Sasha Velour Photo by Chloe Mary

In the case of The Big Reveal Live Show!, written and performed by drag artist Sasha Velour (winner of the ninth season of "RuPaul's Drag Race"), there's an option missing: all of the above. For The Big Reveal Live Show! is dramatic and moving in one moment, outrageously hysterical in the next, and peppered with music–though only of the lip-sync variety. Although Velour is onstage alone for most of the show, she does have help in a couple of numbers/scenes from her stage crew, who not only clean up her occasional messes, but also sometimes dance along.

To the "all of the above," I'd have to add a fifth category for this show: book tour. That's because Sasha Velour's book, "The Big Reveal: An Illustrated Manifesto of Drag," serves as a sort of outline/dramatic structure for the live show, and the book itself often takes center stage, glowing in its own megawatt spotlight.

"The Big Reveal" (the book) is Velour's take on the history of drag, from Elizabethan stages to the present. As part of The Big Reveal Live Show!, Velour elucidates for us how drag was at one time an outré, yet still socially acceptable, form of entertainment, something Navy sailors participated in (to the point that one troupe of midshipmen were so popular their show toured naval bases around the world) and has been part of theatre for centuries. She tears into Christopher Isherwood's and Susan Sontag's takes on camp, claiming for herself–and by projection all of us in the audience and beyond–that individuals get to decide these sort of questions for themselves. "Camp," she says, "requires self-awareness," so that "we, at least, never give up on ourselves."

But this is far more than a history lesson for Pride Month, it's also a celebration of Sasha Velour's unique take on drag, featuring stunning costumes, some created from or inspired by ordinary household objects. The first big reveal of the night comes at the top of the show, and from a most unexpected place.

About a third of the 90-minute evening is taken up by Velour's ferocious lip-sync performances, drawing on a wide range of music from Lady Gaga and Britney Spears to Lerner and Loewe and Sondheim. She draws on cultural tropes from Mommie Dearest to "The White Lotus" (and many others). There are also video roll-ins, some that include moments from drag history and some from Velour's personal history, including family videos of the young Velour reveling in her first attempts at dress-up. Velour narrates these videos while simultaneously telling us of the support she received from her immigrant grandparents and her parents, who worked in academia.

For Velour, drag is more than a revolutionary art form, it has a "spiritual element," a sort of superpower that "allows us to be utterly ourselves." This comfort inside one's own skin is likely an important reason why Sasha Velour has such command of a stage. Her performance seesaws between an intellectual exploration of drag, its various meanings and its power to both inspire and offend, and biting humor. As she stands in one of her many glorious costumes (by Diego Montoya Studio, Pierretta Viktori, Jazzmint Dash, Gloria Swansong, and Casey Caldwell), topped by one of her outrageous wigs (by Diana Dash [Double D Wigs] and Jean Baptiste Santens), she states with clear conviction that "you need to have been lied to to think that any of this is dangerous."

But we live in dangerous times, especially for queer, trans, and genderfluid people, so Sasha Velour's The Big Reveal Live Show! has seized a high ground upon which to stand and proudly proclaim that every human not only has value, but also the right to invent (and re-invent) themselves. Rather like The Big Reveal Live Show!, it's okay for all of us to resist pigeonholing ourselves into one category or another.

The Big Reveal Live Show! runs through June 15, 2025, at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison Street, Berkeley CA. Shows are Thursdays-Sundays at 8:00pm, Matinees are Saturday June 7 and 14 at 4:00pm. There is an additional performance Tuesday, June 10 at 8:00pm. Tickets range from $25-$99. For tickets and information, please visit www.berkeleyrep.org or call the box office at 510-647-2949.