On this edition, the Warner Theatre in Washington DC will be hosting a wild ride of fun, laughs looks and kooky drag fun by way of our guest’s “Drag Circus” coming in March. Our guest for today is best known for competing on the first season of Canada’s Drag Race back in 2020, The first season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. the World in 2022. And most recently, is the winner of the eighth season a RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars. Our guest today has quickly become a drag icon, garnering such international recognition. She is a designer known for her show stopping looks, creating a spectacle that leaves audiences screaming for more and we cannot wait to see our guest bring their Drag Circus March 9th
Let’s welcome to snapshots. The Jubilant, the jovial Jimbo!
Oh, thank you so much, Dean. I love that introduction. Thank you so much.
When I’m when you are the winner of RuPaul’s All-Stars or any competition, we got to give mad respect to you.
I appreciate you. Thank you. I’m happy to be here. And I’m excited to talk to you today.
So the first question I got to ask is, What can my fellow Washingtonians can look forward to your drag circus coming up?
Well, I’m so excited to take this show on the road. I have been working away in theater and film as a designer for over 10 years now and I’m a costume designer, I’m a performer. And I also love making music. Jimbo’s Drag Circus is really a chance for audiences to really get all the way inside my world and come with me on this really fun ride. And it’s all framed through the aesthetic of an old timey circus. I love that aesthetic and that vibe and it has a certain sort of nostalgia and this kind of sense of wonder and kind of that anything can happen. And like you said, I love turning looks and I love doing characters. So I’m definitely really excited to have some really cool looks.
And I’ve made a really amazing set with my friend. So it’s a set that’s I don’t think anyone’s ever done as a set kind of like this one before. So it’s really, really beautiful. And I’ve also been working with another company, Sigma One, on amazing like show for it for it as well. So I’m planning a spectacle. I’ve been working with Murray & Peter Presents, this touring company and playing around with so we’ve just been working our butts off rehearsing. I’ve been doing choreo. I’ve got two dancers. I’ve got a musical accompanist my sidekick in the show. His name is Jeepers, he’s played by my friend Andrew who writes some music with me. I’m just really excited to handle all aspects of the show and really present a full experience.
That’s sensational. And especially you’re performing at the Warner Theatre, which this year celebrates 100 years. So, you’re coming at a pretty damn good time. Is this your first time performing in our nation’s capital?
I have performed in Washington a few times actually with Murray & Peter Presents on “The Drag Queen Christmas”. I think twice I performed there. And I love coming to the nation’s capital. It’s always a great time, great audience. I’m really excited to bring my show there and to make people laugh. That’s what I love to do. That’s my most favorite thing to do is making people laugh. It’s transporting people giving people a place to escape and just kind of sit back and feel like they’re in good hands for a good show. And that’s what we’re hoping to do.
You know it, as they say that laughter is the best medicine. I like to know what makes you laugh.
I think it I think various but I like absurdity. I like to be surprised. I’m a clown. And so clowning informs my performance and forms kind of, you know what I find funny and clowning is all about humanity. It’s all about being truthful. It’s all about the simplicity that is in the breath. and in just the fact that that we’re more alike than we are different. When you really invite people in, and you invite an audience in, you kind of open up this kind of shared space, it’s kind of a conversation with an audience.
And when you’re clowning, and when you’re in it, you kind of operate in this place of shared surprise, where I’m kind of doing things that surprise myself at the same time as my audience. They’re unplanned, and spontaneous. Those are kind of the truest funniest moments. And that’s what I find the most fun and the most exciting about improv and character work. It’s about Jimbo & myself takes a back seat. I really allow myself to be a conduit for laughter and for the audience, and to really just give what you know, I can feel or hear the audience’s want. And so that’s what I find really fun. Shared surprise and through improvisation.
I’m definitely looking forward that with your show coming up in March, and you know, you are the recent winner of the All Stars Eight, are you still feeling the glow and the excitement of winning that title?
Oh, for sure. It’s absolutely incredible. I get to be in the Drag Race Hall of Fame with some of the most iconic queens of all time, I have just an incredible platform to be to be celebrated and to share my art with as many people as are interested. I just feel so excited. It’s really opened up all kinds of opportunities. I’m signed with WMV and PEG. So that’s opened all kinds of new doors and new opportunities. So this year is going to be a full one. I’ve got some really exciting things beyond the Drag Circus to share with fans. I’m really excited for that those opportunities to come out. And yeah, I’m just really grateful to drag race and to Ru for giving me this chance.
And what I just found out recently, like my magazine RuPaul’s Drag Race just celebrated a milestone, we’re both 15 years, he believes 15 years since Drag Race began. I mean, what goes through your mind that you participated in a number of Drag Races, and you have a great distinctive part of this long going legacy?
I am just so grateful. I’m a huge fan of the show, I felt when I first watched that first season with my friends here and my community here. I felt like I found my people through that show and through that tribe, and I loved how the show and the community built over this 15-year period to going from underground, sort of, almost like cult following to mainstream media is so exciting. And it’s really taken an art form, which takes a lot of love a lot of work a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of passion, and takes it out of the bars and out of sort of a subculture and it brings it to the main media, where it can also influence people that wouldn’t usually see it and help people that aren’t necessarily totally out. Or maybe they’re allies, or maybe they’re just, you know, interested in expressing themselves, they get to see that and share that and take part in that. And that’s the beauty of drag is this. It’s a queer art form, but it resonates with everybody.
And I couldn’t agree more. And what I loved about the final from the All Stars is that RuPaul said that she loved that your drag style wasn’t about looking “real”. How does it feel to embody that time that we’re here, we’re not going anywhere drag at a time when there’s this huge anti-drag movement that’s never been more vocal, but nonetheless You guys kill it, you slay it, you’re here to stay, no matter what anyone says.
Exactly, yeah, I think you know, RuPaul came up in New York in the art scene and the club kid scene. And drag then was, you know all about subversion, counterculture and pushing boundaries. It’s important that those roots are remembered. And it’s important that that energy is brought forward. And, you know, I came into dragon as a drag performer through this same similar kind of thing through performance art and improvisation.
So, my entrance into drag is from the perspective of performance artists and a clown. And, you know, that sensibility is something that she saw from her past and really saw as a valued point of view that takes drag beyond just being beautiful, or the focus being on solely the presentation of something being acceptedly beautiful and more about being real, is also being messy. And, and people connect with realness. And people are not always pretty. And you know, it’s okay to show those edges and it’s okay to show those real sides because it’s in those in that realness where there’s real connection.
And that’s what people are looking for. And that’s the beauty of drag. It’s all about connection, connection to yourself, connection to your truth, connection to other people allowing other people to see inside. It’s kind of like putting your insides on the outside and really wearing your heart on your sleeve and allowing people to see you for who you want to be seen for
One of the things I love about drag race no matter what season no matter where it is, is The Snatch Game, because I’m a huge game show fan. I love the Match Game. Now, aside from the ones you have portrayed, if you can choose someone famous to be on the Snatch Game. Who would it be? And why?
I think it would be fun to try to do like a Pee-Wee Herman impression. t’s always fun to do made up people like, you know, I don’t know, fictional characters are kind of fun. I kind of like people that have weird voices or weird fish legs, you know, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, that would be a really fun one to do.
I read that your biggest virtue is your curiosity. And that really piqued my interest? I want to why is that?
Being curious is all about asking questions. It’s about being aware. And it’s also about listening. And I think that that’s a really important part of being in this community is listening. And as a drag queen, and as a public person and a person that people connect with, I need to be curious about all these people. I’m meeting hundreds and thousands of people and they’re looking to me for a moment or a connection or and it’s usually they’re trying to give me love and trying to explain how I’ve helped them or inspired them.
I kind of owe it to them in that moment to just be open and be curious and to listen and to go you know, like “thank you” and “who are you and what is your story?” And I think that that curiosity about the world, it helps you have empathy, it helps you have other perspectives, and I think it keeps you kind of engaged and thinking and reevaluating what’s important to ourselves what’s important in the world, it’s I think about just like staying active in your experience of the world.
Now the movements that we see within the drag community and the LGBTQIA community that has been portraying drag queens and the LGBTQIA community properly, and there’s been some wonderful strides for that not only were RuPaul’s Drag Race, but for may show specials movies and so forth. Is there any more that needs to be done in order to continue this wave that we’ve been seeing.
Yeah, it’s all about visibility. It’s all about creating spaces for more expression and other ways of being. And I think that’s the beauty of the day and age that we’re living in with the internet and communication, that there’s no longer quite such a monopoly on access to information and quite a narrow scope of what’s presented. Now, there’s sort of floodgates of open in terms of people self-producing and putting things out there on the internet themselves.
I think that it’s very important to tell queer stories, when it’s very important to tell diverse stories, it’s important to, to keep pushing boundaries and to keep Yeah, looking at what’s important to hang on to what’s important to let go of, and what’s important to value in the world. I think that’s an ongoing thing. We have to fight for rights, we have to fight for visibility, we have to fight for places for everyone to feel included, to feel safe to feel happy. And I don’t think that work is ever done.
What would you like to say to all the future drag performers out there who want to follow in your shoes, and someday become the Drag Queen of the Year for a future drag?
I would say they can do that. I think, stay true to yourself. Do what brings you joy and share that joy. And that’s what I did. My mom told me to “have the best time and others will follow.” And she taught me to be true to myself. She taught me that people will try to stop me. And she said when people try to stop you, you keep true to yourself. And you don’t say no, you don’t accept no when you do go back down, if that’s what you feel. And that’s how you what you want, then fight for that and make that happen. And stay true to you. And so that was great advice for me.
People did try to say, you know, when you’re when you’re doing things differently, and when you’re trying to create your own lane or your own way of being, especially as the queer artist, you really have to fight against people saying that’s not how it’s done, or that’s not how it should be, or that’s not how it you know, that’s not never going to work. And when whenever I was told no, or it couldn’t be that was always a challenge for me. How do I find it? How do I do what I want to do? And how do I be how I want to be? And so I think that that’s important is just staying true to yourself and believing in yourself and doing what brings you happiness.
Jimbo’s Drag Circus coming to the legendary Warner Theatre on March 9 2024. Tickets are still available. If you want more information on getting seats and VIP seats and premium seats. Go to dragfans.com. And you can follow Jimbo on Instagram, or go to the website houseofjimbo.com
I read that your biggest virtue is your curiosity. And that really piqued my interest? I want to why is that?
Being curious is all about asking questions. It’s about being aware. And it’s also about listening. And I think that that’s a really important part of being in this community is listening. And as a drag queen, and as a public person and a person that people connect with, I need to be curious about all these people. I’m meeting hundreds and thousands of people and they’re looking to me for a moment or a connection or and it’s usually they’re trying to give me love and trying to explain how I’ve helped them or inspired them.
I kind of owe it to them in that moment to just be open and be curious and to listen and to go you know, like “thank you” and “who are you and what is your story?” And I think that that curiosity about the world, it helps you have empathy, it helps you have other perspectives, and I think it keeps you kind of engaged and thinking and reevaluating what’s important to ourselves what’s important in the world, it’s I think about just like staying active in your experience of the world.
Now the movements that we see within the drag community and the LGBTQIA community that has been portraying drag queens and the LGBTQIA community properly, and there’s been some wonderful strides for that not only were RuPaul’s Drag Race, but for may show specials movies and so forth. Is there any more that needs to be done in order to continue this wave that we’ve been seeing.
Yeah, it’s all about visibility. It’s all about creating spaces for more expression and other ways of being. And I think that’s the beauty of the day and age that we’re living in with the internet and communication, that there’s no longer quite such a monopoly on access to information and quite a narrow scope of what’s presented. Now, there’s sort of floodgates of open in terms of people self-producing and putting things out there on the internet themselves.
I think that it’s very important to tell queer stories, when it’s very important to tell diverse stories, it’s important to, to keep pushing boundaries and to keep Yeah, looking at what’s important to hang on to what’s important to let go of, and what’s important to value in the world. I think that’s an ongoing thing. We have to fight for rights, we have to fight for visibility, we have to fight for places for everyone to feel included, to feel safe to feel happy. And I don’t think that work is ever done.
What would you like to say to all the future drag performers out there who want to follow in your shoes, and someday become the Drag Queen of the Year for a future drag?
I would say they can do that. I think, stay true to yourself. Do what brings you joy and share that joy. And that’s what I did. My mom told me to “have the best time and others will follow.” And she taught me to be true to myself. She taught me that people will try to stop me. And she said when people try to stop you, you keep true to yourself. And you don’t say no, you don’t accept no when you do go back down, if that’s what you feel. And that’s how you what you want, then fight for that and make that happen. And stay true to you. And so that was great advice for me.
People did try to say, you know, when you’re when you’re doing things differently, and when you’re trying to create your own lane or your own way of being, especially as the queer artist, you really have to fight against people saying that’s not how it’s done, or that’s not how it should be, or that’s not how it you know, that’s not never going to work. And when whenever I was told no, or it couldn’t be that was always a challenge for me. How do I find it? How do I do what I want to do? And how do I be how I want to be? And so I think that that’s important is just staying true to yourself and believing in yourself and doing what brings you happiness.
Jimbo’s Drag Circus coming to the legendary Warner Theatre on March 9 2024. Tickets are still available. If you want more information on getting seats and VIP seats and premium seats. Go to dragfans.com. And you can follow Jimbo on Instagram, or go to the website houseofjimbo.com
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