The B-Girlz break out
From Degrassi B-Girlz High to Vegas Bound and Gagged, these Technicolour Golden Girls are putting theatre back into drag
by Jeff Harrison

"We are not drag queens, we are male actresses,” breathes Ivana of B-Girlz fame. “Like the Golden Girls,” says Hard Kora. Played by Michael Boyuk, Hard Kora is clearly the strongspoken Bea Arthur of the group. (Don’t let the acid-green locks fool you. She’s got dry wit and Shoppers Drug Mart spokesperson potential written all over her.) Cute, klutzy Barbara Quigley (a.k.a. Barbie-Q, played by Mark Peacock) with the shocking pink hair would have to be the Rose of the triad, even if she’s not from St. Olaf. And although sultry, o r a n g e - h a i r e d Conchita Alverez has retired, seductive Ivana K (alter ego Don Gilroy) recently pitched her blue tresses into the Technicolor trio. As the de facto slutty Blanche, she’s poised to take the stage (and perhaps the sling at The Black Eagle) by storm.

At the height of the Pride countdown, the Girlz are at their busiest, putting the finishing touches on their new show Vegas Bound and Gagged, as well as having two other gigs lined up and numerous celebrity appearances. Fresh off the film circuit (their last film screened at the Inside Out Festival), the Girlz sat down with me to offer the inside scoop on their upcoming Pride performances, what happened to Orange Girl Conchita, the success of their latest film and discovering how Ivana ended up as the newest Blue.

“Each new show has a video that’s produced specifically for that show and then we double-dip it and release it to film festivals,” explains Barbie-Q.

“Our last film, Degrassi B-Girlz High,” continues Kora, “which was in our Dragged Across America show, is the one at Inside Out that opened for Another Gay Movie at the gala.” The film, which follows the B-Girlz in junior high, features Barbie-Q coming to terms with her alcoholism, Ivana getting knocked up, and Kora facing off against a 12-year-old homophobic girl bully.

Inside Out was just the first stop of many for the movie, as it’s been accepted to film fests in LA, Honolulu, Calgary and Edmonton. In the past, the group has seen their films screened internationally in Johannesburg, Australia, Madrid. So the BGirlz are actually quite international.

“When I get a cheque that’s in Euros, then we’ll be international,” quips Barbie-Q.

“Actually we did!” exclaims Kora. “Remember, we sold The Elevator to that French compilation gay DVD? So yeah, we are international.”

First up on the summer Pride circuit for the B-Girlz was a guest appearance opening for Stella Walker and the Fallen Stars. Long before there was a Starbucks on Church, there was a place called the Tree House and long before there was a resto/lounge called The Mask there was a space called Windows. Back in the ’90s, both these places were popular venues for cabaret reviews, where shows consisted of more than just lip-synching to the latest remixed divas. With those spaces now converted to a wholly different kind of social scene, the more theatrical performers have found few spaces interested in or equipped for handling cabaret-style entertainment.

According to Kora and Barbie-Q, Stella Walker, a trained opera singer who did comedy as well, took a hiatus from the diminishing cabaret scene in Toronto to travel the Yiddish music circuit, but now she wants to stage a big revival of live entertainment. So naturally she contacted her old friends the B-Girlz, who were only too happy to help.

“Stella was famous for songs like –” and here Barbie-Q bursts into tune, going from B-Girl to basso and then back to B-Girl – “‘Golden Griddle, the place where they never change the oil/Potatoes wrapped in foil…’ Funny enough, she originated one of the roles in The Drowsy Chaperone, which is now a big hit on Broadway.”

Speaking of hits, coming up is the debut of the Girlz’ newest glamour-disco-cabaret, Vegas Bound and Gagged, followed by a stint hosting the Pride Awards Gala show on June 20 in the Distillery District. “Their theme this year is burlesque. Nothing says burlesque like the B-Girlz!” enthuses Kora.

“Everyone wants to see the B-Girlz without too much clothing,” adds Barbie-Q. “Which reminds me of that old quote from years ago that we used to put on our promo material… This was in 1998, before we even had the colours. I was blonde, Kora had black hair and at the time the orange one, I can’t remember her n a m e … [Laughs] No, no, it was Conchita, and she had red hair. We were standing on the corner in front of Jilly’s [one of those run-down strip joints with neon dancing girls flashing all over the outside] and some car zoomed by and someone shouted out, ‘Fuckin’ skanky ho!’ So that made it on to all our postcards for years.”

It’s hard to picture the Girlz without their signature flashy colours. One wonders: how do three ordinary girlz get swept off their platforms and land in the limelight?

“We really fell into the whole thing as a joke,” recalls Barbie.

“Lena Over gave us our start,” adds Kora, “and miraculously she didn’t give us crabs either.” She tosses back her head and lets out a throaty laugh. “[Lena] was doing a show at The Barn; it was a Wednesday night drag show...”

“And we were all in drag and Lena said to us, ‘Oh, you look like fun. Come down to the Barn and let’s do a show,” finishes Barbie-Q. “And after that, Conchita suggested we go to Trax and do a show. Kora and I were actually lipsynching that night.”

“But when we arrived,” says Kora, “they were like, ‘Gurl, you can’t perform here. It’s 12 o’clock. You have to sign up at ten. So we said, ‘Oh, but we’re from Miami and we need to catch a plane.’ So they said, ‘OK…’ And we decided to do one of our live tracks.”

“Because only Conchita had brought a live track,” adds Barbie- Q, “we decided we’d just do backup –”

“– And if there’s a song we know,” adds Kora, “we’d switch off.

Well, we brought the house down—“

“All eight people!”

“But the ninth person was actually doing a benefit and asked us if we’d like to perform in it. We had no material, nothing, but we said, ‘Oh what the hell, why not!’ So in a week we had two new numbers.”

“The old material is so simple compared to the way we bash our brains against the wall now, saying, ‘That doesn’t make any sense, there’s no story, there’s no plot.

Back then it was like, ‘Hello! Tonight we’re going to talk about love. And we’d sing ‘Love is in the Air.’”

“Our shows have really changed as well. Before we used to do a lot of bar shows like at Woody’s, Trax and the Barn, where you’re dealing with people who are drinking and who have a limited attention span.”

“And you can’t get a lot of dialogue out so they know what’s going on.”

“So our shows now are a lot more theatrical and very thematic, especially this one.”

I feel for a moment like I’m watching a ping-pong game for over-caffeinated players as the quips zip from one side of the room to the other – it makes me a little dizzy, so I rest my eyes on Ivana K, the newest BGirl. So far, she hasn’t said a thing since her breathy one-line opener. She sits calmly through the barrage, legs crossed, poised, as if she’s become quite used to watching the two veterans race around the court, quietly waiting for her moment to enter the conversation. She looks like she should have a martini and a cigarette in a long black holder.

By contrast, Hard Kora and Barbie-Q have been working closely together for years. Their comedic timing is beyond flawless, to the point that it seems like they can read each other’s minds, finishing each other’s sentences without any sort of cue.

Which leaves the question, what ever happened to orange-haired Conchita? For a moment, creepy music and the crack of thunder play alongside my inner monologue, but as it turns out, the answer is less Wes Craven and more I Know Who You Did Last Summer.

Four summers ago, the B-Girlz took their first travelling show to Provincetown. Conchita, however, was unable to free up the time to go with them. Suddenly they were faced with a dilemma – there were only two Girlz to do a three-women show. A frantic scramble resulted in the birth of the blue B-Girl, whose shoes were filled by a friend of a friend. The incestuous casting continued in this way for subsequent summers as Blue B-Girl after Blue B-Girl dropped out, till they ran out of friends of friends. So this year they decided it was time to hold auditions. Conchita is apparently off taking over TV-land, so while orange has been retired, blue is the one that’s here to stay, and the newest and latest blue B-Girl is Ivana K.

“I’m the last blue B-Girl,” Ivana K states with finality. Her sexy baritone catches me off guard. She’s a lady of few words, but the words she utters cut smoothly through the banter of Barbie-Q and Kora.

“We’re sort of like Destiny’s Child,” giggles Kora. “We’re three, no four, no two, back up to three.”

“And I’m Beyonce,” purrs Ivana.

Was it a hotly contested audition? Every time the Girlz went through the process of hiring friends of friends to fill the blue role, the list of what they were looking for became longer, the qualities they desired more exacting.

“Because we are such multitaskers,” states Barbie-Q. “Drags of all trades.”

Again, the Girlz are very clear that they aren’t drag queens. Inspired by the likes of Dame Edna, they do more of an alternative drag look, as opposed to the pretty-girl look popular with the Church Street queens.

“It’s more of a clowny look, very above and beyond looking like a woman. It’s more like looking like this giant drawing of a cartoon of a woman,” says Ivana.

Barbie-Q explains how she and Kora finally decided on Ivana: “You always want to keep upping the bar every time you do a show because you have to keep bringing the production values up and suddenly it’s more work than last year. So when we were looking for someone new, we needed somebody who could...”

Kora picks up the thought: “Sing –”
Barbie-Q continues: “– dance, act –”
Back to Kora: “– write –”

Then back to Barbie-Q: “– do drag...”
And then Kora runs with the idea:
“So many people don’t want to do drag. People are like, ‘Oh, it must be so much fun!’ And it is, it really is, but it is also a lot of work.

And not just doing the shows, but the publicity is a whole other beast, where you have to be out there selling yourself and that’s sometimes a difficult thing to do.”

“So they auditioned the hell out of me,” Ivana adds.

So this is how Ivana’s timing works so well with the two veteran Girlz: Barbie-Q is the dreamy one, always with her head in the clouds, searching for artistic validation and hoping for eventual recognition. Kora is a little more manic, spouting ideas as they come, shooting off the one-liners, taking Barbie’s dream and dashing off with it. And Ivana grounds them, taking it all in and bringing it all together.

While the cattle call of 15 did not quite have the proportions of Canadian Idol, hopefuls not only had to sing and perform a monologue, but there was a cold reading of a script. Even after that extended process, the Girlz wanted to see how quick on their feet the potentials were, because audience participation is a big part of the B-Girlz shows. The audition hopefuls weren’t the usual Church Street queens, and few had ever done drag before. In fact, of the 15, only three had ever donned heels and a wig.

One of the final hurdles to be bested was the writing test, in which the contestants had to write and perform an original piece.

An old Church Street standby before the cabaret spaces started to be turned into coffee shops and martini bars, Ivana K is no virgin to the performing scene. Known back then as Ricky Reeves, she was best known for singing live at Trax, before retiring her wig and heels and moving to Montreal for seven years. Having recently returned to Toronto and found herself between jobs, she crashed the B-Girlz audition just for fun.

“I wasn’t being very serious about it,” Ivana recalls. “I thought, ‘Oh it’ll be something theatrical to do.’ And then after I did the first audition, the competitive spirit hit me. By the third audition I threw caution to the wind and I went in drag as the character.”

“It was very daring,” Barbie-Q remembers.

Ivana was thinking of the woman that shaved her head just before going to the auditions for the first Star Trek movie. “She was a model but said she could always wear a wig. She got the part in the first five minutes. While I didn’t shave my head, I tucked.”

And now she’s ready to make her debut with the other Girlz in Vegas Bound and Gagged. Because Barbie and Kora have such a strong rapport, I wondered if Ivana ever feels left in the dust.

“I do sometimes feel like the new person in a threesome,” Ivana admits with a sly smile.

“With this show,” says Kora, “knock on wood, there’s a through line. It’s very theatrical. It’s cabaret, which unfortunately doesn’t happen very much in this city anymore.”

“I’d like to see it come back,” Barbie- Q adds wistfully.

“I think the city is really starved for something like that,” says Kora. “I would love to go out at night, sit down, have a drink and watch something onstage.”

Kora’s comment snaps Barbie Q quickly back to reality. “That’s what you do, you go to Remington’s.”

“Well, it’s a show!” Kora says mustering her defences. “I’m researching!”

Vegas Bound and Gagged goes on tour after its Toronto debut, heading to Syracuse (which Ivana believes is a big club in New York City – shh!), Rochester, Chicago, Boston, Montreal and Ottawa. The Girlz would love to do a west-coast tour, but Canada is a big country and it’s expensive to fly them and their crew, small as it is. (Any sugar daddies interested in quality cabaret entertainment should contact the Girlz’ booking agent.) For now, they’re going to stay focused on the northeastern US.

For the first time, they’ve got a director/producer/agent. A choreographer, Steven Greg, has come on board for this show, as well as costume designer Richard Reiner and Plum Vicious, who is giving Barbie-Q a brand new look just in time for the Vegas extravaganza.

“We’re doing celebrity impersonations in the show, which we’ve never done before.” Kora tells me. “Everyone always asks us, ‘Well who do you do? What characters?’ And before, I’d always say, ‘Well I play myself…’ But now we’re going to have a smart answer:” Kora suddenly flies into Fosse-land: “We do Cher, Liza, Kermit the Frog, Eartha Kitt, Carol Channing, and we reenact the tiger mauling of Siegfried and Roy –there will be 24 wig changes and six costume changes each.”

No one will be safe from the multi-hued assault of B-Girlz humour. Up for a good roasting are everyone’s favourite fundamentalist American president, George W. Bush, Saddam Hussein, Bill Clinton and Condoleezza Rice.

With the tightening of the borders post-9/11, it’s not always easy to slip by security with a Glam-o-van stuffed with wigs, heels, gowns, bras and feathered boas.

“There’s no Glam-o-van,” Ivana corrects me with a whisper.

Barbie is clearly shocked to her core. “Saying that is like taking your wig off in public!” “The Glam-o-van is in the shop!” covers Kora.

“It’s been in the shop since January!” wails Ivana. Apparently, it’s getting a new paint job so it draws a little less attention during border crossings. While attempting one such crossing in 2003, the Girlz had to think fast.

“Security asks us, ‘So what’s the name of your group?’

And there was this long pause before Kora mumbled, ‘BGirlz.’”

Barbie recalls. “‘Oh, the Beagles,’ the security guard replies.”

“Yes, the Beagles!” Kora remembers, laughing. “So then he asks us what we do. And I’m like, ‘Oh, the Beatles, the Eagles – you know, the Beagles! And then we signed the papers and got the hell out of there!” All three laugh uproariously.

Pride’s whirlwind festivities wrap up on June 24 at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre as the Girlz present their sixth annual Homo Night in Canada, a pet project allowing the Girlz to support friends by featuring a roster of Canadian gay standup comedy and acts. The Girlz have raised over $40,000 to date for Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and a second charity which is selected each year (this year it’s U of T’s Sexual Diversity Studies program). The Girlz have scored a real coup by getting Elvira Kurt to perform.

It’s a night the Girlz really enjoy because so many people who have seen or heard of them south of the border are in town for Pride and the show is always swept up in the high energy of the gayest holiday of the year.

So is there a naughty B-Girl?

“Ivana’s the promiscuous one of the bunch,” Barbie Q states primly.

“Kora’s a little defensive at times and she does have a temper. I guess she’s a little manic at times,” Kora admits of herself. “And I’m sweet and innocent,” concludes Barbie Q.

Both Kora and Ivana roll their eyes at Barbie’s assumed naivety, then Ivana proudly adds, “I’m single and I’m on the prowl. I’m a real man-eater and I’m always hungry.”

Jeff Harrison is a Toronto writer.