Casting a television show around drag performers is becoming an art unto itself, but casting a show showcasing some of the biggest legends in the world of drag pageantry (and having them live together in a South Florida mansion) was truly one for the record books!
Director Travis Stancil’s vision comes to life in the brand new series “Pageant Queens,” where 10 famed national titleholders all move in together while they prepare for the title The Queen of Drag (and the $50,000 prize that goes with the title)! Stancil (with Michael Silas as Artistic Director) has captured something very special through his camera lens and we see these queens in ways that we have never gotten to see drag performers before. I sat down with Stancil to discuss the origin of “Pageant Queens,” some behind the scenes tea on the queens, and one moment caught on camera that was overly emotional for everyone.
The series “Pageant Queens” is such a unique and innovative idea. While so many say drag might be “oversaturated,” this is truly a project that stands out. What made you want to start a project like this?
Growing up as a kid, I was a big theater geek. In our community theater there were several participants that were drag queens so I learned about the art form at a very young age and fell in love with it. This was before Facebook or social media, so the only way that you could watch it was YouTube or pageant DVD’s. Drag is deeply rooted through pageantry, that is the backbone of what drag is. There are so many fabulous stories of trials, tribulations and triumph that individuals have gone through and dedicated their lives to the art form and the craft that no one knows about. The first show that made a real name for drag was “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and sometimes, you lost the history, the heritage, the stories, and inspiration behind the art form and why people participate in it. It was important for me to create a show that highlights and outlines the story behind the crown.
Sometimes people want to see the person and the performer behind the queen. How did you choose the right people that would meld together to make a fantastic show?
When we originally started this, it was just to be a live event like another pageant, but to the next level. I did “Queen of Drag” and it was going to be all winners, so everyone had to have won a major national title. They were going to all compete against one another for $50,000. To make it even bigger, i opted to help them fund their talent. I paid for their choreographers, and up to eight dancers which really gave them a good base. When people enter pageantry, eight dancers is considered a lot. I said I would pay for up to eight, so when they added their own money, they were getting into twenty four dancers, and one of our queens had thirty two dancers on stage! It became like the Super Bowl of drag pageantry!
As someone who specializes in event producing, marketing and advertising, i created a promo video. I knew if I created a commercial for this live event, it would help me bring in some top tier sponsors. When I created that video and we dropped it, it went viral overnight. People were so confused by that video, they thought it was a tv show. I knew I was onto something within forty eight hours of the commercial dropping that major networks were reaching out to me to fish for information on what it was, what platform it would be on, who has the rights to it and who’s producing it. I sat down with the queens and i told them that we either have to be all in or all out, but we had the opportunity to make it into a tv show. I promised that if they go on this ride with us, I’ll remain Executive Producer to where we retain the rights of how their stories will be told. I promised that we would retain ownership to where we can control the narrative to where we can really build the show to tell their stories. There was no scripting and we never told them how to act. We put them all in a house and started filming. It was the most magical experience ever watching how the whole thing unfolded.
Considering that there is probably not much that you have not seen, what is one thing that occurred during filming that even took you off guard?
There is one thing that happened that caused me to leave set and go outside and cry and it was something fairly common that queens do. They pad their hips, then build out their faces, jawline, breasts, etc. For the older queens, this was before there were resources that we have today. There was a moment that they were sitting on the couch watching each others talents. We got to Azsia DuPree and she showed her Continental Elite talent. She shared the story of why it meant so much for her to win that because she was battling bad silicone at the time. She as battling depression and it threw her body for a loop. She said that after she won, she was able to get it all removed. It opened up a conversation between them that I had never seen, I am sitting in a room with ten icons and for the first time ever, there were queens speaking out about the regret that they have for getting silicone and how they wish that they never did it. What surprised me is that there was someone in our cast, because no one ever spoke out about the dangers and how they regret this, that got pumped weeks before coming to film; they never knew the dangers of that. It was the bond that you were watching them build and how they were just opening up and being so vulnerable with one another and sharing their stories and experiences on “why”. One even quoted that they were so desperate to be a woman, they were buying hormones from someone that they didn’t even know and laying down on the floor to get injected. It goes to show not only how far we’ve come as a society, but how brave these individuals were and what they went through just to be themselves. That was the most memorable thing for me.
This situation happened early on in filming and I knew that we had something special and really set the tone for filming. From there, all of them opened up and shared stories about coming out, how their family responded to them being trans or gay, experiencing body dysmorphia, depression, losing loved ones, you just hear it all. You also find that they have so much in common than just pageantry itself.
Did you see a stark difference in perspective from queens that come from different areas? Beauty trends definitely are different and evolve as time goes on?
We didn’t run into that because a lot of the people in our cast are what I would consider legends and icons, the average age was forty-something. These are the legends, the people that went thorough coming out in the early eighties/nineties/two thousands, they are the backbone of what drag is. I personally like that, because a lot of other shows are going off of what is the new generation of drag. You’re kind of seeing the apples of the trees, but you’re not seeing the roots that flourish those apples. These are the queens that are deeply rooted in in the drag history and heritage of what drag is.
How do you think that every style of drag is able to coexist in today’s world?
I feel like we’re all able to exist by accepting the art of expression. Art is subjective right? There is no guideline there is no rules to it. I definitely feel like we need to remember and pay homage to who created this wider and broader art form of what drag has turned into. Drag goes back to even the early 1700s or 1800s when women were not allowed to be in theater; that is where drag comes from.
Men would play the roles of females in musical theater and that is where a lot of that stems from. It really goes back that far and I think its just accepting everyones artistic expression and remembering where we came from. I think a lot to people forget the history; if you lose the history you lose the purpose of what this is and why we do what we do…
So the inventible question is, what is next for Pageant Queens? Could new girls be added to the mix?
We’re definitely planning. There are a lot of talks. I have gotten so much great feedback from producers to film platforms that sell the show and get it out and major networks have been so complimentary. It’s definitely something we are looking at; Season 2 doing new cast, getting new stories and new messages. There is something very special about this cast that you’ll find and it think it was fate. My business partner Michael (Silas) and I went on this journey together. We’re big faith driven individuals, even in our own stories coming to success. There is just something so special about this cast and we really cover and check all boxes. Trans women, older queens, newer queens, plus size queens, etc.
There was another special moment with Tatiyanna Voche, she is very outspoken and carries herself very well. She is rooming with America’s sweetheart Tiffany T Hunter, who is the most gentle, kindhearted and sweetest individual on the planet. To see their dynamic, there is so much footage of them just getting ready in the bathroom, seeing that they would just converse with each other as two polar opposite individuals; we knew that there was something really special here. That is the word that a lot of the executives of the major networks have said also; there is something incredibly “special” about this project.
What is something that when the viewer finishes watching “Pageant Queens,” you want them to have walked away with?
You know, I am going to share this story…I want people to be able to understand one another more. There are so many people out there who don’t even know what a trans woman is. Sharing those stories and highlighting that to where someone could better understand that, I think we’ve achieved that goal and that is what I know is going to happen with this product.
We had someone on our film crew that was helping with sound and they were a retired preacher from Wales, They had left Wales and come to America and a year later, their child graduated college and came to America to visit. He called me and said “I want to thank you for letting me work on that project. I knew nothing about the LGBTQ community and my son just came out to me as trans. Had I not worked on your project and had I not learned what I learned about that community, I would not be able to respond and be the best father that I could be for my trans daughter. He said “I truly believe that God placed me on that project for what was coming the year following”.
I thought that was so special because there are a lot of people who don’t know how to respond when their child comes out as gay or trans. This show is really going to help people understand it better because you are finally seeing it from someone else’s perspective.
Follow Travis Stancil on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DQfED-JEi-I/?img_index=1
Follow “Pageant Queens” on Instagram @pageantqueensseries
