Danny de Vil is not a Gemini, but he definitely has two personas: By day, a mild-mannered businessman and, by night, a rollicking cabaret performer — and at all times a very animated speaker.
PGN: Tell me about your daytime persona.
DD: Well, Danny de Vil lives a pretty fantastic life. I work in performing-arts sales and marketing and I’ve been doing it for the past six-and-a-half years. It’s fantastic; I have a performing-arts background as an animator and performer and I just stumbled into the administrative side. I quickly realized that, without the business side, the arts don’t exist as we know them. I get to talk with people every day about the wonderful shows we have here in the city. I get to connect with people and share their excitement and it reaffirms every day that the arts are not dead. There’s always an audience out there; you just need to engage them.
PGN: What’s your favorite part of your job?
DD: I love when I work with shows that engage the community. I worked with a holiday show where we had local organizations and churches participating with us. They were so excited about being about to perform on a large stage and it was exciting to bring them and their families into the theater. I love bringing in people who have never had the chance to see live theater before, especially kids. It’s very rewarding.
PGN: Favorite holiday?
DD: Christmas because of the presents and Halloween because of the costumes!
PGN: Are you from Philly?
DD: I was born in New York, in Queens — go figure — and then my parents thought it would be a great idea, when I was 4, to move to just outside of Scranton, Pa. They had the best intentions, they didn’t want me going through the New York City school system. Fantastic, but growing up in Clark Summit — good old Northeastern PA — had a lot of challenges.
PGN: Give me an example of not fitting in.
DD: Oh, I started out with a blast. Four-year-old Danny absolutely loved the musical “The King and I” — I was very “gay” from a very young age. My parents were not very religious but my mother felt that, since we were moving into a new community that was very religious, we should go to services and worship and make ourselves part of the community. So we went to church and in the middle of service they rang a gong or a bell and it triggered something in my 4-year-old head to act out the scene from the movie. I ran out into the middle of the aisle, got down on all fours and sang out [singing — in a very nice voice, I might add], “Praaaaise to Buddha!” I was having my own little personal “King and I” moment but, needless to say, we never went back to that church again. It cemented our reputation as the New York outsiders. Gay was not OK up there. Thankfully, things have changed there as they’ve done most everywhere else, but back then it was difficult. I was the first person to come out in my high school and I did it freshman year.
PGN: Whom did you tell first? A friend, teacher or counselor?
DD: The first person I told was my best friend. All throughout middle school, everyone called me gay every single day and in high school it was starting up again. I’d come to the realization to myself that I was indeed gay. My parents didn’t raise me to be anything but myself, so instead of fighting it or denying it, I just came out. Most of my friends, being choir, theater and the art-club kids, embraced it, but the rest of the school definitely had a lot of issues with it.
PGN: What was the lowest point?
DD: It sounds cliché but one day the quarterback of the football team came and threw me up against a locker. It was the first real physical action that someone had taken against me. As he did it he said to me, “Faggot, I hope you get AIDS and die!” That was really hard for a freshman to deal with. The administration got involved and, as a result, I ended up having to come out to my father. I’d already come out to my mother and that was easy. I told her and she said [mimicking a New York accent], “Oh, sweetheart, I knew a long time ago. Now dry the dishes.” I was still afraid to tell my dad. But he got called into the school because of that and other incidents and said, “What is going on, why do they keep calling you that?” I came out to him and he was not happy. It wasn’t until years later that I realized that his concern was not about me being gay, not at all, it was because he was afraid for me. Afraid that people were going to physically hurt me or — and this never dawned on my high-school self — that I could get terribly sick. My parents lived in New York in the ’80s and they both worked for the city — my mom worked for the mayor — and they had a number of gay friends. So the AIDS epidemic had a very real impact on them that I never even considered. My coming out brought a lot of that back. They were worried about me being safe.
PGN: I bet. What other interests did you have in school?
DD: Always art, I was really into animation, and always theater. For me to feel complete, I have to have my hands in both worlds.
PGN: I understand that you’re Philadelphia’s unofficial Disney expert.
DD: Oh yes, I joke that I have a Ph.D. in “Little Mermaid.”
PGN: Give me a fun fact.
DD: OK, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Jodi Benson, who did the voice of Ariel. She’s made an entire career out of it. In addition to the movies, she does appearances and does the voice on all the merchandise: dolls, books, video games, Hallmark cards, you name it. The character has changed her life. I live for animated errors, they’re so much fun. There’s one scene when Ariel is human and she’s racing to stop the prince from marrying. In some shots, she has high heels on and in some she’s barefoot. It’s rare because in animation they’re usually meticulous about that kind of thing.
PGN: What’s a favorite line from a film?
DD: Hmmm, so many. The first one that pops into my head is Ursula when she said [in a deep, throaty voice], “Come in, come in my child. We mustn’t lurk in doorways. It’s rude. One might question your upbringing.”
PGN: You did that very well!
DD: [Laughs] I’ve had some practice.
PGN: So how did you get out of the Scranton area?
DD: The University of the Arts. I knew I was going to go to school for something creative. I loved singing, but I didn’t see a fully realized career path in music. But with animation I could see actionable steps, so I started looking for a school that had both animation and music programs, and UArts was really the only one. When I came to Philly to check them out, it was during OutFest. I remember driving with my dad and when he turned from Market Street onto Broad, the whole street was lined with rainbow flags. I was like, “Holy mother of God, I’m home!” I was done, that was it. I’ve been here ever since.
PGN: Growing up in Clark Summit, what was a misconception you had about being gay?
DD: That everyone wears sparkly clothing or tight jeans. When you look back at my high-school photos I was such a … sparkly boy. Well, I still am. But now I’ve come to realize that we’re just like everyone else, just a little more fabulous!
PGN: Any siblings?
DD: Yes, a younger brother. We’re polar opposites, even though we look and sound alike. He can sing, but never will. He’s about to get married next month. I love it. I finally get a sister.
PGN: What are some of your entertainment creds?
DD: In college I sang backup for Barry Manilow and Broadway diva Linda Eder. I sang with the Philly POPS! and took on other musical jobs; for instance, I was the musical director for the Department of Recreation in Philadelphia. And then I took a little break after graduating. About two years ago, I was taking a ballet class with Christine Fisler — aka the fantastic Lelu Lenore — and she told me that she and Annie A-Bomb from the Red Light Cabaret were starting a new troupe called the Cabaret Administration. They needed a male to join and she liked my work. What I love about them is that they do a wonderful mix of burlesque and ballet with some glitter thrown in for good measure. It just blew my mind. I started working with them. A few years later, I met the fabulous Josh Schonewolf and got involved with both the man and the Weird Beard Revue. Life is good.
PGN: Tell me about Manilow and Eder.
DD: Mr. Manilow is a very sparkly man. I’d never seen a purple bedazzled tuxedo until I worked with him. He was very sweet, and very kind to his Fanalows. I really enjoyed working with Linda Eder on her holiday tour. The first half of the show was all Christmas stuff and the second half was all Broadway classics. She was very approachable and would talk to everyone backstage about her marriage to composer Frank Wildhorn. That was tremendous.
PGN: Xena Warrior Princess always says, “I have many skills.” Tell me some of yours.
DD: I absolutely adore singing. I love ballet. I’m a little too old to be considered a professional dancer but I’ve been doing it since high school. [Laughs] I turned in my black belt for ballet slippers. I always feel so free and expressive when I’m dancing. I do some acting, kind of. I liken myself to a Barbie doll, you know how she changes costumes and she’s something else, but it’s still always Barbie. “It’s Barbie … as Rapunzel” or “Barbie … as Joan of Arc.” That’s me, it’s Danny as … whatever. It’s still just me with a costume on.
PGN: So did you really have a black belt or was that just a figure of speech?
DD: I did. Most definitely. Growing up in Northeast PA as the gayest boy in the world, you have got to know self-defense. It’s a matter of survival.
PGN: What other hidden talents do you have?
DD: I’m a gamer, through and through. Spelled gay-mer. Through the Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus I’ve met some fellow gamers. We like to play and play, whatever games we can get our hot little hands on. It’s hilarious, the other day Josh came in the room and was like, “Danny, do you recognize that you’ve been talking to yourself for the last hour?” I said, “No honey, I’m wearing a head set. I’ve been talking and playing with friends through the XBox.” He walked away shaking his head and saying, “I will never, ever understand it.”
PGN: Ha. It seems like cabaret and burlesque have really had a resurgence lately. What do you attribute that to?
DD: I think that people are really starting to look for art that makes them feel good about themselves. Cabaret/burlesque is all about body positivity. I remember the first time I did it, I felt so free. I was on a stage full of people of every shape, size and color. We were all just living in our bodies and loving and enjoying every moment of it. It’s so powerful and strong that it’s not surprising to me at all that people are embracing it.
PGN: Do you play different characters or just one persona?
DD: I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to play a wide variety of characters, from the romantic love interest who dies at the fangs of a vampire to the scarecrow in “The Wizard of Oz” and, of course, a narcoleptic swan. You can never go wrong with a narcoleptic swan part, I mean really.
PGN: I read that Josh spent most of the evening sweeping up all fallen feathers from the floor of L’Etage.
DD: Yes, occupational hazard.
PGN: Craziest onstage mishap?
DD: During the Fringe Festival I was directing a show at Plays & Players Theatre. It was about a guy who has a sexual attraction to mechanical objects. One of the girls had to pull out of the show at the last minute so I did the role in drag! There was music in the show on a track. One performance, the power went out so I sang the underscoring for everyone’s parts. When they finally got the power back on, we were exactly on beat with the recorded track!
PGN: I understand you met Josh when you were being auctioned off for a fundraiser?
DD: Yes, he didn’t win the bid [cough cough], but he won my heart in the end.
PGN: [Laughs] Josh used to do a glass-shattering rendition of En Vouge’s “Free Your Mind” when I hosted karaoke at Sisters.
DD: Oh, I’m highly aware of his glass-breaking singing, as is my dog who likes to sing along with him.
PGN: What were your best and worst subjects in school, outside of the arts?
DD: The best was English. Worst was physical education; my teacher would just send me and my best friend to play ping pong. And calculus was tough, but I did pass because, though I bombed the final test, on the back of the paper I wrote out “Calculus: The Musical.” My teacher thought it was clever enough to pass me.
PGN: When do you feel fiercest?
DD: When I’m wearing my sparkly pasties.
PGN: Worst movie of all time?
DD: “Scream” or anything scary. Nope, can’t do them. When I saw “Scream” I was in high school at my friend’s house, which looked just like the house in the opening scene: French doors opening onto a pool. I got through about 10 minutes of the movie before having to bail. Done.
PGN: The most inappropriate present you’ve received?
DD: A little bear dressed in bondage attire, leather and chains that I received during a high-school chorus event at our teacher’s house.
PGN: Worst etiquette breach?
DD: There are just so many: People who constantly check their phones when you are having a serious conversation with them. No. There’s a time and place. It drives me bonkers. Seriously, you can call them back.
PGN: Which deceased entertainer would you bring back for a final performance?
DD: Robin Williams, without a doubt. That was such a tragic loss.
PGN: What would you leave for Josh in your will?
DD: My Swiffer! With instructions on how to use it.
PGN: What’s on the horizon?
DD: The Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus’ “Proud Marys: A Diva-Sing-A-Long,” March 12-14 at Suzanne Roberts Theatre, and the Weird Beard Revue March 27 at L’Etage. Come out!