Sasha Velour, ‘Drag Race’ icon, is coming to Philly

Sasha Velour, the much-beloved RuPaul’s Drag Race winner and Brooklyn-based visual artist, is coming to the Kimmel Cultural Campus this week for a live show, one stop on an international tour for her new book, The Big Reveal: An Illustrated Manifesto of Drag.

Velour, a brainy, high-concept performer, is best known for the Ru-veal she pulled off during a lip-synch to Whitney Houston’s “So Emotional” during the Season 9 finale of Drag Race. Peeling off one glove and then another, she showered the stage with rose petals. As Houston’s voice peaks with the lyric “I get so emotional baby,” Velour lifted off her red wig, showering her bald head with another flurry of petals — the crowd went wild. (Wigs are central to drag, but Velour’s baldness is a trademark — she shaves her head every day in honor of her mother, who died from cancer.)

The A.V. Club called the 2017 performance “gorgeous and weird and totally magical”; that summer it led to a 500% increase in streaming of the Houston song, according to Nielsen music.

Velour’s Snatch Game character — a quippy version of Marlene Dietrich — has also been called “underrated.”

Her stint at RuPaul’s Drag Race came as a result of the wild popularity of NightGowns, the monthly drag revue she hosts in Brooklyn. With “an ultra-diverse cast of local drag queens, kings and every kind of performer in between,” NightGowns became — according to Paper magazine — a “cultural touchstone” for queer nightlife.

“Usually, for an up-and-coming queen, your only option was to go to drag competitions to get noticed,” Velour said to Paper. “I wanted to do a party where every performer felt their winning moment.”

The show’s popularity even inspired a behind-the-scenes documentary series of the same name, which was adapted to stream first on Quibi and then Roku.

Since winning Drag Race, Velour has toured a “one-queen drag show” called “Smoke and Mirrors” and built up a loyal fan base on Instagram and YouTube.

Her first book, part-memoir and part “radical history of drag,” is what she wishes she had read growing up. It arrives at a moment when drag performers are being increasingly targeted by conservative groups across the country, part of an ongoing backlash to expanding LGBTQ rights.

“I think Pride is meant to be coalescing around political issues,” Velour said to Paper. “I think we should still be protesting against police violence, against anti-trans legislation, protesting for affordable medicine and medical care and housing.”

Once called “too intellectual for drag,” Velour has always had a cerebral approach to performance. Raised by a history professor father, she jokes that she tries “to write an essay every time I speak.” After graduating from Vassar College in 2009, she won a Fulbright to study queer culture in Russia. Publicly, she said she was studying the role of art in politics there.

“A drag queen is part idea and part human being,” Velour told the New York Times in 2021. “And the idea part is an idea of fluidity and understanding and humanity beyond labels.”

The Philly show will feature drag king comedian Murray Hill, new performances, an audience Q + A, and a book signing.

Staff writer Beatrice Forman contributed to this article.

Sasha Velour “The Big Reveal Live Show!” Perelman Theater on the Kimmel Cultural Campus, May 18, at 8 p.m.