We were lucky to catch up with LUXE The Drag Queen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi LUXE, thanks for joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

A long time ago, what is really only barely a decade now, I was in a musical in High School – certainly a far step from being a drag queen now. I had been in musicals and stage plays before, but this was my first impression on my High School peers, what truly felt like a lot of pressure to me. It was a production of Phantom of the Opera – such a tremendous undertaking for a public high school art department, that it was the only production worked on in that entire year. Being a freshman, I knew I wasn’t going to be the Phantom, or Raoul, but I didn’t want those parts. I wanted something smaller and more attainable to me – Giles Andre, one of the two new owners of the Opera Populaire. I read alongside a fantastic junior at the time, Tre, who’s natural chemistry with me was so electric and comedic, we could barely keep ourselves together just reading the lines off the page. We were cast in the production together as the theatre owners and went into a laborious rehearsal process of learning almost note of every second of every minute in Andrew Llyod Webber’s score.

After six months, the musical went up, and I will never forget the bow I took that night. During the show, it felt like every time Tre and I were onstage the audience was in the room with us, laughing, applauding, at every little beat. Even a small whimper at some unfortunate news in the story erupted the audience into fits of laughter. When the lights went down on the story – Meg staring blankly into the darkness of the theatre holding the Phantoms mask – I felt this overwhelming joy, spilling out at my seams. My heart was racing, and I couldn’t wipe the goofiest grin off my face backstage. Finally, it came Tre and I’s time to bow, I can’t forget the order – Meg, Carlotta and Madame Giry together, us, then Raoul, then Christine, then the Phantom. We came out to thunderous rounds of applause and the moment is burned into my mind forever. I walked out to meet Tre halfway across the stage and shook his hand. Together we walked to the front of the stage and bowed separately. I took the most ridiculous bow, but as I went down, I looked out at the crowd, a sea of applauding darkness shunned out by blinding stage lights, and feeling that nothing in that moment, outside of that room mattered. I felt that everything in my life had led me to that moment then, and it was pure euphoria. A fleeting taste of a drug you can’t find on the streets. I’ve been chasing it ever since.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Well, for starters, my name is LUXE the Drag Queen. You can call me LUXE, you can call me later, but just don’t call me late for dinner! I got into drag almost five years ago, as an extra-curricular in my theatre performance and acting degree. I realized, very quickly, that I could fine more of the things I wanted to do and create through drag than acting. I didn’t have a director telling me how to move, or ‘what’s on my mind during this scene’. Instead I had complete control over how I wanted to present myself, and which stories I wanted to tell. Pretty soon acting became a thing of yesterday, and I’ve been in drag since.

My brand, I would say, is like walking into a Blockbuster. I am a deep lover of movies, and music, especially the campy horror movies of the 80’s. I would say that holidays, movies and novelties are the ground foundation of who I am as a drag queen. Whenever I go to make an outfit for myself, as it’s a rarity to find outfits that are my size, I base my sketches and designs out of these foundations, be it a re-interpretation of a specific character to a gown designed on a way a scene or song makes me feel. My inspirations come from people like Elvira, John Carpenter, Lady Gaga, John Hughes, The Weeknd, so I feel like my brain is like walking into a neon lit, knick-knack video rental shop, with standees and posters littering the walls. Many of the aforementioned artists have deep connections to my work, like my original play Holigay Magic, which I like to think is like a modern John Hughes film for everyone about the queer experience.

With this I joined my drag sister – Amber St. James – in our production company, Sisters of St. James Productions, after producing several big budget events for San Diego State University. I try to incorporate many of these elements into our shows, and we have themed shows, original shows, and more. One for each is our show, Wednesday’s We Wear Black: An American Horror Story Drag Revue, where we challenge our performers to bring to life favorite characters from the long running TV series; or, one that we put on last year, Scream, Qweenz! which was a Halloween costume ball and drag show that blended original work with famous Halloween pop culture.

Currently, I’m working on a weekly social media series, that I’ll simply call “FFF”, that takes a minute from your day and gives you a breakdown, discussion or random facts about horror movies from the blockbusters of the bunch to the B-rated cult classics that make you say “Oh, I remember that movie!” I can’t wait to share that with everyone, as I want to strive to make it a conversation on the social media platforms, hearing folks thoughts about these lost gems, or, ha, lost junk!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

This one is actually recent. Last year, around November, when the first staged reading of Holigay Magic went up, I crashed as a person. Exhausted. Beaten to the ground, and unwilling to get back up. Why? I asked myself constantly, why is this happening? I know how to hustle, I always work hard, so why can’t I face getting back up? What I mean by crashing was giving up on everything in my life. My art, my friends, my hard work, and myself. I spent days during this time so stoned I couldn’t comprehend when I needed to be somewhere or when someone was trying to reach out and see if I was okay. When I opened up to my family, my wonderful and loving parents that I’m so grateful for, they told me why I crashed.
I spent four years at SDSU, taking the standard 15 credits, whilst also carrying two jobs, the occasional extra-curricular project, drag and writing my script. In 2021, it became so deeply rutted that I became my work. I shut people out, and regularly used the excuse that I was too busy. When all the work stopped, I realized that I was alone, and felt empty inside. A month of sleeping three to four hours a night finally caught up to me, and threw me to the ground. It was during this time I met my drag daughter, Amore Envy, who had starry eyes for the world of drag and everything she could be. She had hunger, and passion for greatness. With help from my family, and support from my friends, I cleaned up and got back to work, but it was very sparce. Shortly after I asked Amore to be my drag daughter and she inspired me to hustle again, with the understanding that Noah, the person behind LUXE, needs time for himself, and room for the love of friends. Almost a year later, I’m so grateful for the people I have in my life, and where I am and what I do. I’m back to it, making an outfit or so a week, but taking the time for myself, and my loved ones, to ensure I never crash again. Living on my own now, I’ve learned so much about who I am and who I want to be for other people. Each day I want to make LUXE better for the world, and closer to the goal I have in my mind. Almost a year later, my play is in talks of being picked up for a production, and I just performed at the highlight show of my career so far – Midsummer Scream’s Night of the Living Drag.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

This is a tough one. I have several goals or missions in my drag. The first thing being first, I want to pull drag out of bars. Now, respecting the significance that bars have had in the culture of drag, and it’s history, I just want to platform this amazing and diverse art that we call drag. I want to bring drag to accolades and regards that rival stage productions or films. I feel that drag performers belong in concert halls, festival stages, silver screens, or even stadiums. The reason being, that most drag performers, like myself, are one person production teams. They are their costume designer, their make up artist, their choreographer, and the entity themselves, not even mentioning the little tricks and arts that are in crowd interaction, control and navigation. You wouldn’t think there is a proper or correct way to accept a tip, but there are so many little intricacies that make up being a good drag performer that, to me, deserve elevation. Be it through any means possible,

Aside from that, I want to tell stories. Through drag performance, or even making movies, I want to tell stories to others, and say, put away all that craziness outside, forget about that person in your life that’s causing you grief, and let me tell you a story. Maybe share a laugh. Maybe learn something from each other. And sometimes, even let my stories acknowledge the insanity outside in the world, but show that we can be better than all of it.

Finally, I want to show that a big girl, a fat person, a big boned individual, a heavier set guy, a plus size human, can be and always will be freaking beautiful.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @luxethedragqueen
• Facebook: @Noah Leach
• Twitter: @luxethegourd