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What is it about Shelley Novak that we love so much? We’re big fans of the hilarious drag queen with the ratty blond wig, the frumpy frocks … and of course that ever-present facial stubble, fighting its way through the countless layers of makeup shellacked onto his (her?) face. We love Ms. Novak (real name: Tommy Strangie) so much that New Times named her best drag queen in both 2003 and 2006, for her tireless efforts to bring campy drag performances to the masses. And tonight the masses can see Shelley at the Miami Beach Cinematheque (512 Espanola Way, Miami Beach), in her one-(wo)man show I’ll Shave Tomorrow: The Shelley Novak Story, a surprisingly polished multimedia presentation of photos, film clips, and stories chronicling the drag persona’s life, both as a precocious child in Massachusetts and as a debaucherous artiste in South Beach.
“My photos are kind of an archive of Miami from its heyday in the Nineties,” he says. “Am I that old, that my photos are archival?” Please note that she’s the one who said she’s “old,” not us.
Mon., April 30, 9:30 p.m.