Arts & Entertainment

June Jambalaya, lightly seasoned newcomer thickens mix of RuPaul’s Drag Race

Published

4 years ago

January 20, 2022

“Some are born into drag greatness, some achieve drag greatness, and some have drag greatness thrust upon ‘em.”

That iconic line, from the 1602 Shakespeare play “RuPaul’s Twelfth Night,” is as true today as when it was first spoken on the stage of London’s Globe Theatre. Back then, the female roles were played by men. Times may have changed, but the song remains the same: Those with male plumbing who plumb the depths of what it takes to play a woman find themselves doing so through dynasty, scrappy determination, destiny, or a road they have to hoe on their own.Season 14 “RuPaul’s Drag Race” contestant June Jambalaya found herself in the iconic workroom and runway in a very roundabout way, indeed.

“I have been in the performing arts my entire life, going to performing arts school, and I moved out to LA to get my degree in fine arts” said the 29-year-old Jacksonville, Florida native, who spoke with us just prior to the Season 14 premiere episode, in which she’s introduced alongside half of the cast. Jambalaya, whose drag name came about when a dance instructor asked for her birth month and the last thing she ate, stayed in LA after graduation but found things “didn’t go as planned, you know, just auditioning but still working my job. I worked as a visual manager for a luxury department store, so it [drag] gravitated to me because actually, I was choreographing for a co-worker. It gave me an opportunity to use my degree and use my talents—because I felt kind of frustrated with auditioning and the world of performing. I didn’t fit the stereotypical body that a male backup dancer or performer should have and so it drew me to drag because this was an art form where you got to make your own rules and really pick your narrative, which made me even more intrigued to do it for myself.”

While doing choreography for local LA drag queens, noted Jambalaya, “They encouraged me to try it [drag], and I entered a nightly competition at Revolver and won and then I did a 10-week competition at Revolver and won. So all the stars just kind of aligned. It just felt like I was doing something right with all of the talents and gifts I felt like I had.”

BLADE: What sort of style were you drawing from in those early performances?

JUNE JAMBALAYA: When I first started drag, my references were from the Latrice Royales and the Roxy Andrews. I looked at the queens before me that really put on high-energy, like high old school drag numbers and performances. But the more I got to experience who June was, her brand and you know my own artistry I started to really pull from my love for the modern woman and thinking about like, my mom and my sister and my aunts and how I was always inspired by women, especially minority women, because they were the strongest, most fearless, most stylish women that I got to encounter so I really drew a lot of those references into my drag. And then I also, you know, I call myself The Real Housewife of Drag because of my love for the franchise and how real women just sit there fully dressed and living their fantasy on television. That’s sort of what this is for me.

BLADE: You’re serious about the way you use fashion. Does that clash with camp elements of drag?

JUNE: Yes I’m funny, but I don’t consider myself a comedy queen. I think it’s performance with looks, um, because I revealed myself in a Christopher John Rogers couture gown and then I added a train and airbrushed my name on there to make it, you know, it was fashion but then I made it camp and, you know, urban by airbrushing it—having my nails, have my name hang off… So I’m wearing these designer pieces that you typically don’t see from someone; I’m a size 14, 16 and you haven’t really seen a big girl pull out these type of designers this way and I think that’s interesting. So my camp comes in my love for the visual… You’ll see me inside a waterfall performing a song for a video. That’s where I think my camp comes through, in my visual artistic side. But with my fashion, I really do try to show that plus-sized women and full-figure people love and respect fashion and there is room for us there, too.

BLADE: What is an LA club experience with you like, as opposed to what we’re going to see on television?

JUNE: I have always picked things that felt good to me, but I’m learning that I still have to pick numbers that people are going to enjoy. But when you come to a June Jambalaya performance, you want high energy. You know I’m gonna have backup dancers. So like me and my girls, we rehearse these numbers for weeks on end before the show. One of my biggest inspirations is Beyoncé. I’ve been to more concerts than I’d like to admit.

BLADE: Oh, there’s no shame in that.

JUNE: (laughs) Seeing those shows, all the way down to the costumes and the choreography, all that time and effort that went into it—so I try my best, with the resources I have, to give people that live tour show experience.

BLADE: Your life will be different from the moment the show starts airing. What is the waiting experience like, and have you been given any helpful advice from other queens?

JUNE: So recently, I posted a Christmas video that took three months to film—and it’s different now, because of the [Season 14] announcement, and people know the show is coming. So I get to hear from people from Brazil and Belize message me and tell me how much they enjoyed my video, and people who don’t even celebrate Christmas, that these visuals and these packages of my art are reaching all over the world—it’s blowing my mind to think about this time last year. I had maybe 2,000 followers and I just had dream and I was making videos and taking photos like crazy, and now it’s [the buzz leading up to the show] unfolding before my eyes.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have conversations with Gigi Goode, Kandy Muse, and LaLa Ri. They have all been so extremely supportive. I think Gigi Goode gave me some of the best advice. She came to my “Showgirls” performance and she was like, “Do everything, every opportunity that comes to you. You’re going to be tired but this is going to be the ride of your life—and everything you’ve dreamt of, you can literally do right now. So whatever is in your head, let it out.”

BLADE: What advice would you give to those who are just starting out with their drag, and is having a formal background like yours helpful?

JUNE: I think it [education] definitely helped me, but I haven’t been doing drag that long. I started April 2019… But I think when you find something you’re passionate about you will do the work to further educate yourself on it, and I really do believe I did that. So my advice to anyone embarking on something or doing something they’re passionate about is, pull from people who are doing it really, really well. I think one of the best things that I did, I watched Roxy Andrews. I studied with Aquaria [as I was preparing my audition tape]. I saw what the best of the best were doing, to prepare myself to meet that level of excellence. When you’re in this high-pressure drag situation, and mind you, this was just a hobby for me. I had a full-time job. So I went from a part-time baby queen to now doing it full-time, 18-hour days. So it showed me there’s still so much to be done, to be in drag all day, to go from doing an acting challenge to getting ready for a runway. It’s so physically demanding, to be a full-time drag queen.

BLADE: So are you in better shape now than you were before?

JUNE: Well, we filmed it a while ago. I was in really good shape. Then I took a break and ate some food, enjoyed the holidays. Now it’s kicking back in. You know, press [to do] and outfits need to fit (laughs).

BLADE: What do you hope to achieve, as a result of being on the show?

JUNE: I’ve never been to Fashion Week. I would love to experience that or walk and be a part of it, or be part of a beauty brand or something of that nature. But when it comes down to artistry, we have a whole Vegas residency with “RuPaul’s Drag Race” now. I would love the opportunity for that—or the Werq the World Tour, to actually; Imagine if I got to take all of my visuals and put it on the stage… that’s an artist’s dream.

Follow June Jambalaya on Instagram/TikTok/Twitter: @junejambalaya. To stay up-to-date on all things #DragRace Season 14, follow along on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok at @rupaulsdragrace.

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Photos

PHOTOS: Cheers to Out Sports!

LGBTQ homeless youth services organization honors local leagues

Published

2 days ago

November 17, 2025

Michael Key

Wanda Alston Foundation Executive Director Cesar Toledo, on right, presents an award to the D.C. Front Runners at the 'Cheers to Out Sports!' event held at the DC LGBTQ+ Community Center on Monday. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The Wanda Alston Foundation held a “Cheers to Out Sports!” event at the DC LGBTQ+ Community Center on Monday, Nov. 17. The event was held by the LGBTQ homeless youth services organization to honor local LGBTQ sports leagues for their philanthropic support.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

Theater

Gay, straight men bond over finances, single fatherhood in Mosaic show

‘A Case for the Existence of God’ set in rural Idaho

Published

3 days ago

November 16, 2025

Patrick Folliard

Lee Osorio as Ryan and Jaysen Wright as Keith in Mosaic Theater’s production of ‘A Case for the Existence of God.’ (Photo by Chris Banks)

‘A Case for the Existence of God’
Through Dec. 7
Mosaic Theater Company at Atlas Performing Arts Center
1333 H St,, N.E.
Tickets: $42- $56 (discounts available)
Mosaictheater.org

With each new work, Samuel D. Hunter has become more interested in “big ideas thriving in small containers.” Increasingly, he likes to write plays with very few characters and simple sets.

His 2022 two-person play, “A Case for the Existence of God,” (now running at Mosaic Theater Company) is one of these minimal pieces. “Audiences might come in expecting a theological debate set in the Vatican, but instead it’s two guys sitting in a cubicle discussing terms on a bank loan,” says Hunter (who goes by Sam).

Like many of his plays, this award-winning work unfolds in rural Idaho, where Hunter was raised. Two men, one gay, the other straight (here played by local out actors Jaysen Wright and Lee Osorio, respectively), bond over financial insecurity and the joys and challenges of single fatherhood.

His newest success is similarly reduced. Touted as Hunter’s long-awaited Broadway debut, “Little Bear Ridge Road” features Laurie Metcalf as Sarah and Micah Stock as Ethan, Sarah’s estranged gay nephew who returns to Idaho from Seattle to settle his late father’s estate. At 90 minutes, the play’s cast is small and the setting consists only of a reclining couch in a dark void.

“I was very content to be making theater off-Broadway. It’s where most of my favorite plays live.” However, Hunter, 44, does admit to feeling validated: “Over the years there’s been this notion that my plays are too small or too Idaho for Broadway. I feel that’s misguided, so now with my play at the Booth Theatre, my favorite Broadway house, it kind of proves that.”

With “smaller” plays not necessarily the rage on Broadway, he’s pleased that he made it there without compromising the kind of plays he likes to write.

Hunter first spoke with The Blade in 2011 when his “A Bright Day in Boise” made its area premiere at Woolly Mammoth Theatre. At the time, he was still described as an up-and-coming playwright though he’d already nabbed an Obie for this dark comedy about seeking Rapture in an Idaho Hobby Lobby.

In 2015, his “The Whale,” played at Rep Stage starring out actor Michael Russotto as Charlie, a morbidly obese gay English teacher struggling with depression. Hunter wrote the screenplay for the subsequent 2022 film which garnered an Oscar for actor Brendan Frazier.

The year leading up to the Academy Awards ceremony was filled with travel, press, and festivals. It was a heady time. Because of the success of the film there are a lot of non-English language productions of “The Whale” taking place all over the world.

“I don’t see them all,” says Hunter. “When I was invited to Rio de Janeiro to see the Portuguese language premiere, I went. That wasn’t a hard thing to say yes to.”

And then, in the middle of the film hoopla, says Hunter, director Joe Mantello and Laurie (Metcalf) approached him about writing a play for them to do at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago before it moved to Broadway. He’d never met either of them, and they gave me carte blanche.

Early in his career, Hunter didn’t write gay characters, but after meeting his husband in grad school at the University of Iowa that changed, he began to explore that part of his life in his plays, including splashes of himself in his queer characters without making it autobiographical.

He says, “Whether it’s myself or other people, I’ve never wholesale lifted a character or story from real life and plopped it in a play. I need to breathing room to figure out characters on their own terms. It wouldn’t be fair to ask an actor to play me.”

His queer characters made his plays more artistically successful, adds Hunter. “I started putting something of myself on the line. For whatever reason, and it was probably internalized homophobia, I had been holding back.”

Though his work is personal, once he hands it over for production, it quickly becomes collaborative, which is the reason he prefers plays compared to other forms of writing.

“There’s a certain amount of detachment. I become just another member of the team that’s servicing the story. There’s a joy in that.”

Hunter is married to influential dramaturg John Baker. They live in New York City with their little girl, and two dogs. As a dad, Hunter believes despite what’s happening in the world, it’s your job to be hopeful.

“Hope is the harder choice to make. I do it not only for my daughter but because cynicism masquerades as intelligence which I find lazy. Having hope is the better way to live.”

Books

New book highlights long history of LGBTQ oppression

‘Queer Enlightenments’ a reminder that inequality is nothing new

Published

4 days ago

November 15, 2025

Terri Schlichenmeyer

(Book cover image courtesy of Atlantic Monthly Press)

‘Queer Enlightenments: A Hidden History of Lovers, Lawbreakers, and Homemakers’
By Anthony Delaney
c.2025, Atlantic Monthly Press
$30/352 pages

It had to start somewhere.

The discrimination, the persecution, the inequality, it had a launching point. Can you put your finger on that date? Was it DADT, the 1950s scare, the Kinsey report? Certainly not Stonewall, or the Marriage Act, so where did it come from? In “Queer Enlightenments: A Hidden History of Lovers, Lawbreakers, and Homemakers” by Anthony Delaney, the story of queer oppression goes back so much farther.

The first recorded instance of the word “homosexual” arrived loudly in the spring of 1868: Hungarian journalist Károly Mária Kerthbeny wrote a letter to German activist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs referring to “same-sex-attracted men” with that new term. Many people believe that this was the “invention” of homosexuality, but Delaney begs to differ.

“Queer histories run much deeper than this…” he says.

Take, for instance, the delightfully named Mrs. Clap, who ran a “House” in London in which men often met other men for “marriage.” On a February night in 1726, Mrs. Clap’s House was raided and 40 men were taken to jail, where they were put in filthy, dank confines until the courts could get to them. One of the men was ultimately hanged for the crime of sodomy. Mrs. Clap was pilloried, and then disappeared from history.

William Pulteney had a duel with John, Lord Hervey, over insults flung at the latter man. The truth: Hervey was, in fact, openly a “sodomite.” He and his companion, Ste Fox had even set up a home together.

Adopting your lover was common in 18th century London, in order to make him a legal heir. In about 1769, rumors spread that the lovely female spy, the Chevalier d’Éon, was actually Charles d’Éon de Beaumont, a man who had been dressing in feminine attire for much longer than his espionage career. Anne Lister’s masculine demeanor often left her an “outcast.” And as George Wilson brought his bride to North American in 1821, he confessed to loving men, thus becoming North America’s first official “female husband.”

Sometimes, history can be quite dry. So can author Anthony Delaney’s wit. Together, though, they work well inside “Queer Enlightenments.”

Undoubtedly, you well know that inequality and persecution aren’t new things – which Delaney underscores here – and queer ancestors faced them head-on, just as people do today. The twist, in this often-chilling narrative, is that punishments levied on 18th- and 19th-century queer folk was harsher and Delaney doesn’t soften those accounts for readers. Read this book, and you’re platform-side at a hanging, in jail with an ally, at a duel with a complicated basis, embedded in a King’s court, and on a ship with a man whose new wife generously ignored his secret. Most of these tales are set in Great Britain and Europe, but North America features some, and Delaney wraps up thing nicely for today’s relevance.

While there’s some amusing side-eyeing in this book, “Queer Enlightenments” is a bit on the heavy side, so give yourself time with it. Pick it up, though, and you’ll love it til the end.

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