Oaklash is back

Festival of drag and queer performance returns

by David-Elijah Nahmod

Founded in 2018 by Mama Celeste and Beatrix LaHaine, Oaklash is a celebration of drag and queer culture that takes place primarily in Oakland. But it’s more than just a drag show.

“Our flagship event is our annual festival that brings together over 100 queer and trans performers to celebrate the history and future of drag in Oakland, San Francisco, and beyond,” Mama Celeste, a co-founder who serves as Executive Director, said in a brief interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “We are going on our sixth year of putting on this event and as always we have bigger plans than ever, with bigger stages, bigger names, and more activities than ever before.”

Organizers seek to create a safe and accessible environment for the queer community, particularly for queer and trans people of color. According to Mama Celeste, it has year-round programs and resources, such as the Oaklash Disability Fund that offers grants to chronically ill queer and trans performance artists in need of critical support.

Grants are in the amount of $500 or $1000 and are awarded to people dealing with an illness or pain flare-up, the loss of a job associated with an illness or a disability, loss of funds associated with illness or disability, a lack of accessible work or performance space, or an inability to meet basic needs associated with being unable to work full time. Queer or trans BIPOC people are prioritized.

But it’s also about fun drag shows.

Some of the names lined up for this year’s festival include Mercury Divine, Tater Tatas, Kochina Rude, Mr. David Glamamore, Nicki Jizz, and two “Drag Race” alumni, Jax (season 15), and Naomi Smalls (“Drag Race All Stars” season 4), among many others.

“Our goal at Oaklash is to give people a taste of everything the Bay Area has to offer,” said Mama Celeste. “We have events throughout the month of May ranging from drag lip sync performance workshops to panel discussions featuring local Black femme musicians. Our weekend of shows is no different with our Friday night kick-off party at Thee

Stork Club featuring queer and trans music acts, such as the supergroup Commando, our Saturday block party showcasing over fifty diverse drag performers, and our Sunday takeover of

Fairyland closing out the weekend with an adults only grand finale.”

In addition to celebrating diversity, the Oaklash events promise to offer a good time for all. “Whenever we curate our event, we make sure there is something for everyone and that everyone can see themselves represented up on our stage,” Mama Celeste said.

Some of the more notable Oaklash events include Holla if Ya Hear Me: Black Femmes in Music at Wolfe Pack Studios in Oakland, and Going Deeper: the Search for New Meaning in the Same Old Lyrics at Oakland’s Temescal Art Center, both on Wednesday May 10. On Monday May 15 San Francisco’s Queer Arts Featured in the Castro will offer Oakcash: Grant Writing for Drag. The big event, the Oaklash Block Party, happens on May 20 in Old Oakland, 9th Street and Broadway, while the Grande Finale will take place on May 21 at Children’s Fairyland in Oakland.t

‘1776’

A new, queer take on an old classic

by David-Elijah Nahmod

It’s been more than fifty years since the musical “1776” opened on Broadway. This rollicking show tells the tale of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and has traditionally featured a primarily male, cisgender cast.

But a new production coming to San Jose’s Center for the Performing Arts takes this old chestnut and turns it on its ear. This touring company, which was first seen on Broadway at the American Airlines Theater, is cast entirely with female, transgender and non-binary actors.

Furthermore, the performers are multi-racial. Among the cast members are Ariella Serur, who uses the pronouns they/she and identifies as non-binary, who plays Judge James Wilson. Also featured is Sav Souza, who uses they/them pronouns and is queer and transgender, as Dr. Josiah Bartlett. Serur and Souza are a real life couple.

“I thought it was really exciting,” said

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Tyree C was sold on the fact that Town was near other gay bars.

“It is exciting,” he said. “It’s summertime. I wish more bars would open because I like to go out.”

A family affair

Huynh’s dream started in 2019 when he realized that he wasn’t happy

Serur, when asked by the Bay Area Reporter how they felt about being part of this production. “The concept of our show is having a cast made up of folks who were not allowed in the room when the Declaration of Independence was written and created. Telling this story from more diverse and various points of view makes you really think twice about who it was that created the rules of our country in the first place and how if this country was written into existence, can’t we just keep rewriting?”

“I was really excited about this reframe of the show,” added Souza. “I personally have no interest in reviving old material when we could be putting money toward new, queer work, unless we are going to investigate it through lenses that made us consider the work and its context differently.

I’m so grateful to be part of a show that’s doing just that.” as an interior designer for homes and some restaurants.

Souza finds the biggest challenge of working on stage with their partner is having to work hard not to break each other out of character.

“I don’t know if it’s called a midlife crisis [in your] late 30s,” he said. “I realized I wasn’t happy. Something had to change. I thought about, ‘When was I the happiest?’”

He reviewed his careers, which included time at Contra Costa County’s District Attorney’s Office and bartending. His happier years were when he bartended in the Castro from

They point out that their and Serur’s characters are on opposite sides in the fight for independence and that they have a great deal of fun antagonizing each other in character.

Serur has their own take about being in a show with their character.

“The biggest challenge is that when one of us is sick, the other person can’t be a hands-on caregiver in a way that we would if we weren’t in a show together since we can’t get each other sick,” they said. “It just feels counterintuitive from a partnership perspective to me. But most of the time it is so rewarding and fulfilling to look across the stage and see the person I love acting their face off. We also spend a lot of the opening number next to each other and have two solo lines back to back toward the end of the show. It’s a blast.”

Serur sees their character as being two different people, a combination of two historical figures. They also see Judge James Wilson as someone who is thoughtful and kind, someone who doesn’t like to ruffle feathers.

2005 to 2012.

“I started tiptoeing around the idea of opening a spot and everything just fell into place.”

His family got behind his vision for the Oakland gay bar going all in with him in financing and building Town.

“They support me 1,000%,” Huynh said. He expressed how lucky he is to have a supportive, close-knit family that accepts him for who he is. He never had to come out. They already knew and didn’t care.

Huynh and his family survived the City of Oakland’s notorious licensing and permitting process to transform the space. COVID-19, supply chain failures and soaring construction costs only added to the challenge, but his family and he worked through it. His brother and father, who owns a contracting businesses, took his ideas and made them a reality.

“What can you do, right? You just gotta keep going with it,” he said. “The building ownership was excited that we were going to open an Art Deco bar here.”

Black flags with ‘Town Bar & Lounge’ written in metallic gold lettering, along with the Progressive Rainbow flag, now mark the bar.

Huynh’s sole focus is to keep people coming back to Town. He hired longtime Oakland resident Diana Maduli, a self-described “hella gay” woman, as the Town’s bar manager.

Huynh doesn’t currently offer food at the bar. He’s still working out the logistics for bar bites as well as programming, he said. He’s just happy to be open and welcoming guests. t

Town Bar & Lounge, 2001 Broadway, Oakland. (510) 350-8569. www.goingtotownoakland.com

“We worked with an amazing dramaturg on our production, Robert Duffley, who made character packets for each of us which taught us about our character’s history and how what we’re reading in the script might be different from the way things played out historically,” Serur said.

Souza notes that their character was a delegate in the Second Continental Congress for the colony of New Hampshire. They see Bartlett as a humble man who cares to stay connected to his morals around building a new nation.

“But he struggles with the question of what he is willing to sacrifice to help start a new nation,” Souza said.

Souza’s favorite shift in this version of the show is in the orchestrations. The songs have been reimagined but still remain faithful to the source material. The show’s music team rearranged the score for voices it wasn’t written for, and Souza feels that the end result is quite powerful.

“If you’re someone who, like me, has never seen anyone who looks like them in the United States government, this is an incredible chance to feel seen and celebrate the gorgeously diverse bodies that make up the real America we see on the street everyday,” they said.

“The talent on this stage is truly unmatched,” added Serur. “If you’re someone who loves the original version of ‘1776,’ come to hear the new orchestrations. See if you interpret the show in a new way on these bodies. If you’re new to the show in general, this piece is really effective in encouraging the audience to hold multiple realities at once: what happened historically and how that relates to what’s happening in our country today. It’s a beautiful, funny, heartbreaking piece that we’re really proud of.”t ‘1776’ at Broadway San Jose, San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, 255. S. Almaden Blvd, San Jose, May 16-21, $38-88. www.broadwaysanjose.com www.ariellaserur.com www.savsouza.com