BenDeLaCreme Returns with Annual Holiday Production

Sweet as pie and sharp as cheddar, the terminally delightful BenDeLaCreme is taking the stage once again alongside gal pal Jinkx Monsoon in a post-apocalypse-mas extravaganza that will certainly make this yuletide gayer than ever.

After a year of doom, gloom, and Zoom, the global drag icons best known for competing on RuPaul’s Drag Race have risen from the rubble to unearth your favorite holiday tradition with a 25-city tour of The Return of The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show, LIVE! across the U.S., U.K., and Canada. Produced by DeLa’s production company BenDeLaCreme Presents, this run marks the biggest tour for Jinkx and DeLa’s holiday show since its successful inception.

Returning with their signature whip-smart comedy, brand-new songs, and a few perennial favorites, the show will make its annual stop at Denver’s Paramount Theatre December 14. Tickets are on sale now.

OFM caught up with DeLa to talk more about this year’s production, how her holiday shows initially began, and her partnership with Jinkx.

Can you begin by telling us what audiences can expect from The Return of The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show, LIVE!?
It’s so exciting for us to finally be back onstage after two years because my last live tour was in 2019. I think folks who have seen the show in the past can expect the same live stage shenanigans that you would expect from us, and if you haven’t seen it before, we bring a lot of fun and holiday treats, but also our kind of patented critical observation of the holidays. We look at some of the harder aspects so that we can truly enjoy it, and truly find the joy in the holidays for people who are queer or otherwise feel alienated to the holiday messaging we are all inundated with.

The show itself, it’s our live original music, some parody of the current pop canon, and a lot of new material, segments, jokes, and narratives. We always like to mix it up with stuff that is both of the moment, talking about where we’re at right now collectively as performers and an audience, but also that sense of escapism where people can come back and see the holiday show that they count on us to bring and make them feel joyous every year.

What have you missed the most about touring and performing in front of live audiences?
Oh my God, everything! I have been going nuts these last two years missing the live experience, because there is nothing else like it. If anything, the pandemic has been a great source to me. We made our holiday special during the pandemic, and it was amazing making a film. I truly enjoyed it, and I would love to do more in the future, but it’s a totally different form.

When you’re live on stage, you’re riding the energy of the room. It’s an energetic conversation with the people who are there, and the show will morph every night. We are constantly changing things, finding new things, finding things that are specific to the evening, venue, and crowd that’s there that night. It’s that spontaneity, and I think Jinkx and I are well suited to it because every year, our chemistry and ability to work together as a team becomes stronger. I can’t wait to be on the road with her and get that wonderful energy that we only get from live audiences again. I have missed it so much.

What is the secret behind your fantastic partnership with Jinkx?
[Laughs] I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I’m not really a fate believer, but I don’t know what else to attribute it to. We met around 2007, 2008, and it was this instant intense respect for each other’s work and drive for our craft. It was like, we have to work together, and the friendship kind of formed out of that. We have such similar sensibilities, but complementary strengths. Together, it’s like we build each other up in these ways. She helps me be better at things; I help boost her in certain regards, and there is so much trust and genuine love.

This run marks the biggest tour of your holiday show since its inception. Did you ever think it would turn into this big of a success?
We certainly hoped so, but no. As an artist and producer, you kind of have to be like, OK, we’re going to focus and do the best thing we can do. If you get too focused on what the long-term goal is, then you’re distracting yourself from just making the best thing in the moment. Part of me is like, I never would have dreamed it would be this successful and get this big, and there’s another part of me that’s like, it makes sense because we really care about it. We really love it, and we really work hard to make something that resonates and connects with people. I am both completely floored and shocked, but I also feel a sense of pride. It’s an amazing feeling.

What initially made you and Jinkx begin a Christmas-themed show three years ago?
I have been doing Christmas content at least since Jinkx and I met. I did holiday shows in Seattle for many years that would have month-long runs, and I initially started to work with Jinkx because I cast her in those shows. For me, the desire to make holiday shows came out of my actual extreme dislike of the holidays. While I enjoyed them when I was a very young child, when I became older, I recognized how dysfunctional my family was and how deeply unhappy they were despite the fact they were kind of performing togetherness. They just didn’t like each other that much.

Also, I was such a weirdo, and none of them really understood me. It didn’t feel fun to be together with this group of people who I felt constantly on edge around. I continued to celebrate the holidays with my family, but my out was when I started making shows and had to perform on Christmas. Like, sorry, I’m working. I can’t come home anymore. So, that’s part of it, but also, if your traditions don’t work for you, make your own.

That is the message I am trying to impart to people, and that was the message I taught myself with these holiday shows. When Jinkx and I decided to come and create something together, we both knew that message was the heart of it, but together, we could tell it in a whole new way.

Is it challenging to create new concepts and ideas to make each production fresh and exciting?
Dear God, yes! It’s like I have been shuffling through candy cane imagery for 12 years. What more is there to say about Rudolph? It does feel like that every single year. I think that’s it, I’m out, but I do think it helps that Jinkx and I have such a great generative spirit together. There are always new things to find. There are always things about the world around us that are influencing how we look at things.

Again, it’s like we are reemerging from this collective trauma. We are all getting used to being back in spaces together, certainly being back in these big theaters together. That’s going to feel very new, so that influences how we are going to talk about this stuff and how we’re going to combat it. We have the classic imagery that we love and makes us nostalgic, happy, and comfortable, and then we have the current state of affairs. How we talk about it is always going to change.

Is there any message you would like to give to those LGBTQ people who are still struggling and may not be able to spend the holidays with their chosen families this year again?
Absolutely. It’s such a difficult thing, and again, the holidays are so laden with imagery and sentiments that can be alienating to queer folks in general. Fortunately, we do get to make our own traditions and find our own families, but we’ve had to spend that time away, and many people still will. The fact that any of us are ever able to get there to begin with, to make our own lives, find our own people, and form our own bonds, if we’ve made it through so much of our life before we ever got to do that, we certainly have the strength to make it through these years.

Queer people have always been very ingenious about finding their own ways to not just cope, but to make a negative situation beautiful, fresh, and new. Even if you don’t have some of your outside resources that you’ve come to count on, remember that those resources initially came from within yourself and are still there.

Although COVID messed everything up last year, you still gave us a treat with The Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Special on Hulu. That was the first film project directed, co-written, and executive produced by you and your production company, BenDeLaCreme Presents. Do you have any upcoming films in the works?
I am very excited about the idea of jumping into another film project, but it’s also like, holy crap, we’re back on the road! There’s the holiday tour, then I have a bunch of other tours that got rescheduled, and then I have my solo tour coming up—all this stuff we couldn’t do for the last two years; I’m trying to do it all in 2022. I was recently talking about how I was going to try and cram in a film production, and everyone around me is shaking me saying, ‘Stop it! You’re going to make yourself crazy!’ So, I have the thoughts and I am working on some baby screenplay development ideas, and we will see how they shake out as we try to do everything possible now that the world is reopening.

Sounds like 2022 is going to be a busy year for you.
I will probably get to glimpse my house for a few days here and there in 2022, but honestly, that is a welcomed change after 2020 [laughs].

Connect with DeLa by following her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, or visit her official website. For updates about the tour and to purchase tickets, visit JinkxandDela.com, and follow the queens on TikTok for behind-the-scenes antics.  

Photos Courtesy of Jiji Lee