience is: "Do you want it to be Naughty or Nice?" It's always a resounding, overwhelming NAUGHTY! because that's what they're asking for. Even during the show, I ask: "Do you want me to get dirtier?" and they always say absolutely! Yes! New York was one of the loudest responses I've ever gotten from a group when I asked that question. They came there for that.

Your father was in the entertainment business, tell me more about that.

My Father was a touring entertainer for 40 years and was extremely successful. He started off his career very young, in upstate New York, around my musically inclined family, most of which were in entertainment, professionally, as singers or musicians, or owned venues and nightclubs across the upstate area, like Rochester and Buffalo, that supported entertainment. (He was) working in the family businesses until he got recognized and added into a group called 'The Fabulous Jets' - a trio of three young, handsome guys who would sing and play music, capitalizing on the teen entertainment craze. As the group grew, my father realized that he had a singular talent that was important for him to develop so that he could be on his own. Much like drag entertainers who leave a show to pursue their own careers, he did the same thing and ventured off on his own. He formed a group of eight musicians, a girl singer and a straight man that he could work with, and he created a touring show that started off in New York City, then it grew into this national act. He played in the biggest rooms around the country at that time, including headlining in Vegas, cruise line residencies, and more - four, five, six weeks in each city around the country. This was at a time (in the 60's, 70's and 80's) in which lounge acts were everything. There was no Netflix, no internet. If you wanted to go out for the evening, you got dressed up, you grabbed your friends, you had cocktails, and you went to watch these live bands and performers. I grew up watching him do this type of thing, my entire life. He'd be away in Vegas for 11, 12, 13 weeks, and then I got the chance to finally see him perform and watching him KILL in front of an audience where these people couldn't breathe because they were laughing so hard. My father was hysterical. He was telling jokes and doing all of these characters. I really Identified with that because I loved making people laugh on my own. Seeing that is what inspired me to get into this business.... much to his dismay. Even more to his dismay was that I was doing it dressed as a woman. My father was an old school Italian, so, for him to find out that A.) I'm Gay, B.) I'm dressed up like a woman, and C.) I'm doing it for money! It took things in a very interesting direction. After the awkward conversation, something strange happened that I never thought would occur. My father lived in Tampa and I live in Fort Lauderdale, about 5 hours apart. One night, I'm doing a show, and I look up and there are my parents are sitting there in the back of the room. My heart fell through my ass. My father came up and tipped me a $2 bill. It was a good luck token and I've kept it with me ever since. He passed on last April. He was very much a guiding light for me and an inspiration in my career. He also was there to help me build the structure of the show I'm doing now, and he helped give me a lot of guidance on comedy, on reading an audience, and being able to know the room you're working for and to adjust it accordingly for the demographic that you are serving.

Let's talk about the Elephant in the room: Drag performers are having a very difficult time right now, and lawmakers are trying to legislate the careers of these entertainers and suppress any progress the LGBTQIA community has made. Has this effected you and your show?

It has. As a national entertainer, I constantly see a lot of hatred, a lot of pushback, and endless ignorant rhetoric that comes my way. I advertise in many of these cities and a lot of these people who are fueled solely by the narrative that is created by those political figures who are hell-bent on finding any distraction possible, rather than working on real world issues. For example, we have poverty, child hunger, a massive wage gap, crumbling infrastructure, and other things that are destroying our country, let alone the ignorance of a specific category of politician who are tearing apart this nation, thread by thread. They throw up smokescreens with issues like "Drag" to keep people from paying attention to the fact that they aren't doing anything that would actually help the country. They claim to be "protecting youth." Have you seen what youngsters come across on the internet these days? We are playing culture war over things that are truly insignificant. I, as a drag entertainer, have spoken many times regarding this. I'm seeing, right now, supporters of these crooked folks who are, literally, losing their minds obsessing over manufactured outrage by these "entertainment" outlets that call themselves "news." They seem so desperate to cling onto anything to give themselves validity in a world where things are so boring for them that they have to jump onto some bandwagon to fight something that has zero effect on their lives. These people are at so many drag shows, prides bingos and brunches, I wonder - how do they find the time? It's ironic that these people never miss a gay event.

Furthermore, and this is important, since we're on the topic of protecting youth - All of the false narratives aside, professional entertainers understand that there's an unwritten law as to how you conduct yourself, based on your audience. If there are children present, we are not going to do something that's inappropriate. It's not only respect for the families, but also for ourselves. Now, there are a fringe few entertainers, and this gets my goat, that are conducting themselves inappropriately onstage when minors are present. These are typically at shows that aren't meant for all ages. Those, unfortunately, are the ones who are causing this mess. Being filmed and sent to those channels who are, in turn, using this against us, making a blanket statement to say that all drag entertainment is this way. It's not.

There are just three ways that kids end up at a drag show: The parents bring the child to a show that is not intended for all-ages, without our consent, and, obviously, we do our best to accommodate, but we really can't change too much of a routine when one kid is present among 200 straight adults who paid for the sass and raunch of a drag show. (Something important to mention - the majority of our audiences are made up of straight people.) The second way is that the show is outside, and we have no control over who's walking by. Sometimes, the parents will stop, give the kid a dollar and force them to come up and tip us. We try to be as interactive as we can because the audience enjoys that we let the kid have their moment of fame. The third way is the pressure that we are getting from parents to make all-ages content so that their kids have some experience being around drag entertainment. While I appreciate the intent of showing them different ways of life, and teaching acceptance, I don't condone that. That's not for me; I mean, I don't want to work for children. My shows are always 18+. These incidents are occurring and they're making blanket statements, accusing drag entertainers of doing heinous things. They're missing the bigger picture, here, which is: when the child is there, the parent is there. The parent made the choice to bring them. They're also in a room full of adults, so if there were anything inappropriate happening, it obviously would be stopped. When is the last time you saw a 7 year old borrow the car to go to brunch? Their entire storyline against the drag community doesn't line up. It's not accurate. It doesn't fit, and anyone who's been to a drag show knows it's BS. Besides, we all know that it's not all about drag queens. It's also about making laws so that transgender people cannot exist in public spaces. That's the bottom line of it. Look, these angry people realize that they're outnumbered. THESE people have been groomed since childhood on religion and certain beliefs. They've been manipulated to believe only one way of life exists and that anyone who is different from that doesn't belong. When you show people that there is a way to be free and happy from having all of these restrictions on their life and be caught up in a constant state of judgment, they worry "Oh my God. What if I have a thought outside of what I was raised to fear? What if I am accepting of these things?" It scares the hell out of them. Like any bully, (they) weaponize words (and even religion) to try to discriminate and oppress. I have a T-shirt I wear that says: The Loudest Homophobes are the Deepest in the Closet. They're angry at themselves. The bottom line: I'm a costumed character on stage doing my job, just like you'd see at any broadway show or theme park. I'm not chasing kids around the supermarket saying, "I'm gonna get ya!". When the show is over, I just wanna pack up and be on my way.

Something I think our readers should know about you is that you are a self-contained businessperson. You handle everything from ticket sales, marketing, graphic design,and the show. You're basically a one-man band.

I have my father to thank for that. I learned a lot about self-promotion from him. He was the same way. Did it all himself. There's a certain way you have to represent your brand. If I let someone else sell my show, I have a lesser chance of getting the gig. Whereas, if I call up a venue and say, OK, here's what I have and you're dealing with me directly, it changes everything. It makes a big difference to someone who wants the answers upfront. Promoters don't always have all of the answers. I can answer everything. I'm in control of my PR, advertising, everything. It makes a bigger, better impact for an entertainer when you have those skills. I've been in marketing, business management and graphic design for over 15 years. So I have all of those skills that I used when I was not working in entertainment. I wanted to be in entertainment, so I put all of those skills together and created my own company.

You wrote this show for straight people. Why is it that drag bingo, which was a gay staple, has expanded to a straight audience. Why is that?

Great question! Over the years, more and more of our straight allies have made their way into the spaces where we conduct these type of events, and realized they love it just as much!

The majority of my audience is 25-75 year-old straight women. We get a smattering of husbands and boyfriends. I thought: If this is The Audience (i) am facing, then I had better put together content that this audience could appreciate, with a little gay culture peppered in. Everything from faking org*sms to why women settle for below average sized... things. I also make the men in the audience see what women go through when they get flirted with, and I make them blush. Of course, I totally do it with consent. Everyone who comes to the show is a good sport. They know what they're getting themselves into. I also explain at the beginning just exactly what they should expect. The things that get the biggest laughs are making fun of relationships, bodily functions, things people don't expect. The shock factor is enough to get the laughs, but when I am talking about things they can relate to, it works twice as well.

I get a lot of positive reviews, but I get crazy comments from people who have not seen the show like: "This is sick! Disgusting!" and I always reply: "Thanks for the great review!" My favorite had to be the person who called it a "Traveling Sinfest." I took that quote and put it on one of the ads with the guy's name on it and said, "Check out these great reviews!"

A lot of people don't really find entertainment that they feel connected to. The reason I know I've got something great; My audiences come up after the show to thank me. "Thank you so much for giving me this laugh, times have been very tough. Thank you for uplifting me and my husband, we had such a blast tonight." The other thing that happens a lot, especially in rural areas, I have a lot of straight men to come up to me: "You've changed my mind today. I was always told what drag was, and those people were, wrong. I laughed so hard I couldn't believe it. Thanks so much for opening my eyes. It was really amazing to meet you." They're shaking my hand, giving me hugs and thanking me for being myself. I never realized that drag could connect me to people in this way. It's a real discovery for me. It's very rewarding to do that. That's the whole intention of the show: to bridge the gap with laughter. It connects all of us. We all have common interests and common goals and when it comes down to it, we're all human. I'm just here to make you laugh, smile and have a good time and escape reality for a few minutes and give you a reprieve from all that's going on in the world.

Thank you, Nicole, for bringing the world more joy and bringing people together one laugh at a time!

You can see Nicole on her national tour at the Triad on April 8 at 7pm. She'll be back in June as well! For tickets, go to www.dragbingo.net or visit the Triad website HERE.