Halleloo, Orlando! You have an audience with drag royalty on Wednesday, Feb. 1.
Drag icon Shangela, known out of drag as D.J. Pierce, has a career chock-full of firsts. She was the first person to compete on three different seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race, the first person to walk the red carpet in drag at the Oscars and the first person to compete in drag on the American version of Dancing With the Stars — and her Fully Lit headlining tour is yet another milestone to add to this list.
The Fully Lit dates are Shangela’s first go at touring as a solo headliner across the country, with an extravagant production that pulls out all the stops, visual and performance-wise.
“I’m really excited to be able to reconnect with my fans in this way. The Fully Lit tour is exactly what it sounds like. It’s full of high-energy performances, it is full of hilarious, never-before-told stories and also just a great night of fun,” Shangela told Orlando Weekly.
Fully Lit kicked off in Boston on Jan. 19 and is traveling across the United States at a very heated moment, in the wake of much ginned-up controversy and misinformation surrounding the drag scene fabricated by some Republicans and cultural conservatives.
“You know, there is a conservative lot that exists in and around the city of Orlando, and of course in the state of Florida, so returning now at a time where there’s so many pieces of legislation and activity that is targeted toward the LGBTQ+ community and the freedoms and the equality that we hope to exist within that space … I had never experienced that head-on in such a way that I did when we were filming We’re Here,” says Shangela.
We’re Here, the Emmy-nominated HBO show co-hosted by Shangela, Bob the Drag Queen and Eureka O’Hara, recently premiered its third season. The series focuses on the queens traveling across small-town America. And the final two episodes of the third season were both set in Central Florida.
We’re Here took Shangela and her co-hosts to the Villages and Kissimmee, where Shangela said she was shown another side of the Orlando area. These Florida-focused episodes allowed the queens to show viewers some of the realities LGBTQ+ Floridians face in the time of conservative legislation restricting gender-affirming healthcare and the “Don’t Say Gay” law.
“Experience it for yourself first, before you cast judgment. I would encourage each person who has a question about the drag community, before you judge any community, have an experience yourself,” says Shangela, “and allow that to help you build what your opinion or judgment is going to be.”
Out of drag, Shangela is involved with activist organizations including the Feed the Queens initiative, which provided over $100,000 in food grants to out-of-work drag entertainers in 2020.
Shangela says that she hopes her tour can help spread a message of unity and bring greater visibility and representation for her community.
“[We’re Here] allowed me to meet some beautiful people that are true warriors for equality, with regard to the LGBTQ+ community,” says Shangela. “And now with this show, I’m definitely going to be bringing back that same message that I came with in We’re Here. And that is a message of love, that is a message of hope, that is a message of support and hopefully a message that helps to unite us as a community.”
Shangela is no stranger to the stage — a fact that’s become even more apparent after her recent stint as a finalist on Dancing With the Stars. Shangela said that her time on DWTS was a definite career highlight, making her proud to be a part of history and represent her community to viewers across the country every Monday night on prime-time. She said that watching herself on the second season of Drag Race and comparing that to her performances on DWTS, she saw definite signs of growth and evolution.
“When I first started out in drag — not even Drag Race, but when I first started out in drag — I was just having fun. It was just about having this amazing creative outlet to enjoy and express myself and a way to do it on stage. When I became a part of Drag Race, it gave me an even greater purpose in drag that I never foresaw myself having, but I’m so grateful for,” explains Shangela.
Further, Shangela says she will never take the chances that Drag Race has given her for granted. “I’m very grateful for this opportunity and I feel a sense of responsibility to always show up and do my absolute best, not only to represent my community but also to help to give us greater progress to move us forward,” she says.
Shangela says she admires the drag scene in Orlando and cannot wait to be back in the community of Orlando queens.
“I think right now, especially with the political climate that we’re under, that people deserve to have a night of fun and great entertainment of drag,” she says. “And I know that the Orlando scene has great drag and I’m excited to bring an even more fiery experience to add to it.”
This article appears in Feb 1-7, 2023.