Celebrate Halloween with Ginger Minj at Hokus Pokus Live!
Bear World Magazine cover girl and RuPaul’s Drag Race royalty Ginger Minj has been keeping plenty busy since last we saw her on our TV screens for All Stars 6. In addition to appearing in Hocus Pocus 2, the drag legend has consistently been touring around the country and appearing in stage productions like La Cage aux Folles, Golden Gals Live! and most recently The Broad’s Way which she performed in residency this summer in Provincetown. And now, just in time for spooky season, Ginger is hitting the road again with Hokus Pokus Live!
Hokus Pokus Live! will kick off the Halloween season in style, hitting the road starting October 4th with a one-of-a kind show, directed by and starring Ginger Minj as Winifred along with her sisters Gidget Galore as Mary and Aria Hard as Sarah. A longtime lover of the films, Ginger is tapping into her creative prowess with this innovative and hilarious live event. The tour will kick off in Palm Springs, before hitting major markets throughout the U.S., including Los Angeles, San Diego, New York City and Provincetown, MA.
Plus, catch various special guests across the country including Jai Rodriguez from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy in Palm Springs and San Diego, Emerson Collins from Bravo’s The Peoples Couch in Los Angeles, and Michael Kirk Lane from 92Y School of Music in New York. The tour wraps in Provincetown just in time for Spooky Bear Weekend! (For more information and to get your tickets click HERE.)
We sit down with Ginger ahead of the tour to get all the juicy details.
John Hernandez (JH): Hi Ginger! Thanks for joining me! What can audiences expect from Hokus Pokus Live! ? What is the premise of the show?
Ginger Minj (GM): Hokus Pokus Live! is everything you could ever want as a fan of the movies, Drag Race, music and pop culture! The quotes and characters and gags you’re familiar with are all there, but woven together into an all new adventure.
JH: What is it about Hocus Pocus and the Sanderson Sisters that inspired you to create an original show?
GM: I grew up with the movie! I saw it several times in the theater, then convinced my mom to rent it on pay-per-view (remember that?!) so I could tape it and watch it every day. I used to put on this long green tee-shirt my grandpa had, an orange towel on my head, and carry around an old beat-up copy of the encyclopedia. As I got older and fell into the drag world, it gave me a chance to play each of these powerful, funny, fantastical women through the years. Bette, Kathy and SJP have acknowledged many times that drag queens are the ones who kept these characters alive all this time. We all want to revisit them this time of year, and with this show we get to do that in a whole new way.
JH: Tell us about meeting Bette Midler on the set of Hocus Pocus 2. Has she seen your Winifred?
GM: I actually blame Bette for this show! We got fairly close during the two weeks we were on set together and she taught me a lot about lighting and angles and advocating for the best product. On the last day, she came up to me in our holding area as they were fixing some lights on set, and said, “I like the way you do me. Take this and do something with it … a stage show or something. What you bring to it is special.” So I did! I mean, who can argue with Bette Midler?
JH: I know you’ll be working through it this year but how do you celebrate Spooky Season if it all? What are some of your favorite Halloween themed activities? And what’s your favorite scary movie?
GM: I’d say I’m probably more into the overarching themes of Fall than of Halloween in particular. As a born and raised Floridian, I’ve always been infatuated with the changing of the leaves, and pumpkin patches, and hot apple cider. It was kind of exotic to me in a way, you know? So when I’m on the road I try to experience that as much as possible, and when I’m at home I turn down the AC and try to evoke it as much as possible.
Halloween has been dubbed “Gay Christmas” (which is silly to me, because the way I do Christmas is Gay Christmas!) so I’m usually working, which is absolutely fine with me! Especially since it’s the one night a year most new drag queens are born and I get to see them take their first wobbly, high heeled steps.
I’m not much of a horror fan unless there’s a campy, comedic edge to it, but I’ve always loved the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, particularly Freddy’s Revenge (part 2), also known as “the Gay one”. It’s fun, it’s funny, it’s scary, and it’s so refreshing to see a male-identifying scream queen!
JH: I notice that the tour ends during Spooky Bear in Provincetown. Tell us about your relationship with the bear community. Do you identify as a bear?
GM: I do! Once the makeup and wigs come off, I’m just a cubby little furball, and I absolutely love it! I’m in a throuple where my husband is definitely Daddy Bear, I’m Mama Bear, and our boyfriend, Michael, is Baby Bear. I’ve worked many Bear events over the years and they’re always the best because everyone just feels so comfortable in their own skin. When that love for yourself radiates out, it encourages others to do the same.
JH: Tell us about your onstage sisters and costars Gidget Galore and Aria Hard.
GM: Aria is my drag daughter, adopted three years ago when we starred in a production of La Cage aux Folles together in Chicago. She’s beautiful, talented, and stupidly funny which is such a killer combination! Mark my words, she’s going to be a big star.
For anyone that has paid any amount of attention to my life over the years, they’ll know that Gidget Galore has been my bestie since we both started drag 22 years ago! She’s the yin to my yang, the peanut butter to my chocolate, the Rose Nylund to my Blanche Devereaux! She sings, she acts, she’s hilariously funny AND she makes 95% of our costumes.
JH: Anything else we have not covered that you’d like to mention?
GM: The Holidays are right around the corner and my memoir/tell all/cookbook, Southern Fried Sass, is your guide to Holiday success! Life advice, tips, tricks, tipsy tricks … they’re all in there, alongside 50 of the most deliciously decadent southern recipes you could imagine. It’s a great gift for yourself, your mama, your daddy, your tipsy trick, or anyone else!
And also follow me on all socials for the most up-to-date info on where I am and what I’m doin!
Get your tickets to Hokus Pokus Live! HERE.
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