Interview: Jane Don't of DON'T DOES AMERICA at Dynasty Typewriter

Jane Don’t views her crowd-pleasing turn on RuPaul’s Drag Race as a springboard that has allowed her to make the kind of drag she has always wanted to make. “When you’re trying to support yourself as a drag queen doing six shows every weekend, there’s not a lot of room for play or experimentation,” she explains. Since her lauded television appearance, Jane says her life has been crazy. “It’s been incredible. I’ve been working a lot, traveling a lot, and what’s been nice is— even though I’m really busy— I have a platform and access to more resources now. So there’s a level of experimentation for me and I’ve been expanding a lot as an artist. I’m getting to workshop these parts of my artistry that I didn’t have the bandwidth to examine before.”

Part of Jane’s experimentation has led to the creation of her solo show, Don’t Does America which will grace Los Angeles in September. “The show is really exciting. It lets me flex a lot of muscles. To my mind, this is the kind of drag that has always been attractive to me. Storytelling. Theatrical. I went to theatre school so I’m using my training a little bit here.” Citing the influence of queens like Coco Peru, Jackie Beat, and BenDeLaCreme, Jane was most excited to flesh out the world of Jane Don’t. “I didn’t want to just design a t-shirt to sell as merchandise. I wanted to ask, ‘what t-shirt lives in the world of Jane Don’t?’ and go from there.” She is thrilled to have the opportunity to bring audiences into the self-contained world she has dreamed up. “Jane comes from Nowheresville, America. She moves to the big city and she wants to be the ingenue so bad but really she’s more like Judy Greer or Sandra Bernhard.” Pulling from old school funny ladies like Joan Rivers and Carol Burnett, Jane describes her character, not as an alien, but as someone who is “always a quarter-turn off”.

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