INTERVIEW: This time, the Bearded Ladies head for the ice (even though it’s melting)
Photo: Beards on Ice is the newest show from the Bearded Ladies Cabaret. Photo courtesy of Maria Young / Provided by GCC with permission.
The Bearded Ladies Cabaret, with almost 15 years of art-making in Philadelphia, has brought its theatrical creativity to a number of unique locations in and around the city. The company members have performed on trucks that have driven around Philly, in art galleries at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, on street corners, in old warehouses and even in an abandoned grocery store. Now the performers are heading for the ice. That’s right, for the next two weeks, the Bearded Ladies Cabaret will take over the Tarken Ice Rink (March 15-16) and Laura Sims Skate House (March 22-23) for a new show called Beards on Ice.
“It is an hour-long drag show on ice, and the premise is that climate justice is impossible to think about, almost as impossible as getting drag queens to ice skate,” said John Jarboe, artistic director of the Bearded Ladies Cabaret and a featured performer in the show. “So if we can get this messy drag queen to ice skate in under an hour, we can solve the climate crisis.”
Jarboe said these are dark, dark times, but laughter and absurdity are part of a performer’s toolbox. And the Bearded Ladies Cabaret plans to utilize those tools when talking about climate change and climate justice.
“We use spectacle and song and glitter and joy and laughter to get us all to be in a room together, and to practice what it means to belong together, and to practice what it means to think critically together about hard things,” she said. “The show is an hour of just complete silliness and puns and absurdity, and it’s framed by a bunch of amazing climate activists that are sitting at tables with hot chocolate. So after the show, if you have questions, or you want to sign up or do something, if you want to take action, you’re welcome to do that. You’re encouraged to do that.”
As artistic director, Jarboe has built a career out of bringing people together. For this show, which she co-wrote with MK Tuomanen, it was important to partner with these climate activists in order to enhance the experience at Beards on Ice.
“I think the Beards, especially when tackling something so huge and kind of absurdly huge [like] the health and welfare of our climate, it’s really important for us to partner with people that are spending their whole lives dedicating themselves to that idea,” Jarboe said. “We’re not experts in climate justice or climate change. … And so what we do is we combine forces with these climate activists and work with them to be like, OK, what’s a different entrance? Besides being told that recycling is a placebo, and there’s nothing we can do, or watching our president pull away from climate accords, is there a different entrance into this? Is there a way that we can talk about the climate and not feel totally depressed and lost and helpless? So that’s where the Beards come in and try to bring a little bit of joy and levity and humor to the absurdity of the situation that we’re in.”
Each evening, the Bearded Ladies will offer a family-friendly show at 4:30 p.m., followed by a slightly more PG-13 version at 8 p.m. Jarboe said the versions are similar, but there are a few more jokes and puns in the later program.
“We did a version of Beards on Ice in 2023 on an outdoor rink,” Jarboe said. “It was in the middle of February, and it was so hot in Philly that the rink had melted. And our show about climate justice was canceled because of climate. We canceled one of the shows, and we actually made international press because they were saying, ‘A drag show about climate change canceled because of climate.’ But we did manage to do a few shows on that outdoor rink, and this is an updated, improved version of our ice show.”
Jarboe did open up about the difficulties of performing a drag show in today’s political climate. She said the company has been welcomed to various parts of Philadelphia, but there has been some pushback and prejudice as well. For this new show, the company is happy to be utilizing these public rinks, which are operated by the Philadelphia Parks & Recreation Department, which Jarboe called an incredible partner. But she’s also aware of the need to perform risk assessments, just to ensure there are no issues.
“I think we’re faced as Queer people with a couple options right now,” Jarboe said. “There’s the option where we get really afraid because things are literally scary, and we run and hide, which is kind of what they want us to do. The other one is just to be smarter and cleverer and to resource ourselves, and so we’ve been really leaning on our community to help support security efforts so that we can still be as visible or even more visible than we were before.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Beards on Ice, presented by the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, will perform March 15-16 and March 22-23 in Philadelphia. Click the links for tickets.
