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Is there anything Monét X Change can’t do?
The multihyphenate graduate of RuPaul’s School of Hard Knocks (i.e., Drag Race alumna of Season 10 and All Stars Seasons 5 and 7) is part of a generation of drag performers who’ve so effectively blurred the line between niche celebrity and celebrated media personality that they’ve essentially remade the art form in their image.
Monét’s post-Drag Race career, for example, has been a cacophony of national television appearances, high-profile hosting gigs, streaming specials, podcasts, commercials, extravagant live spectaculars and comedy performances. She’s also an elite R&B singer and a classically trained operatic vocalist whose recent performance as the Duchess of Krakenthorp in the Minnesota Opera’s production of The Daughter of the Regiment earned her rave reviews and a legion of new fans. She even launched a makeup line, BoMo Beauty, with her Sibling Rivalry co-star Bob the Drag Queen.
In her newest special, Life Be Lifin’, heading to the Aladdin Theater on Saturday, Jan. 11, Monét braids all these performance elements into a one-woman show that, despite its hefty content load, deftly balances storytelling, comedy, drag and vocal artistry into a single spellbinding hour. Life Be Lifin’ was rescheduled from last April after a sudden medically necessary break.
“She wanted to show vulnerability to the judges!” Monét jokes when asked about the pivot from drag performance to personal storytelling in drag. “The first time I did a one-woman show was right after Season 10, Call Me By Monét, and for that show, I just took one of my bar shows and slapped it onstage. I’m still proud of that, but with this one, I wanted it to be more of a narrative. That was the big goal here.”
The show, directed by fellow Drag Race alum and Pacific Northwest dignitary BenDeLaCreme, cleverly subverts expectations, teasing Monét’s overlapping talents to develop the kind of rapport that keeps an audience neatly in the palm of a performer’s hand.
“BenDeLa had a huge impact on the show,” Monét says. “I would write and write and write, but she’d ask, ‘How do these stories work together?’ Yeah, her fingerprints are all over it.”
Once she and DeLa had cinched the stories and structure, Monét debuted the show at Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival in 2023. She then workshopped it for an entire year before setting off on a North American tour.
“The show has changed a lot since the premiere,” she says. “The tricky thing about the show is, you know, you’re kind of teaching yourself every time, in real time. I’m reformatting material and jokes onstage for each audience. My years as a queen in New York City—having to rally, corral, and make a room pay attention to me onstage—all those skills come into play.”
Which isn’t to suggest attendees should expect a rowdy crowd. In addition to the jubilant drag fans she’s accumulated, even the squarest Portland opera aficionados might hold some reverence for Miss X Change from her time with Portland Opera’s Opera to Go outreach program in 2013.
“I just went all over Oregon, girl, really the deepest, darkest, coldest parts of Oregon—the hills and the valleys—teaching kids about opera,” Monét recalls fondly. “Sometimes, you go to these really small towns, and there are literally no people of color except for myself. You do get people interested because you’re different.”
“Opera’s very gatekeep-y,” she continued, “but I never experienced any overt racism.”
Nevertheless, gatekeeping opera is a throughline Monét cartoonishly lampoons over the runtime of Life Be Lifin’. Between detailing the specific trials and tribulations of her queer adolescence, the dizzying highs and devastating lows of romantic partnerships, and some meaty behind-the-scenes play-by-plays of her most affecting moments in the Drag Race universe, audiences are kept on the edge of their seats by not only Monét’s brilliant storytelling, but also the promise of her rich, velvety bass vocals ping-ponging between luxurious earthy lows and stunning runs in her trilling upper register.
“Portland is my second home. I fucking love Portland,” Monét says. “Portland audiences are so great to perform for, and I honestly think, because of the nature of this show, Portlanders will really get it. I really want to turn it out for my girlies here in my tertiary hometown. New York is number one, L.A. is number two, and Portland is number three, for sure.”
SEE IT: Life Be Lifin’ at the Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 503-234-9694, aladdin-theater.com. 8 pm Saturday, Jan. 11. $35–$45. 18+.