Heklina founded the Trannyshack drag show in 1996 at The Stud, and eventually moved it to DNA Lounge in 2009. We hosted it monthly until 2014, when Heklina and her partners opened their own venue up the street, The Oasis.
Coming from a punk rock ethos, she created a space that welcomed performers from across the gender spectrum, at a time when drag was VERY codified into TIRED (her words) tropes of men in sequined gowns doing diva lip-syncs. None of us realized it at the time, but she helped revolutionize the concept of what drag could be, breaking its mold years before the rest of the world caught on. [...]
She was a Master Class in successful Nightlife Production: wrangling order from chaos, managing a stage, managing a crowd, putting down hecklers, assembling trusted crews, booking budding queens, promoting events, following one's heart -- but also always being aware of what actually sells. And she did it all with snark, wit, and balance for over 25 years.
I've put together a YouTube playlist of the surviving videos from the shows, and Heklina's other performances here. (I say "surviving" because more than half of them have been memory-holed in the intervening decade. As has often been said, "YouTube is a video archive in the same sense that a supermarket is a Food Museum.")
I also wish we had more photos from those amazing shows, but here are a few of our galleries:
RIP Heklina!
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