Making Drag: The Musical: Liza, crash makeup tutorials, and a lot of Alaska

The creative process of Drag: The Musical started back in 2016 — long before the success stories of queens like Peppermint originating a principal role in Head Over Heels; Marcia Marcia Marcia starring in the Broadway revival of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club; Nina West playing Edna Turnblad in the touring production of Hairspray; and Jinkx Monsoon's various scene-stealing roles in Chicago, Little Shop of Horrors, and The Pirates of Penzance.

Fans who watched Alaska's journey on Drag Race and kept up her career after the show should know that she's not only a bona fide performer, but she also has an irrepressible entrepreneurial spirit. While creating Drag: The Musical was an ambitious undertaking, it is actually very on-brand for the All Stars 2 winner to not only audition for parts on Broadway shows but create her very own musical.

"I feel really proud of this show. I feel really accomplished, and I love it," Alaska gushes. "I'm always doing a little bit of everything — that's just how I've always been. I think that's why drag worked out for me, and why drag found me, and why it made sense for me to do drag.

"When you look at someone like RuPaul, she does a little bit of everything: she's done film, she's done TV, she's done music, she's written books, she puts her face on fucking chocolate bars, and she's not afraid to do it all," she adds. "I feel the same way, and I feel like drag allows me to do that."

The last few years have ushered in a very queer era for Broadway with shows like Oh, Mary! by Cole Escola, Jonathan Groff's Tony Award-winning performance in the revival of Merrily We Roll Along, the critically acclaimed Appropriate starring Sarah Paulson, a significant increase in drag artists being in high-profile musical productions, and even an uptick in ticket sales for the stage production of Wicked after its incredibly popular (and very LGBTQ-inclusive) film adaptation with out stars Cynthia Erivo and Jonathan Bailey.

However, even after touring the world, publishing a memoir (My Name's Yours, What's Alaska?), releasing original music, starting a brand-new drag pageant system, dropping two new episodes of the Race Chaser podcast every week, and running the Moguls of Media (MOM) podcast network cocreated with fellow Drag Race alum Willam, Alaska isn't afraid to address how challenging live musical theater can be.

"Doing eight shows a week, girl…" she teases. "I don't know who...I guess theater people just have this special type of mental illness; we do this to ourselves! We have to be really aware of our bodies and our voices. That was the biggest adjustment: to make sure you're warmed up physically, vocally, and even energetically."

Alaska adds, "I mean, fuck, I'm either laying down or sleeping any time that I'm not doing the show or podcasting. If anyone has plans or invites me to something, I pretty much can't go; I already have plans every night."

Thankfully, the hard work has been paying off. On December 31, Alaska was featured in The New York Times to discuss her creative process and starring role in the musical. In October 2024, none other than Liza Minnelli joined the show as an executive producer — calling Drag: The Musical "a work of art" and teasing audiences to "join" her at every performance of the show, according to Playbill.

Alaska lights up when asked to talk about Minnelli.

"We were looking for a voice," she explains. "We had this voiceover narration part, and we wanted it to be somebody who's iconic, recognizable, and sort of a queer icon…but also a theater icon. We were tossing around a few names, and there were a few people in the mix. Liza was one of them. I was like, 'I'm going to believe this when I see it, because I'm not counting my chickens here.'"

Alaska continues, "But she didn't just say yes to do the voiceover part. She also said, 'I want you to write another voiceover part; I want to do more than just one. And I also want to be a producing partner on it.' So, I mean, she's just like an angel on Earth angel. People use the word 'iconic' a lot, but she actually is that."

Alaska describes the backstage dynamics of Drag: The Musical as the best time ever: "Our dressing room is hilarious and preposterous. There are so many of us shoved into this room, and we're kind of all on top of each other, but I wouldn't want it really to be any other way."

"I sit right next to Luxx Noir London, and our language is basically just speaking to one another in quotes from Drag Race," Alaska remarks. "Not the well-known quotes from Drag Race…but the deep, esoteric ones. No one, if they read a transcript of what we were saying, would have any idea what the fuck we were talking about. That is our language with one another."

Upon further reflection, Alaska adds that Jan is also "up there" with Luxx in terms of communicating through deep-cut Drag Race quotes and references. "Like, knowing line for line, word for word, shit that people have said on that show," Alaska giggles.

"And then Jujubee is sitting there like, 'Wait, where is that from?' We're like, 'It's from Drag Race. It's from your season.' And Jujubee is like, 'Oh, OK. Cool.' You know, of all the seasons Jujubee has been on," she laughs.

When it comes to actors like Nick Adams (Fire Island, The Other Two), who had already gotten in drag for certain projects — but never on this level of fabulosity — Alaska recognizes and praises the additional hurdles that he and others faced to perform in Drag: The Musical side by side with professional drag queens.

"We have a few people in the show who aren't drag queens. Their career path is not being drag queens, it's being actors," Alaska says. "In L.A., we had a makeup artist, Aurora Sexton, doing their makeup. She actually designed the makeup for this production as well. But out here [in New York City], that wasn't possible. It's eight shows a week, so that just wasn't a part of it."

Alaska highlights that Adams, along with other actors like Nick Laughlin and Liisi LaFontaine, all had to literally learn how to do their own makeup for each and every show once Drag: The Musical transferred to NYC. "And that's really a lot. Especially when you're sharing the stage with someone like Jujubee, who's just a drag icon," Alaska notes. "It was daunting. I mean, I can't believe how quickly they learned."

"When I started drag, I had a few years of being allowed to kind of look like shit. That's part of the process. But these individuals in the show did not have the luxury of looking like shit. They just looked gorgeous from day one."

Drag: The Musical is now playing at the New World Stages (Stage 3) in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit DragTheMusical.com.