Connie Champagne and Katya Smirnoff-Skyy and both beloved icons on the local cabaret scene. Both will help to usher in the holiday season with separate appearances, along with co-starring roles in the grand extravaganza "Christmas With the Crawfords."
On December 18 at 8PM, Champagne will perform Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas: An Evening With Connie Champagne as Judy Garland at Feinstein's, inside the Hotel Nikko. The following night, December 19 at 8PM, exiled Russian drag royal Smirnoff-Skyy appears at Feinstein's in her own holiday extravaganza.
The pair will be at Feinstein's fresh on the heels of their co-starring roles in Christmas at the Crawfords at the Performing Arts Center at Napa Valley's Lincoln Theater. Smirnoff-Skyy, whose real name is J. Conrad Frank, will be seen as Mommie Dearest, while Champagne again portrays Judy Garland. This time Liza's mom is Joan's dinner guest. Christmas With the Crawfords' curtain rises on December 6 and 7.
"I'm very excited about Feinstein's," Champagne said to BARtab. "I'll be doing a lot of Judy's songs, and a few that Judy should have done. I never choose a song that wouldn't resonate with her."
Champagne explained Judy's appeal to gay men."She had an honesty and a vulnerability that people respond to," she said. "You don't have to be a gay man to respond to her. Judy sang the blues but also made people laugh."
Smirnoff-Skyy's thick Russian accent is an established part of her stage persona. There was no trace of that accent when he spoke in this interview, however. "I always do the accent on stage," said Frank. "I can turn it on or off as I get on or off the stage."
Frank described the upcoming Feinstein's show. "It's Katya's holiday spectacular, a voyage into the delusional holiday mind of a Russian lady of an indiscriminate age. I'll sing new songs, old songs, there will be something for everyone. I'll tell life stories, like being at the White House in 1988, and my friendship with the Beatles. Imagine a show by a Russian ex-opera singer who works at Macy's during the day."
Frank also performs weekly at Feinstein's with Joe Wicht (aka mrs. Trauma Flintstone) on Wednesdays at their happy hour Broadway Bingo trivia night.
But Frank was not concerned that his Russian-centric act might be considered inappropriate in the light of the anti-gay laws recently passed in Russia. "We can blame the Russian political system," he said. "There are a lot of good Russian people who support the LGBT community since July."
Smirnoff-Skyy is very happy to be performing in Christmas With the Crawfords. In the show, Joan is visited for the holidays during the 1940s by various movie characters, including Bette Davis' Baby Jane, a character created nearly two decades later. "It's not the truth, but everything you remember to be true," said Frank.
Champagne's Judy Garland will be among Joan's guests. F. Allen Sawyer directs Champagne for her Feinstein's show. It was Sawyer who first saw Champagne in the Judy role.
"I'm very excited about Feinstein's," Champagne said. "I'll be reunited with Barry Lloyd, we did cabaret together back in the golden age of cabaret, before I was Connie Champagne. I'll be singing all kinds of holiday songs, like Chanukah in Santa Monica. I always add new songs. I consider my show a little bit Wicca. I'm looking for a Wicca song."
"I'll be doing an evening of belting, ball gowns and a whole lot of booze," said Frank as he hinted toward his character Smirnoff-Skyy. "A little vodka always makes the yuletide gay!"
For information on the holiday extravaganzas at Feinstein's, please visit www.Feinsteinssf.com
Information on Christmas With the Crawfords can be found at www.lincolntheater.com