Alaska may be starring in the most subversive comedy in American theater today, but she carries herself with the poise of a 40s movie star. On a brisk September afternoon, the actor, comedian and RuPaul’s Drag Race alumnus is in a small rehearsal room in New York’s midtown, sipping hot tea from a flask while perched on a hard-shell travel case. She sits bolt upright, as if she has spent her life balancing books on her head.
It has been a madcap time for the actor as she prepares to play Mary Todd Lincoln in a new touring production of Cole Escola’s Tony award-winning comedy Oh, Mary!. She is amid a few weeks of rehearsals in the city before the show’s four-month sprint across the US. When I ask how she is handling the upheaval from her Los Angeles home, she smiles indulgently.
I was just like, ‘Let’s make this happen.’” Alaska (AKA Alaska Thunderfuck 5000, born Justin Honard) is on the brink of her biggest career moment yet and is determined to make every moment of it count. Since competing in season five of RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2013, the self-described “extraterrestrial phenomenon from the planet Glamtr0n” has released five electro-pop albums with titles like Anus and Vagina, taken to the high seas for drag-themed cruises and co-written and performed in the off-Broadway hit Drag: The Musical, produced by Liza Minnelli. Her live performances showcase the art of drag at its high-concept creative peak; a recent performance of Taylor Swift’s The Fate of Ophelia was a delightfully dizzying hurricane of hairstyles, props, frills and feathers, with three costume changes in as many minutes.
With Oh, Mary!, Alaska is stepping away from nightlife stages and into the shoes of a character already played by actors including Maya Rudolph, Jane Krakowski and Jinkx Monsoon as well as Escola. A London production opened in 2025, while a live-recorded special of the show will air on HBO next year. The character of Mary Todd Lincoln, in Escola and director Sam Pinkleton’s vision, is stifled by her duties, drinks to escape the unbearable company of her (closeted) husband, and longs to return to the life as a cabaret star that she gave up to be first lady.
Director Pinkleton first encountered Alaska over a decade ago when she played Nomi Malone in a Showgirls tribute show at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre. You know, they make everything happen on their own.” After an initial Zoom workshop with Pinkleton and Escola this March, Alaska was offered the role of Mary this summer. She was particularly struck by the purity of the character’s ambition, even as she resorts to increasingly bizarre tactics to get back on the cabaret stage where she belongs.
It’s very real, and I think that’s why so many people can step into the role and make it seem like it’s written for them.” “I feel like I can make sense of this role,” she adds. I mean, being a weird drag queen person, queer-bodied person existing in society … that’s exactly what I felt like when I grew up.” Raised in Erie, Pennsylvania, she was a shy and watchful kid. I am something and I do deserve more than like being scared to go out of my fucking room,’” she says.
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