PTown Report ’26: Drag Queens, Pedicab Hunks, and Joy Behar!

BY MICHAEL MUSTO | The gay gem of the ocean, Provincetown, Massachusetts, is a utopian resort town where drag shows, seafood, and tourists combine for a wondrous escapist getaway. There have been changes there—my favorite al fresco lunch spot, Bubbala’s by the Bay, is having its last season before being razed for something more upscale, and the sprawling entertainment complex Crown & Anchor has changed hands—and the new owner supposedly has five boyfriends, bully for him. (Gossip is queen in Ptown.)

But smaller, boutiquey hotels still exist, like my fave, Crew’s Quarters Boarding House, which is a charmingly sexy ode to maritime manliness, complete with a fireplace lobby and an outdoor deck on every floor. And the entertainment around town seems better than ever. There’s even a new speakeasy called The Keyhole, which you interestingly get to by walking through the barber shop in the Provincetown Inn. The rustic cabaret nook has been spotlighting local singer/songwriters and the insidery peeps who worship them. It’s a real find, if you can find it! And the late-night pedicab ride back to the hotel, captained by a shirtless international hunk, was scarily appealing.

Here’s who else Paper’s Mickey Boardman and I applauded on our trip earlier this month:

NINA WEST: Oh, Scary! at Post Office Cafe & Cabaret | Nina—from Season 11 of RuPaul’s Drag Race (She won Miss Congeniality) and Season 9 of All Stars—turns out a marvelously entertaining and dark melange consisting of costume changes, drag name dropping, audience interaction, videos, puppets, ghosts, a singing vagina, and a capsule history of Provincetown, with great thanks offered to the Portuguese, the artists, and the queers who’ve made the community so brilliant.

“My body type is not allowed on Fire Island,” Nina claims in the show, but she’s comfortable in Ptown, so her reveals are, let’s say, revealing. “I’m already down to my underwear,” she remarked, mid-change. “What is this, the Gifford House?” (Nina had better watch out. I was banned from that very Ptown hotel complex for writing that they have sex parties. When I nicely took the name Gifford House out of the article, the dumb manager was still mad and screeched, “You left in anal!”)

Nina—initially dressed as Mrs. Lincoln—compares her show with Oh, Mary!, deadpanning, “The big difference is you were able to get a ticket tonight.” She ends with one of the Oh, Mary! finale numbers, which is just perfect. A talented singer and great comic, Nina should be on Broadway.

Through August 25 at Post Office Cafe & Cabaret (303 Commercial St.). Click here for tickets ($44 general admission; $54, VIP). Click here for venue info. Click here for artist info.

SUTTON LEE SEYMOUR: Super-Ma’am: Saving the World…Through Drag! at The Art House | New York favorite Sutton Lee Seymour delivers with a show that teaches us that we need some superheroic behavior right now to tame enemies both outside and within and to also make us laugh to get through it all. She starts out by warning us that, “If you came here for Beyoncé, what you’re getting is Bea Arthur.” In a blue body suit with a red flowing cape and red vinyl boots, she is Super-Ma’am and able to belt standards, crack jokes, and also bring up an audience member to put in makeshift drag and play Lois Lane for a frolicsome number. Sutton’s backup dancers, the Super Powers, are very game (one of them even does aerial stunts), and the evening’s highlight has the hyper energetic star dressed half like Superman and half like bald baddie Lex Luthor, continually changing the direction she’s facing while doing a medley of Broadway-style duets that end in mutual devotion. Sutton puts the “her” back in heroic!

Through September 12 at The Art House (214 Commercial St.). Click here for tickets ($39.01 general admission; $49.66, VIP). Click here for venue info. To follow the artist on Instagram, click here.

SAPPHIRA CRISTAL: Mother Knows Breast at Pilgrim House | Sapphira Cristal—from Season 16 of Drag Race—is a classically trained opera singer who veers from highbrow to raunchy and back again. Refreshingly bristling with anger (she makes Rose’s Turn into a number about the pain of coming in second on a certain reality show), she ultimately finds resolution with self love and acceptance, thereby becoming number one. Sapphira said she resents always being called “mother” by observers and finds that the appellation can make you lonely, “like a Sharon Needles meet and greet.” From a bellowing basso profundo to a high soprano, in a sparkly blue showgirl outfit with rotating titties, Sapphira’s not just Peppermint meets Shequida, she’s a bold, original talent who is eminently worth watching. 

Through August 19 at Pilgrim House (336 Commercial St.). Click here for tickets ($40 general admission; VIP, add $10; Gold Circle, add $35). Click here for venue info. Click here for artist info.

THE JACK OF HEARTS CLUB at Provincetown Theater | It’s the last day of summer 1963, six years before Stonewall. An informal family has formed between the workers and customers at an LGTBQ bar in Provincetown. Virtually all the characters are nice, so this almost seems kind of like a gay version of Cheers (Queers?). But there are dramatic tugs going on, particularly how the owner’s daughter is considering moving to New York to live with her girlfriend and be a full-time poet. The outside world is hinted at as a place where queers have to live in the shadows, though the chance to face it with someone you love makes it way more than bearable.

The wonderful cast performs a revue at the club, accompanied by Jon Richardson, who wrote the show and whose character is having his own romantic crisis. In Cabaret style, the songs reflect each bar regular’s personality and narrative. Mary Callanan is flawless as the owner who understands the need for personal caution, and so are Brittany Rolfs as her yearning daughter, James Jackson, Jr. as the MC who escaped southern Missouri and is now, self-admittedly, “fabulous,” and Joao Santos as his sassy sidekick. Richardson’s score is alternately lovely and rousing and the whole show floats along, sweetly avoiding heavy-handed posturing. The resulting work is a sold-out smash.

PS: Before the performance, Artistic Director David Drake told the crowd that Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner have given permission for them to adapt Lily’s old one-person vehicle, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, into a show starring 12 different women. The Whoopi Monologues has clearly started a trend.

Through September 6 at Provincetown Theater (238 Bradford St.). All remaining performances are sold out. The Box Office maintains a waitlist for each show. For waitlist placement and procedures, call 508-487-7487. Click here for venue info. For the play’s Instagram, click here.

EDIE: Are You Smarter Than a Drag Queen? at The Art House | Provincetown’s answer to Cyd Charisse, Edie is a fabulous dancer straight out of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In meets Bob Fosse, and at The Art House, she not only entertains with some patriotic numbers for our 250th anniversary, she hosts a game show that pits people’s intellects against a drag queen’s. She brings up three audience members, one at a time, and asks them—and a queen—-questions about American history. When I attended, the drag queen was Delta Miles, who not only did a hot version of Let Me Entertain You, she won the game show. Edie kept things moving nicely and the audience was the real winner.

Through September 23 at The Art House (214 Commercial St.). Click here for tickets ($39.01 general admission, $49.66 VIP). Click here for venue info. Click here for artist info.

JACKIE COX: Beam Me Up, Jackie! at Red Room | Jackie Cox laments the state of the world and promises to take us out of it, which she does via great singing and shtick. A longtime Star Trek nerd, Jackie was thrilled to meet Whoopi Goldberg on Drag Race and beyond tickled to appear in drag on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. She knows that lettuce gives you diarrhea, but it might be OK since this is the Ozempic era and no one eats anyway. In one psychic segment, audience members are given a free shot if their pre-written queries for Jackie—to predict the future with—are chosen. (I asked if Kristi Noem’s husband will transition and Jackie replied, “Who cares?” I let her keep the shot.) A poignant song has Jackie desperate to make her mama proud. She makes us ALL proud with her stellar showmanship.

Through September 13 at Red Room (258 Commercial St.). Click here for tickets ($42.50 general admission; $52.50, VIP). Click here for venue info. To follow Jackie on Instagram, click here.

A WOMAN NAMED CARLOS: The New Classic at Post Office Cafe & Cabaret | Entering in a Love Boat-ready ensemble consisting of a shiny gold dress and a sculpted red-hairdo, A Woman Named Carlos whirled onto the stage like a spinning top on steroids. With top-notch vocal chops, intense physicality, and a pissy agenda, Carlos (who in New York went by the name Carlos the Uber Driver) sassily told us that she aims to become “the new classic” to match the old legends. But the Karen-like character is humorously out of touch with new trends, hard as she tries. What followed were extreme diva interpretations, bitchy audience interactions, and observations like, “Coke was better when it didn’t have fentanyl in it.” I must say I fell for this lady right off the bat (-shit).

Through November 28 at Post Office Cafe & Cabaret (303 Commercial St.). Click here for tickets ($39, general admission; $49, VIP). Click here for venue info. To follow A Woman Named Carlos on Instagram, click here. 

PUPPETRY OF THE PENIS at The Art House | Ever want to twist your privates so they look like a baby kangaroo, a hamburger, or the Loch Ness Monster? Did you also want to do that so it’s projected on a large screen for an audience that leers and cheers? I didn’t think so, but fortunately, Robert Ryan and Jay Hardee are willing to do all that, and with a lot of gusto, in the revival of Puppetry of the Penis at Art House, produced by Christopher Kenney (a/k/a Edie).

Puppetry was first performed in Australia in 1998 and through the years it has become a classic, sort of like Girth of a Salesman or August: Sausage County. (All right, I’ll stop, lol.) The audience of mostly bottoms delights to the guys’ genital interpretations and the result isn’t exactly sexy, it’s more funny and freeing. Don’t try any of those tricks at home, however. You could hurt yourself.

Through September 13 at The Art House (214 Commercial St.). Click here for tickets ($39.01 general admission, $49.66, VIP). Click here for venue info. For show info, click here.

JOY BEHAR IN CONVERSATION WITH JUDY GOLD: August 9 at Provincetown Town Hall | One of the most gratifying Provincetown nights in ages had comic Judy Gold interviewing Joy Behar on stage and unearthing a goldmine of hilarity and truth in a Mark Cortale-produced benefit for Sandy Hook Promise. At one point, Joy said that she used to be a teacher and was once assigned dropouts who were really rough. “They were the kind of kids who set their parents on fire,” said Joy,” and they were sent to me to teach them ‘who’ from ‘whom.’ ‘Whom do you want to kill next?’ ” When Joy ended up as a stand-up comedian in the Village, she noticed who most of her admirers happened to be, so she made a T-shirt that said, “If you recognize me, you’re gay.”

Joy then spoke admiringly of Barbara Walters, though she also remembered being a part-time panelist on The View and becoming so popular that they upped her to five days a week. Recalled Joy, “Barbara got jealous and decided SHE had to be on every day too.” Joy also gave us potent memories of walking out on guest Bill O’Reilly, offending Mike Pence with her commentary about Jesus talking to him (“That’s schizophrenia”), and noticing when some guy darted out to fuss with guest JD Vance’s jacket. “Is that your fluffer?” Joy asked the Vice President, wryly. Rather than bristle, Vance simply replied, “No, I think it’s a bodyguard.”

DINA MARTINA: Absolute Dina Martina at Crown & Anchor | “I know we’ve all had wonderful experiences, but I’ve had more,” says the surreally funny Dina Martina in a show that spotlights her zany comedy, gargly, octave-leaping vocals, and absurdist pronunciations. Drastically reinterpreting standards from I’m So Excited to Gentle on My Mind, Dina was a real “jift” onstage, also shining in a video where she has Miracle Whip for lunch with a faceless friend named Doreen. Another highlight had Dina regaling us with tales of working at a Las Vegas adult theater, where the movies included Hairy Pooter and Any Hole. (“That was Diane Keaton’s Oscar winner.”). Jorjuss!

Through September 19 at Crown & Anchor (247 Commercial St.). Click here for tickets ($43.51 general admission, $54.06, VIP). Click here for venue info. For artist info, click here.

MICHAEL MUSTO | Musto is a columnist, pop cultural and political pundit, NYC nightlife chronicler, author, and the go-to gossip responsible for the long-running (1984-2013) Village Voice column, La Dolce Musto. His work appears on ChelseaCommunityNews.com, W42St.com, and other sites. Follow Musto on Instagram, via @michaelmusto.

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