(Photo courtesy New Wave Cabaret)
It might not be easy to have a good time, but don’t fret- New Wave Cabaret’s “Spicy Curry: A Tim Curry Burlesque Tribute” is here to cure your blues of boredom and show you a glimpse into the glamorous and glorious legacy of Tim Curry.
Plans for the burlesque show were announced before the unfortunate news of Curry’s passing, although his death has given new meaning to the upcoming performance.
“Tim Curry has been an icon of mine for over 30 years,” Kimbolicious, producer and performer with New Wave Cabaret, says. “So it was really surreal because I see him as immortal; he’s not supposed to die. He’s larger than life.”
Hans Von Strangelove, another co-founder of New Wave, shared a similar reaction to the news.
“Tim Curry was somebody who felt so vividly alive that he made everybody else feel more alive too,” Strangelove says. “I think that kind of just speaks to everything that we’re up to here. It’s important to us to celebrate him in exactly this way by showing what his life has made possible for so many of us.”
“Spicy Curry” will feature 11 performers alongside two kittens and a host. Performers for the night, including the aforementioned Strangelove and ‘Licious, include Aurora Fable, Feisty Fringe, Valerie Von Voss, Daddea D’Vicious and more. Leggy Strangelove, the third party of the New Wave Cabaret founders, will also be performing.
“So many people in the queer community would not be who they are if it weren’t for The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” Strangelove says. “That’s just so many people’s on-ramp into this entire beautiful world. That’s certainly something that has touched my life. I did not know that somebody could look like that and be like that and also visibly have that much fun.”
Each performer will be putting their own unique spin on some of Curry’s roles, which may include fan-favorites such as Long John Silver from “Muppet Treasure Island,” Wadsworth in “Clue,” Pennywise in “IT,” and countless other voice acting and cameo roles throughout his over 50 years of Hollywood experience- and of course, none other than Dr. Frank-N-Furter of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” will make an appearance.
“There was just something so powerful and magnetic about Tim Curry’s performance in [The Rocky Horror Picture Show]; it just filled me with so much joy,” Kimbolicious says. “It also was a great example of how to be bold and larger than life. As Hans pointed out, Frank-N-Furter is a villain; he’s a narcissist, but you can’t help but love him because he’s so charismatic.”
This performance is extra special, being the first performance of New Wave Cabaret’s second season, but it’s also even more personal for Strangelove, as this is their first time getting on a New Wave stage.
“This is going to be a very fun thing for me to make my own sort of performer debut on one of our stages,” Strangelove says. “A core thing to our ethos is community and connection. That’s what makes live theater what it is: there is a room full of people who are sharing a moment with you, whose faces are right there in front of you, who are connecting what you were doing in real time.”
One of the most important parts of working with performers at New Wave is connection. Whether it be hosting a “Stitch and Bitch” or rewatching old performance videos, friends become family, and the family continues to grow. Upcoming shows and themes are also collaborative, with Hans Von Strangelove, Leggy Strangelove, and Kimbolicious brainstorming tribute shows and thrilling seasonal events- coming after this, a “Depeche Mode” tribute.
“You can guarantee some new perspectives on favorite things,” Strangelove says on what’s to come. “You can also expect to see some things being brought to the stage that you might not ever have thought to check out until it was right in front of you, and then you get to see that, yes, this is something that’s very meaningful.”
Above all else, New Wave Cabaret is focused on community.
“What we also bring to our shows is a sense of community- community within the queer spaces, but even broader than that,” Kimbolicious says. “We want people to come together and celebrate something that we all share a love for, and that’s what we hope to bring to our shows.”
All of the cabaret’s shows center around queerness and creating open and welcoming queer spaces, which makes a Tim Curry Tribute just right.
“With Tim Curry specifically, he’s such a giant queer icon; he was very vocally an ally, and the way that he existed in this world is such a beautiful example to live out loud and not be afraid to be 100% yourself, whatever that looks like,” Kimbolicious says.
Strangelove shares another perspective as well. “It’s not just the sort of on-the-nose queerness that you have in Rocky,” he says. “It’s the general vibe of the outsiderness that can actually be a lot of fun and can be a source of joy for a lot of people.”
Attendees of this show are highly encouraged to dress up as their favorite Curry character and get in on the fun.
“There’s a famous saying that goes around that basically says, ‘You can judge a person fairly based on what they know Tim Curry from,’” Kimbolicious says. “But I think that it would just be a fun way to involve the audience and make them a part of the show and allow them that space to both celebrate and grieve the loss of such an amazing icon.”
Along with the performance and celebration, the show is also a place to go to sit with the sadness and grief of the loss of Curry alongside others who felt the shift when he was gone.
“We recognize that this is a very current event that we are intersecting with here, so people are going to be feeling a lot of different feelings and on their own journey with respect to how they’re processing the passing of Tim Curry,” Strangelove says. “We will actively make sure that every way that some people might feel is accepted and present; people do not have to “get it together” to come to our show. Everything is welcome. Everybody is welcome.”
“Spicy Curry: A Tim Curry Burlesque Tribute” will be at the ME Theatre at 1300 La Quinta Dr. on Sept. 26. Doors open at 8 p.m., with the show starting promptly at 8:30 p.m. The performance is 18+. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit New Wave Cabaret on Eventbrite or visit @NewWaveCabaret on Instagram.
