ABOVE: Gidget Galore (L) as Jackie and Ginger Ming as Roseanne in “Rozeanne,” the first show in their TV Land Live series. (Photo from Ginger Minj’s Facebook)
ORLANDO | It all started with “The Golden Girls” and Taco Tuesday. The journey to local drag queens’ Ginger Minj and Gidget Galore’s new stage series “TV Land Live,” began with them sitting down a year prior at Galore’s house and watching “The Golden Girls” on Hulu.
“We decided we wanted to do something fun, and something that reinvigorated us as far as drag goes,” Minj says. “We just happened to be watching ‘The Golden Girls” and we just said to each other ‘Why don’t we do this? Why don’t we take this show that we love so much and just run it on its feet?’”
A few months later, Minj and Galore’s show “The Golden Gals Live,” debuted to sold-out audiences and positive reviews from critics.
After multiple performances and a Christmas special, they knew they had to expand on the show’s success. They decided to take multiple classic sitcoms and give them “The Golden Gals” treatment.
“We had to keep this ball rolling, we had to do something to continue to bring this to the community,” Minj says. “But we knew we didn’t want to keep doing ‘Golden Gals.’ So, we decided why not take all of the TV shows we grew up on and kind of turn them on their heads.”
Minj and Galore picked shows they loved and, most importantly, ones they thought the audience would connect with. “TV Land Live” was born and the first season of shows were picked, with each title a bit off from the original: “Rozeanne,” “Gilligan’z Island,” “Dezigning Women,” “Bee-witched” and “The Munsterz.”
“We choose these shows because they are either really important from our past, we grew up with these shows, we related to these shows or they just brought us a lot of joy watching them originally or in syndication,” Galore says.
With Minj as the writer and director and Galore as the costume and set designer, the duo worked to perfect the nuances of each sitcom so that audiences could pick up on the iconic jokes and details from the classic originals but still have it feel like something fresh and new. From working on the script to hunting in local thrift shops for props, they say they have been working nonstop to cover each and every detail. Each show will only have four days from rehearsal to opening night so planning is a must.
“One thing that we all bring to the table is being prepared when we come into rehearsals,” Galore says. “The cast gets together Sunday through Wednesday prior to the start and then we open the show Thursday and end Monday.”
The duo is being joined by their original cast from “The Golden Gals” — MrMs Adrian, Divine Grace and Doug Ba’aser — as well as special guest stars for each show like the debut show in the “TV Land Live” series that ran last weekend with “Mean Girls” and “Looking” actor Danny Franzese. Galore says each show has been designed to give the main cast members their own headlining show.
“For example: Ginger was the lead in ‘Rozeanne,’ I will play Samantha in ‘Bee-Witched’ and [MRMS] Adrian will be Gilligan. We each have our highlighted show,” Galore says.
The queens say they have already started planning for next year’s shows and want to top this current line-up.
“In the future, we would love to be able to bring new shows each season,” Galore says. “Definitely more ‘Golden Gals,’ we hear it every day, but switching out other shows so it feels fresh and funny and entertaining.”
They say they mainly want audience members to be able to come to the shows and feel like they can be themselves and laugh despite whatever is going on in their lives.
“It’s so much fun to be able to just drop them off at the door for an hour and a half and just laugh,” Minj says. “Laugh like we did 20 years ago when we were watching these shows on television.”
“TV Land Live” season passes are $200 and gets you VIP for the remaining five shows, individual show tickets are $25 for General Admission and $50 for VIP. All tickets are available to purchase online at Eventbrite.com, keyword TV LAND LIVE.
