Latest news with #D'ArcyDrollinger
Axios
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Axios
San Francisco drag landmark Oasis to close by year end
Oasis, San Francisco's beloved drag nightclub, will permanently close at the end of the year after more than a decade of serving as a cultural hub for queer nightlife. Why it matters: The closure marks the end of an era for one of the city's most celebrated LGBTQ+ venues — a space that launched careers, created a devoted community and spotlighted drag and queer performers. Driving the news: The closure, announced Monday, comes as the club has struggled with attendance post-pandemic, as well as rising costs and declining bar sales. Owner D'Arcy Drollinger had to tap into his retirement savings to keep the business afloat, he told Axios. "There is a strong community; it's just not enough. It breaks my heart," he said. Zoom in: Oasis has anchored a number of over-the-top parties and community events, and it produced campy originals in a genre Drollinger brands "Vaudeville 2.0," with titles such as " Sh*t & Champagne," " Reparations" and most recently " Jurassiq Parq." Since opening in 2014, numerous high-profile drag artists, including Snaxx and Nicki Jizz, and celebrity guests including Cher, Anderson Cooper and Jane Fonda have made appearances. What they're saying: Peaches Christ, an internationally renowned drag queen, told Axios she's "absolutely gutted." "(D'Arcy's) team built something truly vital to San Francisco's queer culture — uplifting talent, entertaining endlessly and giving both artists and patrons a home. It's hard to imagine the city without it," she said. Zoom out: While the brick-and-mortar at 298 11th St. may be closing, Oasis Arts — the nonprofit arm of the club — will continue to carry on the legacy with shows at other Bay Area venues next year, per Drollinger, who is also the city's first Drag Laureate. Claire's thought bubble: Losing Oasis — which has been such a huge part of my life — feels like losing a piece of San Francisco's heart. Since first going in 2021, I've laughed and cried in those four walls, staged two shows and met lifelong friends.
San Francisco Chronicle
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Review: ‘Jurassiq Parq' at Oasis is S.F.'s show of the summer, claws down
In 1993, 'Jurassic Park' roared and stomped summer blockbuster records to shreds. Today, if there's any justice in the world, the drag spoof 'Jurassiq Parq' will sashay and belt its way to the live performance equivalent. The core of D'Arcy Drollinger, OasisArts and Michael Phillis' unimprovable show, which I saw Friday, July 18, at Oasis, is a bone-deep understanding of its source material. Writer Phillis and director Jason Hoover bring electric wit to and contagious affection for the many, many quirks in Steven Spielberg's film about an island theme park with real live dinosaurs: The shirt of Jeff Goldblum (Marshall Forte) is unbuttoned a lot more than seems necessary, and when he's injured, he does spend a lot of time posing like a male model. The explanation of how Colonel Sanders Hammond (Vanilla Meringue) and Dr. BD Wong (Trixie Aballa) reincarnated dinosaurs from fossilized DNA (Edie Eve) is indeed a bit like intoning one word — 'Science!' — and sending tasseled pasties spiraling in opposite directions. The team devises one brilliant lo-fi solution after another, starting before the show with an electric fence cordoning off the VIP area and a giant cube dominating the stage with 'CAUTION' written on the sides' fabric; inevitably, those curtains must drop, and sexy velociraptors (Madeline Lambie, May Ramos and Ryan Patrick Welsh) must emerge to sing 'Bootylicious.' A couple lazily rotating foam tubes and a leafblower simulate a helicopter. When Dr. Laura Dern (Elenor Irene Paul) plunges her hand inside a hillock of dinosaur poo, the wet, thwack sound that designer Jerry Girad devises is so evocative you might think someone licked your ears. And ingeniously, even in a low-ceilinged club, a tyrannosaurus rex finds a way to tower. As characters vent their sexual frustrations with chef's-kiss retro tunes — Chris Isaak's 'Wicked Game,' Aerosmith's 'I Don't Want to Miss a Thing' — the singing is way, way better than you have any right to expect from performers humping their way onstage through a sweaty, throbbing crowd sloshing their neon drinks around. Tuneful, soulful, powerful, it puts to shame the vocals in many musical theater productions that take themselves more seriously. More Information Those same performers nail their caricatures. As Dr. Jeff Goldblum, Forte is all twitchy, breathy smarminess, his entreaties for someone, anyone, to listen to him talk about chaos theory liable to explode at any moment in a spontaneous ejaculation. As inept villain Wayne Nerdy, Snaxx is a whole bundle of live wires, fizzing in so many directions simultaneously that you really start to question any enterprise that would give him sole control of security systems. And as grandkids Lexxx and Timy, Barbie Bloodgloss and Kitty Litter create a double act so deliciously weird and fully embodied they could stand to the side and give a running commentary. When, not if, you go, re-watch the movie first, just so you can savor the full splendor of every punch line — a bathroom sequence, a goat cameo, why it was such a good idea to (almost totally) eliminate Sam Neill's nonentity character. Put team Phillis and Hoover in charge of more things. The city of San Francisco has a lot of problems, but 'Jurassiq Parq' makes you feel like you could solve more of them if we all just banded together with some sequin-clad dinosaurs to sing 'What's Up' by 4 Non Blondes.
San Francisco Chronicle
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
S.F. drag club turns to nonprofit model to keep queer creativity thriving
San Francisco drag club Oasis is banking on a new partnership to guarantee its future survival. Owner D'Arcy Drollinger told the Chronicle that all of the stage shows, club nights and off-site performances presented by the South of Market nightclub will now be under the umbrella of Oasis Arts, his nonprofit organization launched in 2022. In doing so, Drollinger, who is also executive director of Oasis Arts, can seek funding through grants and accept donations, which are tax deductible, to support its theater, cabaret and nightlife events. Oasis Arts plans to hire a development director to create a strategy to reach individual donors at a time when arts organizations across the country are losing federal grant support. 'We spend a lot of money and resources on our productions. That coupled with rising prices of everything over the last few years with a slight decline in people going out has put us in a situation where we're realizing this is not sustainable in this model,' said Drollinger, who also serves as the first San Francisco Drag Laureate. The nonprofit's annual budget was $500,000 in 2024, but he expects it to increase to $2 million by the end of this year now that Oasis Arts is taking over the club's programming. 'Oasis is still going to be Oasis. The space will still be the same, the bar will still run the same, but Oasis Arts is going to be the entity that is programming the space,' said Drollinger. Drollinger reports Oasis presented 352 events in 2024 that ranged from performances in the club to curating stages at San Francisco Pride and the Outside Lands music festival's Dolores' pop-up queer dance club in Golden Gate Park. Oasis sold 48,000 tickets last year and currently makes half its annual budget through ticket sales. The largest expense is paying artists, which totaled nearly $800,000 for the year, so rather than pay performers and stage crew less or raise ticket prices, Drollinger said he would 'rather evolve than give up.' 'Making Oasis sustainable is the first priority, and then we want to raise enough money to invest more into the artists in the community,' he added. As part of this new strategy, Drollinger plans to host a telethon on June 1, for Oasis Arts. The upcoming event hopes to see the same success as Oasis' first telethon in March 2021, when it was able to raise $270,000 to save the club from closure. 'Raising $200,000 would be great, but what we could really use is $400,000,' said Drollinger. Oasis opened on New Years Eve 2014 under the ownership of Drollinger, fellow drag performer Heklina, along with Jason Beebout and Geoffrey Benjamin. The venue quickly became a destination for cabaret and drag stage shows, including original plays by Drollinger like his 'Champagne White' trilogy as well as recreations of classic television shows like 'Three's Company,' 'Sex and the City' and 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.' By February 2020, Drollinger was the club's sole owner (he has six investors who are not involved in the daily operations of the club), and he helped it weather the COVID-19 pandemic closures by launching enterprises like Oasis TV, which showed old performances at the club on-demand. He later established Oasis Arts to support queer art in the Bay Area. Among the first projects was commissioning local artists Serge Gay Jr., Elliott C. Nathan, J Manuel Carmona, Simón Malvaez and Christopher McCutcheon to paint the mural 'Showtime' in June 2022 for the exterior of the club. In February, Oasis Arts debuted a new mural project in the club's all-gender bathroom by seven local artists and launched its own Instagram account @ Oasis Arts also supported four film projects in 2024 by providing studio space and equipment. It also produced five theatrical events at Oasis and co-produced a sixth play. 'After the past decade of running Oasis, we've built an audience and I'm proud of what we've accomplished,' said Drollinger. 'But even more important to me is this idea that the queer community can make our own spaces that can thrive and exist at a moment when it feels like the rug is constantly getting pulled out from under us.'
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
San Francisco searches for next drag laureate
(KRON) — The San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives announced Monday it is searching for the city's next drag laureate. The drag laureate is a role described as 'celebrating and uplifting the city's vibrant LGBTQ+ community,' according to officials. City officials said applicants should be full-time San Francisco residents and have 'a strong understanding of the city's rich drag history, and have experience in community activism, engagement, or philanthropy.' The individual selected to be drag laureate will get a $105,000 stipend — or $35,000 annually — to support works over a three-year term. The search comes after the tenure of D'Arcy Drollinger, San Francisco's first drag laureate and owner of Oasis nightclub, comes to an end. Officials said Drollinger 'defined the inaugural program through a series of key appearances and a new event in collaboration with Oasis Arts, the Civic Joy Fund, and drag performers Juanita MORE! and Honey Mahogany called SF is a Drag.' Jonas Brothers announce new tour with San Francisco show 'D'Arcy has done an amazing job serving as San Francisco's first drag laureate, and I am thrilled that we are celebrating and honoring queer artistry and voices by opening the application process for our next drag laureate,' Mayor Daniel Lurie said in the announcement. 'It brings me so much joy to know that Mayor Lurie and the [San Francisco Public Library] are committed to continuing this legacy, and I truly hope that the Drag Laureate position becomes an integral part of San Francisco's cultural fabric, much like the Imperial and Ducal Courts and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,' Drollinger said. 'These organizations have become pillars of our community, and I'm thrilled to see the Drag Laureate position become part of that same enduring tapestry.' The call for applications closes on April 13, with the final selection to be announced in May. More information can be found on the Drag Laureate Program website. The Drag Laureate Program is a collaboration between the mayor's office, the San Francisco Public Library, the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and the Office of Transgender Initiatives. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
