Sasha Velour, the boundary-busting, Berkeley-born drag icon and creative visionary, returns to the stage with her most ambitious project to date: The Big Reveal Live Show.
Following the success of her debut solo show, Smoke & Mirrors, Velour invites Bay Area audiences into a magical multimedia experience (which runs June 4-15 at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre) that is equal parts over-the-top spectacle and raw vulnerability. If the two qualities seem at odds, they’re not to Velour, who is long adept at balancing grandeur with grounded-ness.
“I feel like theatricality is the perfect way to be emotionally vulnerable,” says Velour in an interview with 48hills. “I know it’s a very drag answer, but the more stylization that happens, the greater. It’s almost like a safety net for really going there with the emotions because emotions are over the top. Staging that through a costume reveal, lighting change, or sound effects is needed to capture the emotional truths of being human.”
Written, directed, and produced entirely by Velour herself, The Big Reveal Live Show (an extension of her 2023 book, The Big Reveal: An Illustrated Manifesto of Drag) is a 90-minute exploration of queer life and artistry through original drag numbers, video art, live comedy, childhood footage, and musical selections that span from Stevie Wonder to Britney Spears.
Velour’s reveals are legendary. Who can forget her crown-clinching final performances on Season 9 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” where, to the tunes of Whitney Houston, she removed her wig and later, a peel-away mask to release a cascade of rose petals?
In The Big Reveal, she holds nothing back. From poignant self-discovery to jaw-dropping costume transformations, the show brings to life a celebration of queer resilience and creativity. Here, the performer reveals just as much to herself as she does to the audience through a blend of camp, comedy, and courageous storytelling.
In this show, Velour continues to redefine the parameters of her art. “I feel like my drag is a tribute to the legacy of drag that opened the door for me,” she says. “I want to be all the things that this art form can achieve.”
That means political commentary, gender fluidity, high-femme glamour, pageant-level production, and fine-art-level execution—all rolled into one performance.
Velour’s creative process is deeply rooted in music. “I do start with the song,” the performer explains. “When I was a teenager going through some hard stuff like all teens do, especially queer kids who don’t know their place in the world, I escaped into music.”
Artists like Björk, Britney Spears, Kate Bush, and Annie Lennox were portals to new realms of possibility. Music provides framework for her numbers, with each song conjuring “an image, idea, or story” from her life that she brings to the stage.
That music-driven inspiration is only part of the tapestry. The Big Reveal Live Show is structured like the ultimate drag revue, drawing from Velour’s decade of curating her variety drag showcase Nightgowns.
“I followed that tradition of changing, transforming, and flowing through different genres to try to capture the ideal drag show,” says Velour. “As much as I’m making a theater piece… I also want it to be true to what a drag show is and all the great kinds of chaotic, surprising variety that is part of that.”
Camp, which is often diluted in mainstream discourse—as it was the 2019 Met Gala, for which attendees flocked to Manhattan’s Metropolitan Museum of Art festooned in as many ostrich feathers as they could find—takes on a deeper meaning in Velour’s world.
She doesn’t just reference camp—she embodies it.
“I don’t want to lose the fact that camp was originally a derogatory word for being too gay in public or that it was reclaimed by fabulous queer people,” she says. “I want to honor our tradition of not giving a fuck how we come across to people.”
This historical and political depth runs throughout the show, especially as Velour grapples with the criminalization of drag and trans existence in contemporary society.
“I started thinking about how I can use my platform and this art that I do to combat the misinformation and the fear that’s out there just by telling the simple truth about my life,” explains Velour.
Through the magic of performance, she hopes to counter false narratives and offer a vivid, joyful, and nuanced portrait of queer life.
This message is never more evident than in one of the show’s most moving segments: the inclusion of childhood footage featuring Velour’s first drag performance, which surfaced after decades, during her father’s recent move.
“I was shocked at how consistent a creature I’ve always been,” she says, describing the experience of watching the old performances on VHS. “So I thought sharing that kind of vulnerability, just the way a kid could be drawn to this art and might need to know that such a thing exists would be powerful, given the fears around exposing children to queer culture.”
But Velour’s commitment to community doesn’t end with personal storytelling. In a departure from many touring drag shows, The Big Reveal Live Show includes a duet with a local drag artist in each city—a literal and symbolic sharing of the spotlight.
“The magic of drag wouldn’t be complete without passing the spotlight on to other performers,” says Velour. “As much as we indulge our fantasies within the platform of drag … It’s really about a platform that is accessible to lots of people and a spotlight that is shared with the community.”
This philosophy extends to Velour’s approach to production as well. Unlike most touring queens who rely on third-party producers, Velour runs the entire operation through her own company, The House of Velour. This ensures not just creative control but equity.
“Drag queens have nothing to lose and are kind of unapologetic figures with something to say,” she says. “And as a result of all those forces combined, we have often led representation for queer people.”
Velour’s two-week run in Berkeley holds special significance. Not simply because it’s a city built on progressive activism and queer inclusivity, but also because the performer was herself born there.
“I was born in Berkeley in 1987, but I have never performed in drag there,” the performer recalls. “Even though we moved away when I was a baby, and I grew up in Illinois for the most part, my family was like, ‘We are Californians. We are from the Bay Area.’ That is a huge part of my identity.”
In ensuing years, she performed in San Francisco several times, almost always at Oasis or in a large touring theatrical show. This performance at Berkeley Rep, therefore, becomes both a homecoming and a milestone in her career.
“I’m excited for my birthplace debut, very close to my birthday, too, at the end of June,” says Velour. “This will be something cosmic and connecting with my ancestors, who are all dispersed or buried in the Bay Area as well.”
Looking ahead, Velour is already preparing for her next project, set to debut in 2026.
“We had grief and depression in my first show, and life, joy, and childhood in this second show,” she says. “And now I’m going to go heavy into politics, activism, and revolution.”
Like every Velour presentation before it, it will no doubt be more than just a drag show. Perhaps, her biggest reveal yet?
THE BIG REVEAL LIVE SHOW June 4-15. Roda Theatre, Berkeley. Tickets and more info here.
