Photo credit: Jacob Ritts

The Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Show
Presented by Boch Center Wang Theatre
Created & Written by BenDeLaCreme & Jinkx Monsoon
Director: BenDeLaCreme
Choreographer: Chloe Albin
Movement Direction by BenDeLaCreme
Original Compositions by Major Scales
Lyrics: BenDeLaCreme, Jinkx Monsoon, & Major Scales
Music Production: Markaholic & Keith Harrison
Starring: BenDeLaCreme & Jinkx Monsoon
Featuring: Chloe Albin, Mr. Babygirl, Jace Gonzalez, Ruby Mimosa, Derrick Paris, Scott Spraags, and Gus Lanza as “Hunky the Elf”

Dec. 2, 2024
Wang Theatre at Boch Center
270 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02116

Critique by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON – December marks the start of a very special time for us in Boston. No, it’s not the Baby Jesus’ red and green capitalist wet dream known as Christmas. It’s the month when The Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Show visits Boston to spread cheer (and legs) across the land, sillies. Merry Kwanzanukkahdad and Mele New Year, the holiday season has begun! 

On December 2, New England’s queers, allies and adjacents gathered in the Wang Theatre to celebrate in the holiday tradition with Jinkx Monsoon, two-time RuPaul’s Drag Race winner and Broadway Diva, and BenDeLaCreme, award-winning film and theater multi-hyphenate and global drag icon, and their ensemble of fabulous dancing snowpersons. This year, Jinkx and DeLa ponder the meaning of a Christmas variety show bursting with holiday parodies of a certain pop queer artist’s club hits (“Red Reindeer Place,” “Egg Nog Supernova,” & “Hot Coco!”) in a world factually on fire.  

Photo by Santiago Felipe.

All is jolly until DeLa discovers her snowglobes are depressed! What’s worse, Hunky the Elf (Gus Lanza) is sick! Two of the snowpeople have melted! And, it appears that Jinkx and DeLa are caught in a Nutcracker riff. The queens must dance battle the Rat King, travel through the Nutcracker realm, and fight the forces of evil with the power of parody to perform their show for a rabid audience of loving fans. Watch Jinkx and DeLa smash the 4th wall with self-referential witticisms, painful puns and gratuitous dick jokes. Yes, it’s puerile fun with horny intentions, but it’s Jinkx and DeLa’s well-coifed, hand-sequinned, carefully choreographed, puerile fun with horny holiday intentions and we love it.   

To get real for a moment, it takes a lot of hard work and intelligence to write a show this purposefully vapid and jolly. Jinkx and DeLa aren’t regurgitating the same tired dick jokes and holiday puns every year. They write a fresh two-act script and parody new pop hits with co-writer Major Scales and choreographer Chloe Albin each November. Lest we forget, this was an election year with disastrous results for our queer community (with ramifications that may affect our trans community members for decades to come). Jinkx and DeLa, cofounders of Drag PAC, a political action committee fighting to end anti-trans and anti-drag laws, kept this year’s holiday show topical by incorporating relevant themes into the dialogue. These dick jokes and holiday puns are specially curated.

The Queens used their show to connect with their queer and queen communities. November was hell on our LGTBQ+ friends and family. Jinkx and DeLa know caring about the world and others is hard right now. The people in power would strip us of our right to be who we are and to love how we love. But, as DeLa says in a deeply powerful speech that is and also is not about The Nutcracker riff and the Nutcracker’s nutted sack, “Fighting is not nothing, no matter the results.” And she’s right. We have to keep fighting marshmallow/candy cane battles with the forces of injustice to save the melted snowpeople in our lives. It’s what country line-dancing Santa with a lasso would want. 

The Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Show has a happy ending! *wink* After brave parodies of Wicked’s “Popular” (“Secular”) and Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” (“Christmas Hold ‘Em”), our sheroes end the show with a stirring rendition of every uncomfortable queer’s favorite Christmas anthem:  “Everyone is Traumatized by Christmas.” We sure are, Fam.

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