Drag performer Raven (aka David Petruschin) may have just missed being crowned the winner of the second season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” but she’s not about to let something like that get her down.
“I was expecting it to be completely 100-percent honest,” she said about coming in second on the drag reality-show competition. “Any time that I go into anything that I’m going to be competing in, I feel like a winner. I go in with the idea that I’ve won this. Whenever anyone enters anything, they should feel like a winner. But I knew after the second episode that I felt they had their winner picked. So I wasn’t shocked. Of course I was upset but I’m over it now. I’ve joined a support group.”
Not that she has time to go to any meetings. Raven is a busy queen these days, thanks to her appearance on “Drag Race.” And the show has converted some of her harshest critics into fans.
“People who used to say that they didn’t like me or that I was boring are the ones sitting in the front row screaming, hollering and loving it,” she said.
Even though she was a full-time drag performer going into “Drag Race,” Raven said it wasn’t always easy for her to be performing on the spot in front of the show’s celebrity judges.
“It was very weird walking out and having Debbie Reynolds sitting there looking at you or having [Berlin singer] Terri Nunn coach you,” she said. “It was definitely tough, but I’ve been doing this for eight years and I’ve performed in L.A. I’ve performed in front of RuPaul before. So it was very tough but at the same time I wanted to prove myself. I mean, burlesque dancing in front of Dita Von Teese? Come on. Who the hell would feel comfortable doing that in front of her? That was probably the hardest challenge.”
It turns out being challenged is nothing new for Raven. Before she got the call to appear on “Drag Race,” she was balancing two full-time gigs.
“I did have a full-time job and I was also doing drag full time at the same time,” she said. “Then my drag started to take precedence over my full-time job. I was working for a makeup company at a counter. So for me, it went hand in hand. I would do something on a girl at the counter and I’d be like, ‘Oh my gosh! I want to try this on myself for my show tonight,’ or vice versa.
“For me, I had more fun being able to go out, do my own makeup and perform, than I did being stuck behind a counter trying to make sure this girl is going to buy anything when I’m done with her. I don’t like pushing stuff on people so they ended up laying me off. Had they not laid me off, I probably would not have been able to do ‘Drag Race,’ or I would have had to quit.”
Raven continues to do a professional balancing act these days. On top of her increasingly busy performance schedule, she’s also been tapped to be a part of the “Drag Race” spin-off, “Drag U.”
“It’s a university for biological women where they come in and they need a little bit of a pick-me-up internally or externally,” she said of the upcoming show. “They’ve been dealt kind of a crappy hand, so we’re there to give them a little bit of confidence through drag. Ru is the president of university and he’s called upon his professors to help these ladies out.”
At one point on “Drag Race,” Raven had to give drag instruction to men. On “Drag U” she has to teach women. So who’s easier to drop years of drag knowledge onto?
“It was easier teaching the men,” she said. “I’ve done drag tutorials for men before to show them what to do. With women, because a lot of them sometimes wear makeup on a regular basis, they know how they want to look. So when they come into something, when it comes down to it, they want to feel comfortable looking the way their idea of beautiful is. With men, it was a little easier because a lot of times they don’t do it. So when you give them the opportunity they just run with it.”
Raven is scheduled to perform at Philly PrideDay June 13. In her words, fans can expect, “exactly what I’ve always done: giving you beauty, glamour, wit, comedy and a little bit of trash.”
For more information about Raven or Philly Pride, visit www.myspace.com/ravenssnatch or www.phillypride.org.
Larry Nichols can be reached at [email protected].