The men performing as women at a recent Drag Brunch at the Music Box Supper Club in Cleveland’s Flats are extraordinarily talented entertainers, transformed on stage by their over-the-top garb, their names and even their false eyelashes and cleavage.
Billed as Veranda L’Ni & Friends, they’re not necessarily gay or trans or any other part of the LGBTQ community. Although their performance is a parody of a wide diversity of gender expression, their sexual orientation may inform but is neither relevant nor a requirement for the show.
The stage show in the Music Box’s second-level Supper Club follows a buffet-style brunch overlooking the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland’s Flats. Choices include the usual eggs, sausage gravy over biscuits and waffles, along with uncommon sides such as braised cabbage with carrots and redskin potatoes. Wine, beer and mixed drinks are served at tables for 10 in front of the stage.
Music Box Supper Clubs hosts regular drag shows but is also known for concerts in a wide variety of genres — both original acts and cover bands performing songs by The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Abba, Steely Dan, Elton John and many others.
Almost 7 feet tall in her heels and purple feather headdress, Veranda L’Ni commands attention as master of ceremonies for the five-member drag queen troupe.
“It costs us a lot of money to look this cheap,” she says as the show begins, batting her lashes while urging cash contributions to the spangled container carried through the audience.
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One of the men sharing the table with my friend and me extracts an inch-high stack of dollar bills from his wallet to hand out to the performers during the show.
“We love the interaction when receiving a tip from an audience member,” Veranda said in a subsequent interview by phone. “There is this personal interaction, if only for a brief moment, and that person feels like they were a part of the show.”
“Instead of our usual lip-synching,” she explains to the audience as the show begins. “we’re singing live for this show.”
The cast includes Onya Nurve, Mona Lotz and Ricky Mortis — names all with double meanings — and Denise Russell. They mostly perform parodies of well-known songs.
Most have day jobs with other names.
“Given the amount of defamation and doxxing happening to drag performers by the alt-right groups, we do not want our legal names mentioned,” she said in an email.
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She introduces Ricky Mortis, who sings, “When my spirits start to sag, I put a little more mascara on” to a familiar tune.
Ricky is one of the newest drag queens, Veranda says.
“When not in drag, Ricki works as the director of business development for area nonprofits and enjoys performing with local community theater groups. They are in rehearsal for a production of ‘Godspell,’ which opens in October.
“Ricki has three children, and her alter ego is about to be a grandfather for the first time in March 2024.”
Lyrics and dancing are bawdy, but not obscene, at least not to me.
Drag Bingo, in the evening, is more risque, we learn, “but it’s a night like no other,” says Veranda.
“When I sing ‘Copacabana,’ I like to switch it to ‘CopaVeranda,’” she said. “It is a great play on my name and matches the vibe of the song pretty well.”
In her 15-year career, Veranda has graced Cleveland stages at Near West Theatre, Beachland Ballroom, Playhouse Square, Hilarities 4th Street Theatre, Alex Theater in The Metropolitan at The 9 and even Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse — during the Gay Games.
“I’ve performed in five states and headlined at the Austin International Drag Festival,” she said.
Mona Lotz inspires enthusiastic cheers as she sings Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” and hands full of dollar bills are thrust at her with “Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?”
The 115-member audience includes groups and girlfriends, couples and an elderly group of men and women, their walkers lodged beneath their tables. The Music Box has an 18-and-older requirement, so there are no children in the crowd.
Early in the two-hour show, Veranda pays homage to Cher, wearing tight purple bell bottoms and straight black hair as she sings “I Got You Babe,” and the audience erupts. Apologizing for her vocals as “Fred Schneider from The B-52’s and Liza Minnelli mashed together,” she tells the crowd she’s the second-longest performer at Music Box.
Denise Russell, known as “The Voice,” is clearly a professional singer. Her glittering green off-the-shoulder dress certainly would attract double-takes, but even in a closely packed elevator, few would ever guess she was anything but a glamorous, platinum-blond woman.
Later, in said elevator, she tells us she makes her own clothing for performances.
Her take on the song “Teach Me Tonight” brings the audience to its feet with cheers.
“I’m the senior here,” she tells the audience. “I’ve been performing full-time for 42 years, and I’m 66 now. I grew up singing in high school and church.”
In a follow-up interview by email, she said she’s performed more than 900 venues in her lengthy career, including casinos — the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, the Grand in Biloxi, and The Seven Feathers in Canyonville, Oregon.
The attire of Mona Lotz, who hails from Ashtabula, may be the most outrageous of the troupe. In one number, her shaved head is topped by a bright-red Mohawk, and she wears a sequined black biker jacket bedecked with chains and a metal breastplate complete with nipples.
In a follow-up interview, she said she’s a gay Christian child of ministers at a Pentecostal church in Geneva, a background she details in her YouTube video series called “Lotz of Tea with Mona.”
“We hired her to give a show at Breckenridge,” explained audience member Ken Jones, referring to the Ohio Living retirement community in Willoughby.
However, Breckenridge residents strenuously objected, he said, so the group — with their aforementioned walkers — instead came to the Drag Queen brunch at Music Box.
Jones said this was not his first drag queen show.
“I have a trans son living in Portland, Oregon, and he’s taken us to drag shows there. This has been an outstanding show, especially with the live singing,” he said. “We’ve all really enjoyed it.”
Music Box Supper Club
Where: 1148 Main Ave., Cleveland.
Upcoming drag shows: Drag Brunch — Elvira Edition, Oct. 8; Drag Bingo — Elvira Edition, Oct. 28; Drag Brunch, Nov. 5; Holiday Drag Brunch, Dec. 17; Holiday Drag Bingo, Dec. 29.
Info: 216- 242-1250; musicboxcle.com.
