Josh Schonewolf worked from the sound booth during the opening night of Mr. Everything at Tabu Lounge & Sports Bar. The talent show, which is in its fifth year, features male-identified performers showing off talents such as dancing, singing, spoken-word performances and lip-syncing. Judges offer their critiques of performers, who are eliminated each week.
The June 7 opening night included performances ranging from a live rendition of “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” originally sung by Disney villainess Ursula from “The Little Mermaid,” to lip-syncing of Adam Lambert’s “For Your Entertainment.” Performers of all shapes and sizes came dressed in everything from drag to leather to barely anything at all.
“Welcome to my job,” Schonewolf said with a grin.
The 36-year-old produces and performs in a few-hundred nightlife shows each year through his company, Josh Schonewolf Presents.
“On my calendar, I have two days off and that’s it,” he said, noting he had 28 shows scheduled throughout the month of June. “I’m used to it, though.”
Schonewolf said he is typically more involved with the audience and serves as a “right-hand man” and is “more available” to the show’s judges and hosts. However, when his sound person got stuck at work, Schonewolf had to take over the responsibility.
“Sometimes things like that happen and you just have to put your producer hat on and do it,” he said.
“When you’re the producer, it’s almost like being a restaurant manager,” Schonewolf added. “If you don’t have enough servers, you’re serving tables. There’s always something to do at an event. If there’s nothing to do, then your event is boring.”
Schonewolf was definitely not bored during this event. Several former winners of Mr. Everything and its companion show, Ms. Everything, joined him in the booth and exchanged laughs and thoughts on the show.
Schonewolf also made sure to enjoy the performances, as he frequently patted his hand on the table to the beat of the music and cheered in between performances.
However, his work isn’t limited to evening hours. On this particular day, he woke up at 9 a.m. and was “on the go” until Mr. Everything ended after midnight. He kicked off the morning by promoting the show on two radio broadcasts and recorded a podcast later in the afternoon. In between, he added rhinestones to a costume he would wear during a burlesque performance in Homo Erectus, whose producers booked him to perform in New York City.
“I’m always tired but I really love what I do,” he said.
Schonewolf began his career as a producer when he hosted an event for the readers of his former food blog, “Josh Can’t Cook,” through which he provided tongue-in-cheek recipes and humorous written pieces. His event, entitled Josh’s Dinner Party, was successful at Tabu and the bar’s general manager approached him to produce the weekly Ratchet Wednesdays featuring drag and burlesque performances.
“That happened and then it spiraled out of control,” Schonewolf said of the event’s success.
While his company produces different events ranging from singing competitions to burlesque shows, Schonewolf noted similarities among the shows he produces each year.
“A Josh Schonewolf event is a community-based event that displays queer talent and mixes everybody together to create one big celebration of performance art,” he said.
One of the events Schonewolf co-produces with this in mind is Bearlesque. The monthly show features “bears,” a slang term for larger and hairier gay men, and is showcased in Philadelphia, New Hope, Wilkes-Barre, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
“It’s really important to me to have curvy, sexy people performing,” he said.
Schonewolf also performs in Bearlesque and other productions. He noted a personal connection to the bear community.
“Growing up, I have been called fat and being a gay person in the scene, I’ve been told I’m fat in a cutesy way forever. I think there’s a part of gay society where people think that being different means ‘ugly’ and we’re told that we’re not supposed to like ourselves from the beginning. Like, ‘You’re gay so you’re not worthy of love.’ So having Bearlesque in this luxury — producing really great shows with body-positivity as the message — is the greatest love of my life so far.”
Schonewolf also encourages diversity in other ways. He said having a “nice, diverse cast” is very important to him and he will incorporate people of color, trans, gender-nonconforming and even straight people into his shows.
“I like to have everybody represented in my shows. I would never have a show with 10 white guys that were 150 pounds with abs. That’s just not me.”
This call for diversity has not made Schonewolf immune to controversy. In 2014, he helped produce a show called “Once You Go Black” and received criticism from bloggers who said the event’s title was sexualizing and fetishizing people of color. Eventually, he canceled the event and said he has not made a mistake like that since.
“After having some useful conversation with people in the community that are people of color, I didn’t realize that I made mistakes,” he said. “But I did and I learned a lot from them.”
Schonewolf said he has also dealt with other difficulties in his five years as a producer. He said when he first began this career, other promoters criticized him for being an “amateur” and a “hack.” Ironically, he said, he ended up collaborating with a few of his critics but would not mention their names.
“There were a lot of people, at first, that would trash me and then little by little, they realized I wasn’t going anywhere and that I was good at [producing],” Schonewolf said. “I feel like I had to prove myself from the beginning and then I just kind of did.”
“Now I get hired by people all the time that used to hate me,” he added with a laugh.
While Schonewolf said he loves what he does, he doesn’t like when event participants flake or are disrespectful. He tries to maintain a positive environment throughout each of his shows.
“I like my events, for lack of a better word, to have a ‘glee’ vibe about them — like a very-happy, connective-network kind of feeling instead of a catty, nightlife feeling,” he said. “A lot of events can have that and I don’t like that. It makes me really uncomfortable.
“I’d be a terrible ‘Real Housewife’ because I buckle when drama happens,” he joked.
Schonewolf noted how he chooses events to produce.
“That’s always the underlying mission of all of my events: having everybody celebrated from all walks of life. Producing shows that people give a shit about is what I want to do now. I just want to do shows that I would want to go to if I wasn’t producing them.”
For more information, visit Josh Schonewolf Presents.