Sherry Vine is ‘LIT for the Holidays’ at Crazy Aunt Helen’s
Sherry Vine returns to sleigh at Crazy Aunt Helen's with a NSFW holiday treat.
Drag legend Sherry Vine has pretty much done it all as a performer — from clubs and concert halls and acclaimed turns Off-Broadway to hosting season one of her star-studded The Sherry Vine Variety Show on OUTtv last summer.
But the singer-comedienne, known for her batshit, bawdy song parodies, had never done a solo holiday show until now, with her Sherry Vine is LIT for the Holidays tour.
So what’s kept the comedy mainstay from ringing in the season onstage? “Mostly, it was because I always felt like every single queen is doing a holiday show, so honestly it just never interested me,” Vine says, adding that she has done a lot of Hanukkah parodies, “just to be different, because I’m half-Jewish. So I was like, ‘Well, let me tap into that half, and just do something.’ I never wanted to do something that everybody else was doing, even if it’s different material.”
Inspiration struck during the pandemic lockdown. Between quarantining and performing corporate Zoom shows (“A lot, thank goodness”), Vine decided to expand her holiday song repertoire and wrote some Christmas parodies.
“I’ve got four Christmas songs, I’ve got four Hanukkah songs, and then I have a couple where it’s like, ‘What do you wish for Christmas?’ ‘Big dick!’ Okay, here’s a song,” she says.
After 30 years, Vine, who will appear at the fabulous upstairs cabaret at the newly minted Crazy Aunt Helen’s, is still as naughty as ever — although, as she points out, “I don’t make fun of anyone but myself. So it’s not offensive to women, there are no race things, no gender things.
I only make fun of myself, and I think that some people might be a little bit, ‘Oh, she’s singing about oral sex,’ but after 30 seconds, they’re like, ‘Oh, my God this so stupid.’ And so you kind of have to laugh.”
Audiences can also take a gift of good humor home with them, in the form of Vine’s custom vanilla-scented candle, Whore by Sherry Vine, created to her specifications by Poured Candle Bar in Hudson, New York.
Asked by Poured what they should call her candle, the drag performer jokingly told them, “‘Call it Whore.’ And he’s like, ‘Okay, great.’ And I’m like, ‘I was totally kidding.’ So, perfectly on-brand. And they sell really well. I can only bring about 10 per show when I go out of town, because they’re so heavy, but they sell out immediately. Whore: the scent that lingers.”
Sherry Vine Is LIT for the Holidays plays one night only, Saturday, Dec. 18, at 7:45 p.m. at Crazy Aunt Helen’s, 713 8th St. SE. Tickets are $25, plus a food and beverage minimum of $25. Visit www.crazyaunthelens.com or www.sherryvine.com.
Support Metro Weekly’s Journalism
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!
You must be logged in to post a comment.