Photo: Craig Montague
Scarlett Strauss Sparkles and Shines
by Steve Desroches
The story of Scarlett Strauss in Provincetown may sound as if it’s from another time. By some accounts she shouldn’t be here, not because anyone wouldn’t want her in Provincetown, but because conventional wisdom and the current state of affairs appear to be hostile to a young artist moving to town and being able to stay with the severe housing crisis, a general lack of affordability, and the idea that the town is increasingly for seasonal, wealthy retirees. Of course, the reports of the death of Provincetown are greatly exaggerated, but the challenges nonetheless are very, very real. What is also true is that to live and work in Provincetown has always taken a certain amount of grit, which Strauss has in spades, as she bedazzles every grain of it pursuing a life in drag.
At only 26, Strauss is just one of a generation that is still very much in Provincetown and making a name for herself. Back in 2022, Strauss was dying to see Bianca Del Rio at Town Hall. The drag insult-comic and winner of season six of RuPaul’s Drag Race was a favorite amongst Strauss and her gaggle of friends. The young crew thought they’d all pitch in and get one hotel room, and then all cram in. But one by one they all bailed. She was not going to miss this chance to see one of her favorite drag queens, though. So, she took the ferry from Boston and came to Provincetown on her own. She saw the show and then in a tale as old as time in Provincetown, she met new friends who invited her to crash on the couch of their rental for a few days, as they were sympathetic to her situation. And over those few days she fell under the spell of the Cape tip. Despite the protests and alarm of almost everyone she knew, two weeks later Strauss moved to Provincetown right at the beginning of Carnival Week.
Everyone told her that Provincetown wasn’t for the young, that it was only for the rich and that she’d never last. And when they found out she was going to pursue professional drag, they told her she was crazy as only the best of the best in the country get booked.
“As soon as you tell me I can’t do something I’m going to go out and do it,” says Strauss. “I don’t like being told what to do and I don’t like being told I won’t succeed. I’m just going to go and do it and the more you tell me I can’t the more I will.”
Four years later, Strauss is still here and has indeed planted a high heel in Provincetown’s storied drag scene. Considering how gorgeous Strauss’ drag persona is, it can mask how hard she works to make it in Provincetown. She only has one day off, and even then, she’s usually working anyway to make sure she doesn’t fall behind with her job as a consultant to local venues on lighting and sound design, as well as marketing. And she has clients off Cape, too. She works drag luncheons at the 1620 Brewhouse six days a week with two seatings. And then there’s her show, Trannah Montana: The Best of Both Genders at the Art House, scheduled only four times a summer so far, but she pours so much energy into them, as she knows the opportunity at hand as well as the stakes.
A native of Salem, Massachusetts, Strauss knows the drill of life in a tourist-oriented economy, with the high season there being, of course, September through October for Halloween. One of the things it takes for anyone to be successful, especially in Provincetown, is community, and while it can get swallowed up by the cacophony of summer, there is still tight community here, especially amongst the drag performers. It might to be cut-throat, but while it is competitive, it is also compassionate and caring. Strauss says she’s received nothing but support from the established performers in town, as well as in Puerto Vallarta, where she works winters following the drag migration down from Provincetown. It is, in part, to support an up-and-coming drag queen, but also because much of Strauss’ family doesn’t support her as a queer person. The drag community in Provincetown has become family.
“I don’t call [Tina Burner] my drag mother, I call her my biological mother,” says Strauss sitting in her Whaler’s Wharf studio surrounded by wigs, sequins, and ostrich feathers. “I have all these drag aunties like Tammie Brown…well, she’s really more a drag sister. Varla Jean. I’m getting an education from masters of the craft.”
There are movie nights featuring films every drag queen should see that she had never heard of, like Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Auntie Mame, and Too Wong Foo… “I still haven’t seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show,” says Strauss. “I’m a very bad gay.” And while she says she is “technically trans,” that identity doesn’t fully fit. But that doesn’t matter as she’s learned here in Provincetown, she can just be herself and forget labels.
“I don’t care if you call me he, she, they, or it,” says Strauss. “I don’t care how you refer to me as long as it’s with respect. The way the world is now, we’ve come to this place where respect has gone out the window. That’s what makes Provincetown and Puerto Vallarta these pieces of heaven.”
Her world is about to open up more, too. One of her gigs is assisting Tina Burner arrange a world tour of Witch Perfect, a drag spoof of the Halloween cult classic, Hocus Pocus, ironically enough, a film set and filmed in her hometown that’s turned the tragedy of the witch trials into a tourism bonanza. She may very well be in Australia and New Zealand in the fall before returning to town for the show’s Halloween weekend run in Provincetown.
“I would never in my wildest dreams imagine I would be where I’m at in my life now,” says Strauss. “It’s just wild.”
Scarlett Strauss performs Trannah Montana: The Best Of Both Genders at the Art House, 214 Commercial St., Provincetown, Sundays, July 5 & 12 and Thursday, August 6 at 5:30 p.m., and Sunday, August 2 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets ($35/$45) are available at the box office and online at thearthouseptown.com. For more information call 508.413.7798. Strauss also performs at the 1620 Brewhouse, 214 Commercial St., daily (except Friday) at 12 and 1:30 p.m. For more information visit 1620brewhouse.com or call 508.413.9258.
