The NYC drag scene is taking a bite out of Philly when “Escape from New York,” a new monthly drag show featuring the comedic gender-bending talents of Lady Boy Marti Gould Cummings and Bob the Drag Queen, sets up shop at Tabu Jan. 30.
Cummings, a native of rural Maryland, felt the pull of New York City early on.
“I grew up on a farm so there was nobody like me around,” he said. “I was running around a cornfield singing, ‘The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow.’ I didn’t fit in where I was from. I got into community theater when I was really little. As soon as I graduated high school, I moved to New York. That was 10 years ago.”
Cummings had his sights set on a career in theater and wasn’t considering performing in drag until he was nudged in that direction during a casting call.
“I became a drag performer by accident,” he said. “I was doing this show on Broadway and I went to the final callback and they said, ‘There is something about you that is different. We thought about rewriting the role for you to be this androgynous, cross-dressing character. Would you be into that?’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure, why not?’ I did that and I started experimenting with drag a little bit. Then I did a birthday party at a bar dressed up and the next day the bar owner called me up and asked me if I wanted to do a weekly show, and that’s how I became a drag queen. It was totally accidental. None of it was planned. That is how I left theater.”
Cummings said it took a while and some help from his fellow queens to hit his stride as a drag performer.
“I’ve always been funny but being funny in real life and on stage and cracking a joke is a different beast to conquer,” he said. “I watched a lot of Joan Rivers, Phyllis Diller and Lisa Lampanelli to get an idea of how to do it. Then I booked a show at the Ritz on Sunday nights. Bianca Del Rio did the show on Monday nights; she would come to the shows every Sunday and sit at the bar after and give me a lot of great advice. Now I write my own jokes and try to have a structure for stories that set up into the songs.”
Cummings also developed his own sense of style along the way, sometimes eschewing the glam-diva motif for something more androgynous.
“Every time I go out it’s a little different,” he said. “I’m not a big wig wearer. I use my own hair and nails. My drag is my drag. I think the point of drag is to make it what you want it to be and have fun with it. There are no rules and no box to stay inside of. I do my own thing. Sometimes I look like a pretty drag queen. Sometimes I look like a boy in a dress. It depends on my mood and what I am feeling. I don’t try to be fishy or anything like that.”
Cummings’ styles and sense of humor have won him a following in New York City, where he has his own non-televised talk show, “The Not-So-Late Show,” at New World Stages every Saturday night and where he talks it up with celebrity guests.
Now Cummings is getting ready to invade Philadelphia with another comedic New York queen he sings the praises of.
“The show I have in Philadelphia once a month is with Bob the Drag Queen who, to me, is the funniest drag queen on the scene right now,” he said. “I think she is one of the most brilliant comedians I’ve seen perform. It’s such an honor to get to share the stage with her in Philadelphia.”
“Escape from New York” premieres 10:30 p.m. Jan. 30 at Tabu, 200 S. 12th St. For more information, call 215-964-9675 or visit www.facebook.com/marti.g.cummings.