Seven years ago, Priyanka strutted down Toronto's Church Street in her high heels for the first time. Now, she's embarking on a North American tour, recently stopping in Seattle, and filming her latest TV show, Drag Brunch Saved My Life. Once a little Queer kid in Whitby, Ontario, now she's one of Canada's hottest pop stars and even has a giant mural of her face painted in the neighborhood where her drag career started.
Before she was a Canada's Drag Race winner, though, Priyanka was Mark Suknanan, a Queer kid who found inspiration and community in the queens he'd see out at night in Toronto's Gay Village. "I loved the way that, going to Gay bars, you get to see all kinds of people," he said in an interview with the SGN. "And then drag queens! There was something about drag that makes you feel like you can do anything," he said with a smile.
One year, he decided to book a drag performer for his birthday. "She [the performer] suggested I should do drag, and that's how I was born," he said.
Inspiration
Beyoncé heavily inspired Priyanka's early looks. "It started as 'What would Beyoncé do?'" Suknanan said. Eventually, he started asking, "What would Beyoncé wear?"
"All of Beyoncé's references are high fashion, like Alexander McQueen, and not just her references, but the designers ─ because she is rich ─ that she's working with are high fashion," Sukhanan explained. "My referential point started to change, and it was less about the pop diva and more about the fashion designers creating the garments that my favorite pop stars are wearing."
Ultimately, the greatest inspiration came from within. Of course, Priyanka still wears the iconic designer-inspired outfits that earned her the recognition of Brooke Lynn Hytes. Still, many, including those worn in her Devastasia tour, are inspired by childhood experiences.
One of her most iconic is a monstrous interpretation of a classic schoolgirl outfit. "I went to Catholic school, and they made us wear uniforms, and the girls' kilts had this red and blue plaid in it," Sukhanan explained. "For my show, the first act is a school scene, so we made this sexy PVC and the fabric─ it's like crocodile skin, because Devastasia is supposed to be like a Godzilla monster."
Stage show
Devastasia is all about subverting expectations and embracing the monster society tries to suppress in us, told through a campy and nonlinear look into Sukhanan's life. Growing up, he was always told he needed a "regular person's job" and would never be a star. With hindsight proving all the naysayers wrong, Sukhanan said it wasn't hard to look back on who he used to be as a teenager.
"The revisiting of it and being able to take it and turn it into a celebration of ownership is what I'm most proud of," he said. "To be like, yeah, we're all fucked up, but we're all here dancing together, laughing, and crying, and singing. The mission is to make the audience escape."
The show opens with Priyanka's victory speech from Canada's Drag Race and acknowledges that drag is just as much an escape for the audience as it is for the artist. "I want people to watch my shows and see me do drag and escape life's problems. I know, for me, in the end, it's for people to escape whatever difficult problems they're having," Sukhanan said.
He also hopes the show will inspire people to embrace their dreams, just as he did. "I was a huge dreamer," he said. "I always was someone who wanted to be something. I would watch other people, be inspired by them, and want to be something. What keeps me going is trying to convince myself and other people that you really can be anything in this world."
Priyanka often embraces nostalgia. During her season of Canada's Drag Race, she earned the nickname "Hannah Montana," and when she returned for Drag Superstar, she per-formed her own rendition of "Best of Both Worlds." Touring Devastasia across the United States and Canada allows her to play with nostalgia while also remaining aware that childhood dreams can still come true.
"Me being this brown kid from Canada who is currently on a world tour, becoming a pop star after winning one of the world's biggest franchises, and then also [being] on an HBO show and [win-ning] a Critics Choice Award, [being] also one of the only drag performers in North America to be one of Apple Music's Up Next Artists ─ these are crazy things," Sukhanan said. "I want people to not give up on themselves so easily."
The Devastasia tour is headed down south as well. While some people might be nervous about traveling into red states, especially in the wake of the presidential election, Sukhanan has no fear. "I lived in Oklahoma and Tennessee for a month. I'm very aware of the culture wars, the politics, the homophobia, the transphobia that's going on," he said. "It doesn't make me nervous because Queer people are resilient."
Despite the hate, Sukhanan believes in the power of art. "The message of my show is all about that power that people can't forget they have. A lot of people feel like they need to hide who they are, because the rhetoric is 'I don't care if you're Gay, just don't put it in my face,' and then Gay people are like, 'See, they accept us,' and I'm like, 'No, honey, we shouldn't have to hide who we are.'"
Reality show
In between tour stops, Sukhanan has been flying back to Canada to shoot his new reality TV show, Drag Brunch Saved My Life. Unlike other shows that focus primarily on the glitz and glam of drag, the series highlights the behind-the-scenes drama that goes into producing a drag brunch in local establishments.
"This is a great opportunity for us to show people of all different walks of life working with a drag queen in a business way," he said. "The main goal is, 'Oh shit, I'm working with a straight owner to make the drag brunch.' It's performance, laughter, and fun."
"Lots of tears, everyone is crying," he added with a smile.
While many would be overwhelmed with this busy popstar life, Sukhanan is grateful for every moment of it. "It's not easy, let me tell you that, but I love it," he said. "I'm addicted to this shit."
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