Drag Queen Dixie Krystals Reprises Role in La Cage aux Folles This April

Denver-based actor and entertainer John White has been performing in drag as Dixie Krystals for more than half his life. Like many drag performers, he began as a former theater kid looking for a new creative outlet (and free admission into nightclubs). “It’s crazy how it all started because of that and just grew and grew and grew from there,” he reflects.

Now a veteran drag queen, White will return to his stage roots this April for Town Hall Arts Center‘s production of the beloved queer musical La Cage aux Folles. For the second time in his career, White will play the starring role of club owner and drag queen Albin Mougeotte. It’s a full-circle moment for White, who will celebrate his 26th drag anniversary the same month. We chatted with him to hear more about his start in drag, how he identifies with Albin, and why works like La Cage are more important now than ever.

Growing up as a pastor’s son in Curwensville, Pennsylvania, White sought out opportunities to perform wherever he could. “My dad is a retired Methodist pastor, so I grew up singing in the church and doing all of the school plays. I grew up in a tiny town, very much a farm town, so my only outlet to what culture was was singing and doing that,” he recalls. “My mom, my dad and my brother had a traveling gospel singing group throughout all the rural churches in central Pennsylvania, and that’s how it all started.” In the midst of such a musical family, his parents never questioned his love of music and theater. “I grew up in such a great family. My parents were always very supportive. They never told me not to do something,” White emphasizes. Although he was not openly gay until adulthood, he says his family and friends knew long before then: “There was never any confusion on how I was going to turn out. Everyone was aware.”

After graduating from musical theater college, White moved to Florida and worked at Disney World, which eventually led to his exploring drag. “We wanted to get into the nightclubs for free, and the way to do that was to be in drag,” he says with a laugh. “So we went and got our four-way stretch skirts and little tops, and because we worked at Disney, we snuck things out of costuming, like tights. One of our roommates was a dancer, so she had extra rehearsal clothes and stuff we would steal and bedazzle. We had a wigmaker that worked at Disney, so she took some janky wigs and made them pretty. We used all of our resources to be able to go out and have a good time.”

After late nights, White says, he and his Disney colleagues would hit the local Perkins, where he would always order a sweet tea with extra sugar: “One day a friend took out the brown sugar packet that said Dixie Crystals and was like, ‘That’s a good drag name!’ I was like, ‘I’ll take that!'” With a slight spelling change to avoid copyright infringement, Dixie Krystals was born.

It wasn’t until a year later, when White met his now-husband, that he officially came out to his family. “I never even said the words ‘I’m gay’ until somebody asked me at Disney. Even through college – and I went to musical theater college! – I never talked about it, never explored it,” he says. “I remember writing a letter to my mom and dad telling them I met somebody, and I wanted them to know because they were going to meet him whenever they came to Florida. I got a phone call from my dad, and it was, ‘We got your letter, and we love you.’ It was that simple.” White’s husband grew up in Colorado, so after several years together in Florida, the couple moved to Denver.

After that move fourteen years ago, White took a break from drag to focus on his full-time job, but he was lured back to the stage when he found out that Ignite Theatre was mounting a production of La Cage aux Folles. “Eight years ago, I did La Cage the first time here in Colorado. I did it as, ‘Let’s see if I’ve still got it. I’ll practice, go to the audition, and I’d be happy to be in the chorus just to get my toe back in the theater and get back to the drag world,'” he recalls. He landed the lead role of Albin.

White had always been “obsessed with” the 1978 French film La Cage aux Folles, which became the basis for the Harvey Fierstein book and Jerry Herman musical of the same name, as well as the 1996 English-language movie The Birdcage. “It’s interesting, because as we’ve been reading through it, there’s so much added dialogue. They updated it in 2010, but we didn’t have that script when I did it eight years ago. It’s kind of flipped the storyline,” notes White, adding that the more recent version expands on Albin’s perspective. “We did a deep dive into that last night, and people were shocked, because I think Jean-Michele, the son, is the villain of the story. He’s the one that’s trying to make his family fit into a box and be something they’re not, just for a girl. When I talked about that, the young man that’s playing my son was like, ‘Oh, damn, you’re right.'”

Albin has always been the hero of the story to White, who sees a lot of himself in the iconic queer character. “Albin is so important because he, in essence, is the activist. He’s the one with the boots, or heels, on the ground. He’s with the community, performing in the community, and he’s not afraid to be himself,” he explains.

“That resonates with me, because I’m the same way. Do I get concerned for my safety sometimes? Absolutely,” he continues. “But I’m not going to back down from anything I do, because I believe wholeheartedly in what I’m doing, and I’m not hurting anybody. That’s his whole thing.” Being able to draw from his own experiences and bring more of himself to the performance has made this production even more special than White’s previous turn as Albin. “It means a lot more to me now,” he says, “because when I did it the first time around, I did it the way they wanted me to do it. I didn’t put my foot down with ways I wanted to do certain things. That’s the collaboration that we have on this piece.”

La Cage aux Folles was originally published as a play in 1973, but its message is as important today as it was back then. “Fifty years ago was the first iteration, and we’ve not come a long way. We may think that we have when we look at legislation around same-sex marriage and that kind of stuff, but right now we’re going backwards,” White points out. “A lot of the dialogue that was rewritten even recently is so pivotal right now with the climate that we’re in, talking about right-wing Christianity and people assuming one thing when they look at you, and they don’t want to take the time to know you because it makes them uncomfortable. This play has never been seen before by many people, because they don’t want to give it a chance.”

But if they did give it a chance, they would see that queer families are just like any other families. “It could be a mom and a dad, two women, two men, whatever,” White says. “Albin and Georges have been together for such a long time, and they’re going to jab at each other and have arguments, but the love is always there.”

White concludes, “Right now, it’s important to tell this story – and we’re telling it in Littleton, of all places. At the same time, I know there are going to be protests. I know there are going to be donors that they will probably lose. We’re always going to have these things come up, and that’s the beauty of theater. You either choose to buy a ticket or you don’t. I want people in the seats that actually want to know about the story, and actually want to see a group of people telling a queer story.”

La Cage aux Folles, Friday, April 7, through April 30, Town Hall Arts Center, 2450 West Main Street, Littleton. Find tickets (starting at $37), dates, times and more information at townhallartscenter.org.