Did I ever tell you I went to 500 drag shows? Well I did. That's what inspired me to write this play. The play is set in a nightclub called the Club Manatee, and the funny thing is that there really was a Club Manatee which existed for many years in downtown Toronto and that's where I saw all the shows - every weekend during the 1980s - and let me tell you - that club was notorious! Like something out of a gangster movie. Because, not only was it an after hours club which was open 'till 4 am, but it was an after hours club for underage boys! How did they get away with it - well they didn't sell liquor! All they sold was orange juice and 7-UP. And it was very very popular. It was on a little side street between Yonge and Bay called Saint Joseph Street - the corner of St. Joseph and some dark dank Dickensian (is that a word?) alley. There was an unmarked door on street level that you went through into a short hall where there was a ticket booth with bars in the window and an old woman who sold you an admission ticket for $5. Then you walked through the dark down through a twisting stairwell into the basement where this huge muscle bound bouncer took your ticket and where you checked your coat. Oh, and I forgot to tell you - there were no women! They never allowed females into the place - except stars - like Eartha Kitt - who'd come in to unwind after performing at the Imperial Room. This place was like a huge dark subterranean cavern, and the interior was designed to be like the deck of those 18th century wooden battle ships. The roof was supported by massive wooden pillars that were dressed up like the masts on ships, with a crows nest lookout 20 feet up where 15 year old gogo boys in white lurex bikinis would gyrate to Donna Summer. Almost the whole club was a dance floor, and it was huge! And packed every single weekend with sweating teenage boys dancing off their sexual frustration. One night I was there around 2am, when I was 21-or-so - lounging against a pin-ball machine (remember pin-ball?) when this big tall 50-something man who looked like a European orchestra conductor sidled up beside me and said "Are you a hustler?" Me? Standing there like a stunned suburban rabbit - I said "I'm probably the only one here who isn't a hustler." And it was true! I think it was the reason that place existed. Have you ever seen that movie from the 70s called OUTRAGEOUS starring that hairdresser-turned- female-impersonator Craig Russell? It was filmed at the Manatee. It's available on DVD now.

Speaking of drag queens - every Saturday night, in literally the middle of the night, there was a drag show at the Club Manatee. They had an actual proscenium stage built into one of the walls, and it was tiny - no more than 12 feet wide - with a little curtain which parted in the center that pulled open to reveal a stage probably 8 feet deep. But it was a real stage. And there was a guy sitting somewhere up on a ledge over the dance floor who operated a follow spot. And those shows were hilarious! And it sounds ridiculous to say it, but some of those show were sublime. Those drag queens put their hearts and souls into those acts, and they performed them for next-to-no money, they performed because they loved to perform, and - dare I say it - those shows were their life! And it's the love I remember feeling. They loved the glittering theatricality of it all. They loved the spotlight and they loved the audience. It's hard not to be enraptured when you know a performer loves you.

So I wrote this little comedy DRAG QUEENS TALK ABOUT THEIR VAGINAS about them and all those nights I spent in the dark laughing. I tried to capture it and present it to you. We did this show a couple of years ago at Paddy's Playhouse - do you know my good friend Paddy Aldridge? She owns a cross-dressing emporium named Take A Walk On The Wildside at 161 Gerrard Street East ( www.wildside.org ), and there is a little theatre upstairs that she started. We did the show and it was very popular, in fact, some people paid to stand (stand!) to watch it, and one night Paul Isaacs, the theatre critic from EYE Weekly came to review it. Let me quote a little of his review because I was so proud when I read it in the paper, he said, "I can't remember the last time I felt better coming out of a piece of Toronto theatre than I did on the way in. Most plays in this town only weigh you down like stale cake; DQTATV, by comparison, is a perfect souffle. It turns out that this musty old piece of pantomime, performed in an upstairs living room -- short and sweet at 55 minutes -- may just be the most enjoyable near-hour of theatre playing in the city."