‘Golden Girls Live’ returns to the Curran: popular drag parody celebrates 20 years

From December 4-21, “The Golden Girls Live: The Christmas Episodes” will perform at the historic Curran Theater. This marks the second year in a row that the popular drag parody plays the theater. This year the “Live” show celebrates its 20th year, just as the original TV series celebrates its 40th.

“The Golden Girls” ran on NBC from 1985-1992 and was a top-rated show for its entire run. Set in Miami, it followed the adventures of four older women who became a chosen family. It was a series that was unafraid to tackle what were at the time controversial subjects, like lesbianism and crossdressing. But always, its first and main goal was to make people laugh.
D’Arcy Drollinger, who is directing “The Golden Girls Live” as well as playing Rose, spoke to the Bay Area Reporter about why the original series retains its popularity after so many years.

“It did something no other show had done before,” he said. “It had these four elderly women living together as the stars of the show. Because they were older, it gave them freedom to tackle some interesting issues. There was a lot of comedy but it was more in line with Norman Lear shows like ‘All in the Family,’ ‘The Jeffersons,’ and ‘Maude.’ It was a very unique show for that reason.”

Down the road
Drollinger credits the various drag versions of “The Golden Girls” that play all over the country with raising the show’s profile more than thirty years since it ended.

“And that started here, with the late Heklina and the late Cookie Dough in a living room,” he said. “That was a catalyst for making this a bigger thing. Of course everything keeps going, but a snowball has to start with a tiny little nugget and then it grows.”

“The Golden Girls Live” began twenty years ago in the late Mike Finn’s house on Grove Street. There were folding chairs and people had to call to make reservations as tickets weren’t sold online in those days. Painted canvas tarps were hung up and the cast wore thrift store costumes and used thrift store furniture.

The show became so popular that it would be performed several times per year. Eventually they moved to venues like CounterPulse, which was followed by a multi-year run at the Victoria Theater. The show continued to grow, inspiring other “Golden Girls” drag shows around the country. Drollinger joined the show in 2015.

“I have a background in theater, so I worked at getting real sets built,” he said. “Getting the furniture to look as close as I could to the TV show, getting the costumes made vs thrift store clothes, really elevating the show, and more and more people came. Then we moved to the Curran, which was scary because it was so much more expensive. It was this gorgeous theater where they filmed ‘All About Eve.’ It was scary but it was very rewarding. 16,000 people came last year.”

And back again
The Curran production is quite elaborate, and includes a refurbished couch that was actually used on the TV show. They have recreated the full living room set as it was seen on NBC.

“If you look now, we’ve gotten obsessive,” Drollinger said. “We have the same Cuisinart that they had on the show, the same Mr. Coffee, the same cookie jar, the same electric can opener. In some ways I could call this a restoration piece. We do the episodes, we celebrate these women, we add little jokes from different episodes, we put our own spin on them.”

Drollinger added that he feels a deep kinship with Betty White, who played his character Rose on the TV show, because he and White share a birthday. The other Golden Girls are played by Matthew Martin as Blanche, Holotta Tymes as Sophia, and Miss Coco Peru as Dorothy.

There will also be a special guest performer for the first week at the Curran. Cindy Fee, who sang the theme song “Thank You for Being a Friend” for the TV series, will do the same, live onstage, for “Golden Girls Live.”

Drollinger said that the audience can expect to see episodes that they love on the Curran stage.

“We adapt the television scripts,” he said. “The hardcore fans love them. I take an episode as the base and then I pull from other episodes, different little jokes. A lot of the writers and directors have seen our show and they love it, they love it for that fact. The four of us have known each other for a long time, so you put us in a room together and a lot of funny stuff appears as we’re working out the show.”

And their hard work has certainly paid off as they continue to play to packed houses.

“The audience gets to escape for two hours,” Drollinger said. “They get to be with these characters that they know and love, and they just get to laugh. We’re living in these crazy times and I really see my place in my community and society in general as being an entertainer. My job is to make people laugh and to make people forget their problems for two hours and feel some joy. That is the best medicine in my opinion.”

‘The Golden Girls Live: The Christmas Episodes,’ Dec. 4-21, Thu.-Sat. 7:30pm, Sun.  1:30pm, $37.44-$141.57, Curran Theater, 445 Geary St.
https://www.broadwaysf.com/