Posted by When the Old Courthouse started hosting Thursday Night Trivia Night m’lady and I immediately became regulars (and semi-regular champions, I might add). During one of these weekly outings we noticed a poster on the Courthouse wall advertising an upcoming drag show. M’lady really wanted to go; I was on the fence. I’d been to a drag show before I had a good time, and I’m generally game for virtually any entertainment that is offered within stumbling distance from home, but I was ready to balk at paying $40 per ticket to watch a guy in a dress lip-synch for an hour-and-a-half while I drank beer out of a can for $10 apiece (tip included).
But m’lady wanted to go – especially because May 4th, 2024 would also be the celebration of Dan’s 50th birthday* – so I was in. (We became friends with Dan and his husband Steve shortly after they had moved to Harbour Grace from Ontario to run the Old Courthouse. In fact the drag show was only booked because the star of the one-man show was Dan’s friend and they figured that while he was in Newfoundland to celebrate Dan’s 50th he might as well put on a show). So we compromised: She was scheduled to fly home from a work trip on the day of the show, and with flight cancellations and late arrivals as common as fog in St. John’s we decided that instead of buying advance tickets we’d wait and see if her flight arrived in time for us to get to the Old Courthouse by the 8pm start time, and if it did and there were still two tickets available, then we would go.
And whattya know, for the first time in memory both legs of her Air Canada journey were right on schedule. I met her at the St. John’s airport at 5:30 to-the-minute with a smile, a hug, and a fresh Domino’s pizza cooling in the back seat.
How’s that for an airport pickup?
We rushed home and ate the pizza along the way, arriving with just enough time for m’lady to sneak in a quick forty-five minute snuggle with the cat before we walked to the Courthouse. It was indeed sold out but unbeknownst to me Steve had promised m’lady that he would find room for us if we made it. And he did, squeezing us into a table with one of the other Trivia Night regulars, Ross.
The room was packed about 120-strong when Miss Conception** hit the stage to hearty applause. The show had been billed as Movie Musical Madness and she (I’ll stick mostly with “she” because that was the pronoun my brain consistently fell upon throughout the performance) started with a full set of Disney numbers (Cruella De Vil, The Circle of Life, something from The Little Mermaid, you get the picture) and she was actually singing; there was none of that lip-synch BS. And not only that, she had a hell of a voice! This was especially evident during the second set, when the karaoke-ish backing tracks were all from musicals; I mean this guy could really belt ‘em out. Sometimes I thought he sounded quite a bit like Steven Page (formerly from Barenaked Ladies), which is high praise, methinks.
But wow: the costumes. Miss Conception started the show dressed in sequins (everything was sequin-ed) as the cowgirl from Toy Story, camping up the lyrics with plenty of sexual entendres, which understandably kicked into high gear with the appearance of a stagehand dressed in a Woody costume. For the next number Miss Conception simply stepped out of the spotlight and peeled off her Velcro-ed cowgirl outfit to reveal a sequin Cruella De Vil dress underneath. And with a quick wig change she was instantly transformed.
When she then pulled off her Cruella costume to become The Little Mermaid we all realized that not only was this person running around the room belting out high-energy choreographed show tunes, but she was also doing it whilst wearing at least eight layers of full-on costumes, well, come on now! Somebody was certainly working hard for their $40 cover charge!
She was the Lion King then she was Jessica from Roger Rabbit then she was that girl from Frozen…everything looked so great (and kudos to the Old Courthouse for shelling out $12 to rent a follow-spot; it made a world of difference). For the second set Miss Conception came out all layered up again, this time ready to gradually strip through some of the most popular tunes in the history of Broadway. She even performed one song whilst wheeling about the courthouse floor on roller skates (which lit up, no less).
And she was funny too…I’m talking like a total-pro comedian here. As soon as the between-song banter kicked in it was clear that Miss Conception was a professional, going around the entire room knocking us all out with audience-interactive one-liners. And she is a total pro too. At that point Miss Conception had been performing drag shows all over the world for twenty-four years. After this one-off in Harbour Grace she’d be taking her show to Cape Cod for a couple of months before jumping on the cruise ship circuit for another eight weeks. After that was Miss Conception’s real bread-and-butter: her regular six-month stint at a cabaret in Mexico.
And once you see her show you’ll know why she’s so busy. I swear, after seeing one of her performances every booking agent would clamour for a contract. Miss Conception is simply blatantly entertaining. There’s no walking out of her show without being impressed, I don’t care who you are.
So, clearly I was impressed with the show from top-to-bottom and I was, but nothing impressed me more than how he ended it. Closing out the evening with a rousing I Am What I Am from La Cage aux Folles, Miss Conception retrieved a cloth from her prop table and vigorously rubbed her face clean of makeup. Then she pulled off her wig and stepped out of her final costume and stood before us as himself, Kevin Levesque, and sang:
Life’s not worth a damn ’til you can shout out,
“I am what I am!”
And he walked off the stage. It was bloody beautiful.
I hate to put it this way but I said it several times while recapping the performance over post-show beers so I’ll repeat it here: You just don’t expect that level of quality and professionalism around here. You just don’t.
Happy Birthday Dan.
*Dan’s birthday is actually May 3rd.
**Now, with a name like “Miss Conception” you would think that he/she would be from somewhere around here but no! Not only was this Kevin Levesque’s first time visiting the Conception Bay area, it was his first time ever setting foot in Newfoundland at all.
Todd Man Out 