A Bawdy, Bard-y Burlesque & Drag Show
Featuring
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Saturday, June 29, 2024
9:00 PM
Hosts
Betty Page Turner
Seymour Hiney
Performers
(by order of appearance)
Ceres Cobb (they/them)
Bobbi Bridle (she/her)
Seymour Hiney (they/them)
Guad Ala Jara (he/him)
Salem Le Fay (she/her)
Betty Page Turner (she/her)
Sapphic Sunshine (they/them)
Bite Risk (they/them)
Areola Borealis (they/them)
Crew
Sound: Seymour Hiney
Kitten: Mocha Mystique
Kitten: Daisy Duvall
Special thanks to our sponsor:
ShakesQueer is supported by the generosity of tens of thousands of contributors to the annual ArtsWave Campaign, the region’s primary source for arts funding.
Betty Page Turner is a lusty local history librarian by day and a vintage vixen by night! Hailing from Cincinnati, Ohio, this beguiling bookworm has been a burlesque performer for 6 years and has performed all around Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. She is the illustrious host and lead producer of Smoke & Queers Burlesque and Drag Troupe.
Seymour Hiney is just a little guy. Just a dude. Things you’d put in a trap to catch him include: a bag of sour patch kids, a weird Al cd, and a pair of platform boots. Seymour is the producer of S&Q’s Drag King Night, Cincinnati’s only all-drag king show and has been a longtime Rocky Horror performer with The Denton Affair.
Ceres Cobb is a midwest Draglesque menace and wants to ask when you last changed your password. They are ready to bring you spell-binding performance featuring crowd work, flexibility, and charm. When they aren’t twirling tassels or doing the splits across a stage, you can find them creating fiber artistry, advocating for technological literacy, and snuggling their cat. You can find Ceres based in Cincinnati or online as @praiseceres on Instagram and Bluesky.
An original member of Smoke and Queers, Bobbi Bridle has been performing with us since 2019. With an emphasis on performance art and pushing her physical limits, she loves entertaining and any excuse to take her clothes off. When she isn't on stage you can usually catch her at home sewing (she creates & upcycles all her props and costumes). Throughout the years her performances have been described as sad, sapphic, weird, scary, interesting, and kinky, all of which are accurate.
Guad Ala Jara is a Mexican drag chameleon taking Cincinnati by storm! Guad is a co-producer of Smoke & Queers Drag King Night and performs at many venues around the city. Follow him on IG at guad.ala.jara!
Hailing from the Witch City itself, Salem le Fay is a lifetime performer with a myriad of talents under her belt, including ballroom and aerials and so much more. A performing member and co-producer of Smoke & Queers Burlesque and Drag Troupe, as well as a local Argentine tango dance instructor, this adoringly dubbed "Wild Card" will bring you everything ranging from classic and sophisticated to dark and dirty (and sometimes even nerdy). Keep up with this vibrant siren by following her on Instagram @salem_le_fay 
Sapphic Sunshine is a Drag King and a celestial body created to celebrate the best thing in the world: queerness! This lavender menace can be found around the tristate area and when they're not doing drag, you can find them hiking in the woods, in a theater, or planning their next adventure. Soak up some sunshine of your own by following them @sapphicsunshine_ on instagram!
Bite Risk is a drag vampire that brings spooky, theatrical, campy, and fun performances to the Cincinnati area. They love long walks on the beach, candlelit dinners, and haunting that one creepy house in your neighborhood that you were afraid to walk past as a kid. Since they were bitten by a vaudeville star, know you can come to a Bite Risk show for dark glamour, high drama, and songs that came out before your parents were born! Follow them @biteriskdrag on Instagram to track their most recent sightings.
Areola Borealis (they/them) is a puppeteer, Fringe theatre and draglesque performer, currently based in Cincinnati. Their performing style could be categorized as weird and peculiar, portraying non-human characters, while curating a strong story through movement. Daniela is a co-founder of Solasta Theatre Lab here in Cincinnati.
Act 1
Ceres Cobb - Puck for Your Entertainment (acrochair)
Bobbi Bridle - Ophelia Torniquet
Seymour Hiney - Nick Bottom Mix
Guad Ala Jara - Te Mata (victorian)
Salem Le Fay - Blackheart (Isis wings)
Act 2
Betty Page Turner - Guillotine
Sapphic Sunshine - I'm Not A Woman, I'm a God
Bite Risk - Will Power
Areola Borealis - Love Surrounds You (flow/fans)
Salem Le Fay - Exs & Ohs (Bawdy wench)
Smoke & Queers is a Cincinnati-based, queer-led, co-ed burlesque, drag, and performance art troupe that encourages all weird and wild expressions of self, gender, identity, and sexuality. Our mission is to help connect and unify the LGBTQ+ community in Cincinnati and beyond to create a space where those outside the typical standard of beauty feel sexy, celebrated, and empowered. S&Q has performed at Cincinnati Fringe Festival, the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC), Cincinnati Pride, and around Ohio and Kentucky. Smoke & Queers was rated #2 Best Dance Group by Cincinnati CityBeat in 2023.
For information, booking, or community partnerships, contact smokeandqueerscincy@gmail.com
Gender nonconformity is ubiquitous within the works of Shakespeare where, contemporary to Shakespeare himself, all female roles were played by men. But more than that, almost one fifth of Shakespeare’s plays feature a character who cross-dresses as a plot point. These characters resist gender conformity for myriad reasons such as to free themselves in a patriarchal society, to live their own truth and execute their desires with free will, or to achieve the love and partnership they want. The one thing still relevant today that they all have in common? The universal human need to invoke agency over their lives. CSC is proud to celebrate with Pride with this “Shakes-Queer-ian” experience where all wild expressions of self, gender, identity, and sexuality and welcome.
All proceeds support our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access (DEIA) commitment, which will help us continue our mission of bringing Shakespeare and the Classics to life for ALL.
Cincinnati Shakespeare Company strives to be an inclusive space for all races, ethnicities, genders, identities, orientations, abilities, creeds, and ages, where artists and audiences of all backgrounds see themselves and their stories represented, where voices that have been historically silenced are amplified, and where the experience of live theatre is reachable for all.
Your gift to support the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access Fund helps us become Cincinnati's Shakespeare Company, fostering a community of theater makers, patrons, supporters, and stakeholders who are representative of Cincinnati, united in their desire for artistic excellence, and unabashedly welcoming to all who wish to be a part of it. Because a world in which theatre matters to more people is one worth living in and one CSC commits to help to build.
Closer Look
The summer of 2020 made us pause and reflect on our mission as a resident ensemble theatre company bringing Shakespeare and the classics to life for all. While we aspire to this ideal daily, we have historically fallen short at ensuring that “for all” extends beyond individual programs to the broader audience, Board, staff, and leadership at CSC. We have listened to the lived-experiences of our BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) colleagues and friends and heard them when they say they have felt excluded, exploited, not welcome, diminished, and silenced. It is up to companies like ours to be a part of the solution.
Facilitating community conversation (“feeding the dialogue”) is a foundational principle of our work, but we recognize that it is an unfulfilled promise if the “dialogue” is only among a small group of homogenous individuals. CSC risks becoming irrelevant to our community and our stakeholders if we do not acknowledge and address this moment in an authentic and forthright way.
Simply said, CSC wants to live the change we aspire to see in our community.
Your contribution to the DEIA Fund supports:
• ongoing Anti-Racism and DEIA training for all CSC employees
• funding for DEIA-focused recruitment, donor and audience cultivation, marketing, engagement, and outreach efforts
• commissions of new plays by BIPOC playwrights, women, and members of the LGBTQ community
• improvements to accommodations for visually-impaired, hearing-impaired, and neurodivergent audiences at Mainstage and Park productions
• new initiatives and programs created to support strategic DEIA Plan goals