Photo: José Guzmán Colón
Raquel Blake Serves Sizzling Drag This Summer
by Steve Desroches
On the first day in May that feels like summer, the sound of cutlery clanging on plates and laughter fill the air in the patio outside the Post Office Café and Cabaret. Raquel Blake sits tucked inside the box office at the storied venue that for over 50 years has been entertaining and feeding thousands of townies and tourists alike. Sitting in a high-back, elevated red swivel chair, Blake is in her office full of posters announcing all the shows at the P.O. this season, clusters of disco mirror balls, drag queen merchandise, and a painted portrait of Judy Garland in splashes of greens and blues. All in all, a pretty typical Provincetown workplace. The phone rings and Blake answers in a friendly, singsongy manner, “Hello, you’ve reached the Post Office Café and Cabaret.” It’s the same woman who called earlier that morning to make a reservation for drag brunch. She self-identifies as a dingbat for giving the wrong date. She needs a reservation for July 10. Blake, one of the stars of the Post Office Café’s drag brunches in question, laughs and says no problem, to which the woman lets out a squeal of delight saying she can’t wait. She loves drag brunches!
From the sheer number of drag brunches around the country, and here in Provincetown, lots and lots of people love drag brunch. While certainly not new, the popularity of drag queens performing as the audience chomps on French toast and sips mimosas has exploded. For drag performers like Blake it’s a boon as now she can get bookings not just at night, doubling work opportunities. Plus, as a performer it’s a new challenge as how do you entertain an audience, mid-morning, in bright, natural light, while dodging servers bringing a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon to tables in a room full of people day drinking.
“It takes a lot of guts and grit to do it,” says Blake. “Day drag is not for everyone.”
Indeed, Blake does have the gumption not just for drag in general, but the high demands of day drag. Originally from Dracut, Massachusetts, Blake started drag in Boston, quickly become a big player in the city’s drag scene. But she distinguished herself further by crossing Cape Cod Bay to Provincetown, which, oddly enough with the size of Boston’s drag community, not a lot of entertainers do. That may be in part because Provincetown presents a very different drag landscape drawing performers from all over the country as well as visitors who fill the seats of the town’s cabarets and night clubs. What might work in Boston could tank here.
Speaking of bombing, it’s often our failures that teach us the most in life. And that’s what happened to Blake when she went to Texas to compete in a drag pageant. Like with mainstream pageants, drag contests are a very big deal in Texas and dominate the drag scene in the Lone Star State. Highly competitive and highly polished, every detail is scrutinized in a drag pageant, very different compared to the more loosey-goosey New England drag where, while professional, it is not as driven by glamour or perfection. Things are even more competitive in Texas drag pageantry as, unlike Miss America or Miss USA, the drag pageants release the full results, from the winner to last place.
“Fifteen years ago I went to Dallas to compete in the Miss Gay US of A Pageant and I came in dead last,” says Blake. “It’s the 15th anniversary of me coming in dead last.”
One would think that that experience would have had Blake say goodbye to Texas forever. Instead, she moved there. She spent 12 years living in Dallas and became a student of the very drag scene that had placed her in the back of the pack. She found mentors in Asia O’Hara, Cassie Nova, and Krystal Summers, all Dallas drag legends who help Blake hone her skills to the point that she became a headliner herself. Those skills came in handy as Blake decided to move to Provincetown year-round several years ago, filled with confidence from her bottom to top experience in Dallas. She had the confidence she could handle whatever came her way as well as the creativity to carve out her own spot in a crowded field. And that includes noticing a niche that has been sitting largely empty for years in Provincetown’s drag shows, a free show. So when her drag pal, Vivienne Fontaine, asked Blake to co-host her weekly Summer Camp night at the Post Office, she jumped at it as there is an audience for a non-ticketed show where people can come and go, and tip based on what they think the show is worth. And financially, that proves to work for both performer and venue. Over this past winter at the P.O. Café’s sister venue, Tin Pan Alley, Blake and Fontaine developed a hybrid night of trivia and bingo they call Tringo. It was such a hit, they’re be presenting it all summer long.
“It all works out,” says Blake. “She’s smart and I like balls.”
Raquel Blake performs as part of drag brunches on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Blake co-hosts Summer Camp on Saturdays at 9 p.m. and Tringo on Sundays from 4 – 7 p.m. with Vivienne Fontaine at the Post Office Café, 303 Commercial St. all summer. There is no cover charge. To make a reservation and purchase tickets for brunch ($25) call 508.487.0008 or visit postofficecafe.net.
