Why Is BenDeLaCreme Ready to be Committed?

BenDeLaCreme premiered her latest show, "Ready To Be Committed," in 2019 before the pandemic in New York, before taking it to Provincetown for that summer. She had planned on touring the show in 2020, but the pandemic put an end to that. But now following a successful, if pandemic curtailed tour of her holiday show (with Jinkx Monsoon), as well as releasing a pandemic-era comedy special (also with Monsoon), DeLa returned to "Committed," which is currently on a national tour before bringing it to the UK.

For tour dates, follow this link.

In this case, the commitment is a legal one – DeLa is looking to plan her wedding, and nothing is going to stop her, even not having a groom.

"It's a relay race to the altar as DeLa dodges pervy Grindr suitors, bitchy wedding-cake-toppers, and the errant arrows of Cupid himself! Join the blushing bride as she tackles the pitfalls of love, marriage, and romance in a limited engagement about the limitations of engagements," reads the description on DeLa's website.

"Keeping you entertained while making you think about your place in the world is all a part of the BenDeLaCreme experience," said Forbes about her show. And Billboard raves that her work "...soars past entertainment and into the realm of theatrical art."

DeLa appeared on two seasons of the Emmy Award-winning "RuPaul's Drag Race," securing on her first appearance a spot among the show's "15 Fan Favorites of All Time." After being crowned "Miss Congeniality" on season 6, she returned to compete on the third season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars on VH1 where she garnered more challenge wins than any other competitor in the show's history, among other series records.

Since "RPDR," DeLa began a production company, BenDeLaCreme Presents. For their first production, DeLa collaborated with Jinkx Monsoon for a tour of "To Jesus, Thanks for Everything! -Jinkx and DeLa," which they co-wrote. In 2019, the queens hit the road again with a brand new holiday show titled, "All I Want for Christmas is Attention."

During the pandemic, BenDeLaCreme self-produced, directed and co-wrote her debut film, "The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Special" which became a critical and commercial success, leading to an exclusive licensing deal with Hulu. DeLa also made a cameo appearance along with Jinkx Monsoon in Hulu's biggest film debut to date, "The Happiest Season."

EDGE spoke to DeLa as they prepared for the tour recently in Los Angeles, where she now lives.

EDGE: Why did you call the show "Ready to be Committed?"

BenDeLaCreme: Well it's a show that's all about love and relationships and DeLa. It's my fourth solo show, but it's DeLa's first time delving into this kind of subject matter. So I wanted a title that both encapsulated DeLa's willingness to move into this serious new step of her life, but also the way in which it was bound to drive her insane by the end of the show. And hopefully, audiences will be ready to be committed, in one sense, or the other, by the end of its running time.

EDGE: Was it a challenge to get personal?

BenDeLaCreme: Well, all my shows are inspired by things that happen in my life regardless of how much anybody knows about me. But I don't do work that's autobiographical in a super immediate sense. This show was spawned by my personal feelings about love and relationships, but I really like to explore it from all angles to find what's universal within it. And when I write for DeLa, I see her as a contemporary, nongendered Everyman.

For instance, with this show being about love and relationships, I wanted to keep in mind the fact that in my audience there would be people who were single and sad about it. And there'll be people who are single and happy about it. And there'll be people who are in relationships and happy about them, but also in relationships and sad about them. I needed to write something that all of those people could take something away from. That's always been my goal, and the challenge is less about being personally revealing and more about how to really find that universal kind of grain of truth that everyone can relate to.

EDGE: How does Ben relate to DeLa like I mean, is she another part of your personality?

BenDeLaCreme: DeLa is a very blown up version of various parts of my personality. But also she's really a storytelling tool I mean, she's kind of relentlessly optimistic and gung-ho and energized and very quick to act, but not to think. As an artist and a writer, I'm kind of the opposite. I am painfully slow and meticulous. DeLa, on the other hand, has a fun, campy, cartoony energetic hook and I use that to get people to come along with me on a journey. But it is a journey that goes more into Ben's kind of darker, more complex way of seeing the world.

EDGE: Are there songs?

BenDeLaCreme: There's a lot of original music. And there is a lot of puppetry and elements of burlesque. I really like to hit it with all cylinders in terms of the trappings of a variety show. I want to give people the satisfaction of getting to see a lot of different types of performance styles, all packed into a tight timeline. But also to actually thread through the story. I don't think the audience necessarily expects to see those two things together. But, that's one of my favorite tricks to do.

EDGE: You have said that you thought yourself a drag queen from a very young age without knowing what drag was. But then you discovered it. Can you remember that moment?

BenDeLaCreme: It definitely happened in stages, not exactly one moment. Growing up in sort of a rural area, I was experimenting with makeup and using towels and bedsheets as dresses and things like that. This would have been in the 90s, about the same time that RuPaul was having her first sort of big moment. I remember not really understanding what a drag queen was; but I remember seeing her in interviews on red carpets on MTV and thinking: 'I don't know what's going on with this person, but there's something I heavily relate to.'

Later was when I discovered the "Wigstock" documentary and I got to see the all of the incredible stars, Lady Bunny and Jackie Beat, Candice Cayne, and all of the amazing queens who were performing in New York during a really exciting time the was full of so much like crazy, experimental beauty and performance. Seeing that documentary was probably the moment where I said, 'Oh, okay, there's a container out there for what I do. These people are my people. And there's a place for me. And the thing that I am already is a drag queen. I got to go find those people.'

EDGE: If you had experienced any homophobia in your career?

BenDeLaCreme: God, yes. Certainly, over the course of my lifetime, growing up in sort of a rural conservative part of Connecticut, was I was mercilessly teased and bullied as a kid growing up. And that of course sticks with everyone throughout their life. That messaging you get from an early age is pivotal for most of us. I experienced a lot of that growing up. And guess what? All the things I was told were bad and undesirable and gross and shameful about me are the things that I'm celebrated for now. That's something that I just think cannot be underplayed. It's funny because the older you get, the thicker your skin, but even with the success that I experienced now, and the people appreciating me for what I do now, I still see hateful comments from people online all the time. Fortunately, I am living a life that is so much more fun than what I imagined those people's lives to be, it's pretty easy to shrug off at this point.

EDGE: Success is the best revenge. During the pandemic, you made a holiday movie with Jinkx when you couldn't tour. Are you going to work more on television or film?

BenDeLaCreme: It's been incredible and joyous to be returning to live audiences and I get so much satisfaction from it. But the beauty of what happened during the pandemic was being forced into creating that movie. It was so rewarding that I really do want to continue working in that in that medium, but I definitely am still passionate about the live stage. I just got to find find the time to do it all. But I definitely don't think that's the last people have seen for me directing and producing on screen.

EDGE: Thinking of wider stage stuff. Are you hoping to be on Broadway at some time?

BenDeLaCreme: I've written I've written a lot of plays that have gone up in in Seattle. I think that it would be amazing to be to be on Broadway. For a long time people asked me if I'd be interested in that, but they sort of mostly considered me a performer. And my answer was, "I don't want to take someone else's words or do what someone else tells me to do on stage." But I would love to create something for Broadway.

EDGE: You have said that Pee-wee Herman was a big influence. Can you explain how?

BenDeLaCreme: Oh yeah, I mean, I think Paul Reubens is just brilliant. And what I love about Pee-wee is what I love about many of my favorite drag icons, such as Charles Busch. I think Pee-wee is a surreal, bizarre character who is embodied by Paul Reubens with so much fervor, intensity and conviction. And with "Pee-wee's Playhouse," he really revolutionized the variety show. I want to use those trappings to tell a story. "Pee-wee's Playhouse" was a variety show, but it was cloaked in these ingenious ways that felt fresh for young audiences. It felt like something that children could enjoy, and adults could enjoy. It bridged all these gaps, because it was it tapped into a sense of nostalgia, but also a wonder and strangeness.

EDGE: You mentioned Charles Busch. How was he an influence?

BenDeLaCreme: I had never had the pleasure of seeing Charles Busch perform his stuff live; but I when "Psycho Beach Party" was adapted as a film. I remember seeing that I was living in Boston at the time. And I saw it at like a small local theater with like a very small audience. It just blew my mind, because it was all the references that I had loved as as a kid. He touches on a million different genres, these things that I just loved growing up. And there's something about his stage shows and his films in particular that speak to this bizarre collective, queer aesthetic. No matter how far away from each other we are, and how disconnected many of us feel, we can all find these same things so delightful. It's just so joyous and over the top. It's camp, but what Busch does is take a camp seriously. You can never dismiss it as silly, or it ceases to matter. You have to treat it with reverence so the audience can root for the good guys to win or boo the bad guys. That takes a very special skill set – to be able to take camp seriously.

EDGE: And we're almost out of time, but why do you think "RuPaul's Drag Race" has such a great cultural importance?

BenDeLaCreme: Well I mean, I think it's the messages that are inherent to drag, that is, expressing your own individuality unapologetically. And it's also about taking the bits and bobs of pop culture and the world around you and arranging them by your own rules into something that reflects something truly unique about you.

I mean, we live in a messed up time, where we're seeing the results of very misguided leadership and horrible worldwide events that are making people realize that we have to define things for ourselves. We have to, we have to be bold and figure out what is true for us. Drag is taking what people have told you was negative about you and spinning it into something beautiful, and I think that's more necessary than ever.

BenDeLaCreme in "Ready to be Committed" is currently on tour. For dates, visit DeLa's website.