Since competing on season 10 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Blair St. Clair has forged her own unique career path in the notoriously difficult drag industry.
Instead of only performing at gay bars, selling merch, and wrestling for a spot at DragCon, Clair has proved her talent not only when it comes to fashion, styling, and makeup, but also music.
Just after her run on the show concluded in 2018, she released her debut Call My Life, which ended up topping one of Billboard‘s dance/electronic charts, proving that she was not just another drag queen. Since that success, Clair has continued to write, record, and release music, and now she’s taking her love of singing to crowds in a new direction.
As of February 2 and 3, Clair will officially become a cabaret star, as she is launching her very own show, Legally Blair, at New York City’s famed Green Room 42. We caught up with the multi-talented queen ahead of her show’s premiere to learn what fans can expect and what made her decide to go this route as she furthers her entertainment career.
Legally Blair poster: Blair St. Clair
How did this cabaret show come about?
Samantha Diane, my manager, and Camden Scifres, my agent, and I were talking about my career and what was next for Blair. We were discussing which shows to pitch me for in the 2023 calendar year since I’ve wanted to get back on stage in theater for years. After thinking about it more, we thought the best type of pitch would be to do my own show to tell the world who I am as an artist and an entertainer!
How long have you been working on this show?
I’ve been in the writing process with director Ben Rimalower since early November.
Tell me about the process of finalizing and rehearsing this show? How has your director Ben Rimalower helped you?
I’ve never worked on a new show in a workshop stage where pieces are being written, rewritten, scrapped, moved around, and arranged. This has been a new process for me in terms of being able to be flexible and adapt to the creative process. Ben has been such an incredible asset to this show from its conception. He’s helped bring some of my ideas to paper. I love working with someone who truly understands what I do and who I am as an artist.
What can fans expect from your first cabaret show?
Fans can expect to see me in all forms: goofy, fun, charismatic, and vulnerable. This show is completely live and is meant to entertain but also bring up points that are important to today. Sondheim said that the best theater tells true, current stories. I hope that people can relate to me and my story.
You have made a name for yourself as both a musician and drag artist, but cabaret is a bit different. How will this show hold on to what people know you for, but also change things up?
I found drag through musical theater. I was originally cast in La Cage Aux Folles when I was 19. That lent itself to developing who Blair is today. I’ve wanted to use my love of music, theater, and gender expression to get back to a place of storytelling. Cabaret is exactly that!
Do you ever perform out of drag, or is that part of your life reserved for your Blair St. Clair character?
I do perform out of drag. I’m a nonbinary actor. I see myself as both male and female presenting characters. I feel my most comfortable getting to play with femininity and connect most to the stories of your traditional “leading ladies,” but I also connect to characters that are male. I’m not playing Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, but I can see myself connected to roles like Evan Hansen, Pippin, and Seymour.
Now that you’ll be entering the cabaret/Broadway arena, what other ambitions do you have in this space?
Since I was little, my dream has been to perform on Broadway, and I know that will happen someday. When? I’m not sure, but life is about dreaming and manifesting those possibilities. I feel the most creative and alive when I step into the shoes of a character and get to live their life for a few hours each night.
What does the rest of 2023 bring for Blair St. Clair?
2022 was a year of taking risks. 2023 is off to the start of applying the lessons learned from those risks and making my dreams a reality. I’m excited to see what happens this year, but I hope that it’s filled with many productions and memories.
Back in May, just after our 31st anniversary, I asked readers which of four classic cover interviews from our early years they'd like to see in print again: Greg Louganis (March 9, 1995), Sir Ian McKellen (Jan. 25, 1996), Camille Paglia (Feb. 1, 1996), or Eartha Kitt (Nov. 14, 1996). None of these conversations exist online, and they haven't been seen since their original print dates.
Out of more than 200 responses, 8% chose Paglia, 27% picked Louganis, 29% went for McKellen, and an impressive 36% cast their vote for Kitt.
Kitt, who passed away in December 2008, seemed a fitting choice to revisit. A pop culture icon for her turn as the second Catwoman (following Julie Newmar) on the late-1960s, camp-classic TV series Batman, she was slated to appear at Washington's legendary jazz nightclub Blues Alley when we spoke.
The founders of the legendary Miss Adams Morgan Pageant talk about how D.C.'s largest drag event has evolved over 37 years.
By John Riley Photographs from the 1998 to 2024 pageants courtesy of the Dupont Social Club
October 1, 2025
"The whole Miss Adams Morgan Pageant really started by accident," says Steven Brandt, a board member of the Dupont Social Club, which organizes the annual drag pageant, now a fixture on many D.C. residents' calendars.
Brandt recalls that he and his now-husband, Rick Boylan, were celebrating Halloween in drag with friends when, on their way to a piano bar, walking through Dupont Circle, they were accosted by a group of teenagers.
"It was raining," recalls Brandt. "They ripped my wig off and threw it in a puddle, spewing all kinds of hatefulness. After that, we decided we needed a place to be able to go in drag if we wanted. It was maybe only the first or second time we'd been in drag, but I was so enraged by the experience that I kept saying over and over, 'We've got to...This isn't right.'"
Metro Weekly magazine was barely a year and a half old when, in 1995, we were offered the chance to interview — and photograph — Broadway legend Carol Channing, then appearing at the Kennedy Center in Hello, Dolly! that fall. Two moments from that experience stand out, the first at the photo shoot with Annie Adjchavanich.
We'd set up a black velvet backdrop in the Hall of States and were waiting for Miss Channing to arrive. When she finally swept in, she looked radiant. Except… she refused to remove her enormous sunglasses. Indoors.
I begged her to take them off, but she firmly declined. "I don't have my eyelashes on," she said. "You are not seeing me without my eyelashes!" And that was that — sunglasses it would be. The result was a cover that was both thrilling (Carol Channing!) and oddly surreal (Carol Channing in giant sunglasses!).
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