'Golden Girls' Fan Convention GOLDEN-CON Books Ginger Minj, 'Golden Gals' Headliners

"RuPaul's Drag Race" luminary Ginger Minj can lean on her own southern accent when she brings her version of sex positive southern Belle Blanche Deveraux to Golden-Con, a three day fan convention which organizers boast is "the world's largest event for 'Golden Girls' fans."

Minj's all drag parody, "The Golden Gals Live!" plays opening and closing nights at Golden-Con: Thank You For Being a Fan, a three day fan weekend for "Golden Girls'' fans in Chicago March 31 through April 2.

"We're packing up our cheesecake and coming back to Chicago for Golden-Con so we can show the world's biggest "Golden Girls" fans how much we love Dorothy, Blanche, Rose, and Sophia," Minj says.

Golden-Con threw its first party in Chicago and invited everyone - 3100 fans from around the world at least - back in April 2022. Golden-Con's producers are hoping to recapture some of the magic they say made the first event so special for the 2023 convention.

"The idea for Golden-Con began as an event we could host in the gym at the community center where I used to work," explains organizer Zack Hudson.

"It was the power of "The Golden Girls" and the fans who have brought us to a place where we can work with world class entertainers like the cast of 'Golden Girls Live!" he says.

"The Golden Girls" have been getting the live drag parody treatment on stage in large cities likely since the 1980s when gay bars would stop everything to play new episodes of the show on Saturday nights.

And there will be no shortage of drag entertainers on stage at Golden-Con which will include shows and appearances from New York based The Golden Gays, Chicago's Hell In A Handbag Productions, and "Golden Girls" podcast host H. Alan Scott, who developed a Sadie Pines drag persona during 2020 lockdown periods.

Drag is a natural fit for a "Golden Girls" event. But a pop culture con needs its subject matter geekery too.

Grant Drager, a "Golden Girls" superfan who plays Blanche for Hell In A Handbag is ecstatic about the opportunity to hear from people who were close to and worked alongside the four "Golden Girls" stars.

"It's a fantastically unique privilege to be able to get to know Rue McClanahan's sister, Melinda McClanahan while I'm playing Blanche on stage. Or I get to play a line inspired by Stan Zimmerman's joke where Blanche looks at Dorothy and boasts that her twenty-something boyfriend is almost five years younger than her. And then Dorothy deadpans, 'in what Blanche, dog years," Drager laughs.

Zimmerman and Melinda McClanahan join a whopping list of folks who knew and worked with the four main "The Golden Girls" stars including director Terry Hughes, who helmed 108 episodes and writer and producer Winifred Hervey, who has more IMDb writing credits on "The Golden Girls" than anyone aside from the show's creator, Susan Harris.

"The Golden Girls" was first broadcast on NBC between 1985 and 1992. The show about four female retirees living together in Miami starred Bea Arthur as Dorothy Zbornak; Betty White as Rose Nylund, Rue McClanahan as Blanche Deveraux; and Estelle Getty as Sophia Petrillo.

"If you couldn't feel the love and the laughter at Golden-Con, then I'd check your pulse. It was like nothing I'd ever seen. People made friends with complete strangers as they bonded over a show that often means more to them than just the great laughs. It was beautiful to see and very gratifying," says producer Brendan Balof, who organizes Golden-Con alongside his brother, Bradley Balof and Hudson - all ardent "Golden Girls" fans.

"Honey, I put up a Thank You For Being A Friend at Christmas tree every year. 'The Golden Girls' means everything to me," Hudson says.

Golden-Con is an event created by fans for other fans of "The Golden Girls," which Bradley Balof credits as one of the reasons the event was well received in 2022.

"We're working night and day to give other fans the kind of experience we would want to take part in. We've got the jokes and the fun stuff you'd expect from the show plus deeper emotional elements. And we're constantly exploring and buying into ways to elevate all those components for the folks who join us," Bradley Balof says.

The organizers were hoping fans would commit to costumes and cosplay at the first Golden-Con. They weren't disappointed by the costumes they saw, which aped the four main characters and minor characters like Mr. Terrific, a paramour of Rose's who hosted a children's TV show.

April Kimble-Boone, who self describes as "a lover of 'The Golden Girls' since birth" plans to bring multiple Blanche iterations to Golden-Con, where she is a panel host. Her "The Black Golden Girl" Instagram videos celebrate and poke a little fun at her favorite show.

"I'm walking in and giving Hollywood costume designers a run for their money," she says.

Another Golden-Con guest who made an impact on every single "The Golden Girls" episode, but whose face was never seen on the show is "Thank You For Being A Friend" theme song vocalist Cindy Fee.

"The love from the fans at Golden-Con was unreal. I know how popular the show is. The fans at Golden-Con were there to share and they made it something bigger than what it was," she says.

Fee was a surprise guest at the first Golden-Con weekend when she took the stage with Aaron Scott, known online as Finally Aaron, whose 2016 gospel duet with Fee's show credits vocals has racked up tens of millions of views on YouTube and other social media. Both are booked for Golden-Con this year.

The love from the fans Fee talks about is something nobody involved with Golden-Con takes lightly - least of all Ginger Minj, who began producing and directing "The Golden Gals Live!" from her Orlando homebase back in 2018.

"This show is a live tribute to the very beloved original," Minj says.

The "Golden Gals" all drag cast has remained the same since the show formed back in 2018. Divine Grace plays Dorothy; Gidget Galore plays Rose; and MR MS Adrien brings Sophia to life. Their show at Golden-Con will be "brand new and exclusive" to the event, according to Minj.

Golden-Con: Thank You For Being A Fan

March 31-April 2, 2023

Sheraton Grand Chicago Riverwalk

301 E North Water St

Chicago, IL

60611

www.thankyouforbeingafan.com