RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE – WERQ THE WORLD 2022 TOUR
Where: Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre, 1925 Blanshard St.
When: Friday, Sept. 2, 8 p.m.
Tickets: $75 from or 250-220-7777
More than 50 cities across North America have been a part of RuPaul’s Drag Race – Werq the World 2022 Tour this summer, further adding to the growing popularity of the RuPaul universe and brand.
The popular reality TV show and its various spinoffs have earned several dozen Primetime Emmy Awards since 2009, including a remarkable 11 for its creator and host, who is the most culturally significant drag queen in history.
RuPaul’s many brands can do no wrong at the moment, including Werq the World, which is headed to Victoria on Friday for a performance with precious few tickets remaining. That isn’t surprising: The city has been a hotbed for drag activity in recent years, and is now a regular stop on tours by major drag stars.
Toronto’s Courtney Constable, who is the tour manager for the Canadian Werq the World dates, is happy to see sa国际传媒 finally get a leg up in the drag world.
“There was a time in drag, even when Drag Race was popular, that people [in sa国际传媒] weren’t getting to see a lot of the queens they loved from TV,” Constable said from a Calgary tour stop, where the show was scheduled to play Wednesday. “sa国际传媒 just didn’t have the touring power and the market for it.”
Werq the World brings seven queens to the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre, including host Jaida Essence Hall, who won RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2020. She will be joined by former contestants Lady Camden, Kim Chi, Naomi Smalls, Jorgeous, Rosé and Vanjie.
Constable is one of two Werq the World tour managers (the other is Jamie-Lynn Smith, her partner in the Toronto queer media collective, Drag Coven) tasked with keeping the aforementioned in order. That can be difficult, depending on the market as the rotating cast includes queens who jump on and off the tour at various points, depending on individual commitments.
“When you’re working with these people who have made wonderful careers for themselves, and they are really in high demand, we have to work with their schedules a little bit and do what’s best for them, not just the best for us,” Constable said.
The Werq the World storyline revolves around a time machine, which transports each performer to a different era (some get there by flying through the rafters, strapped to a harness.) Costumes changes — of course — are also a big part of the production, and require clockwork-like precision. But everything has been operating smoothly for the production’s two-month North American run, Constable said.
Werq the World 2022 got underway July 8 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The tour’s Canadian leg started Aug. 17 in Hamilton, Ontario, and wraps with two shows Sunday in Vancouver. Constable said it won’t be long before an offshoot of RuPaul’s Drag Race is back on the road in some capacity. It’s that popular.
The treat, according to Constable, has been “watching drag come into bigger spaces politically, economically, and socially” in recent years. “It’s not just being done in little dive bars anymore. It’s in big theatres, with real production. It is becoming a legitimate moving cog in the overall fabric of entertainment.”
The platform of TV played a huge role in the mainstreaming of drag culture, greatly benefiting from RuPaul’s Drag Race, which The Guardian newspaper named one of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century. “The more people realized it was more than ‘Man put on dress, act like woman,’ it became so much more [popular],” Constable said.
“People realized through watching the show, and things that resulted from the show, that mainstream society has been stealing from niche things like drag — whether it’s language references or style cues — for decades and decades. It’s not this scary, weird art form filled with strange people, it is something that has been underpinning a lot of pop culture for years. It was more familiar than people realize.”
On July 28, members of the iconic Radio City Rockettes made a surprise appearance during New York City’s Werq the World tour stop. Previously, former Drag Race contestant DeJa Skye performed with the Rockettes in a TikTok video, kickstarting the relationship between the two groundbreaking brands.
That development came as zero surprise to Constable, who makes her living in the drag world.
“When people go beyond the [TV] show they will see that there’s this whole growing network. I feel like I could go anywhere and in such-and-such city someone is going to know someone and I’m going to find a drag show.”
