Miss Trannyshack Pageant 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE OCT. 2007
PRESS PHOTOS and more info: trannyshack.com/pageant2007
DVD clips available on request.
See us on YouTube.com.

LAWRENCE HELMAN, public releations lhelman@sbcglobal.net

MISS TRANNYSHACK
PAGEANT 2007

WHAT:
MISS TRANNYSHACK PAGEANT 2007
• With Performances by Sandra Bernhard, Miss Juanita More! and Heklina
• Celebrity judges Sandra Bernhard, James St. James and others
• The studly Men of HotHouse Entertainment will be in the house

WHEN:
SAT., NOV. 17, 2007

TIME:
Doors open @ 9:00 pm
Pageant begins @10:00 pm (sharp)

WHERE:
THE GIFT CENTER, SF
888 Brannan St @ 8th St., south of Market
get map

TICKETS:
$35 advance tickets
$45 at the door on the night of the Pageant.

Advance tickets available at:
BODY - 450 Castro St.
PIEDMONT BOUTIQUE - 1452 Haight St.
CLUBCARD - 2275 Market St. #7
THE SEVENTH HEART - 1592 Market St.
and online at ticketweb.com

WEB SITE:
trannyshack.com/pageant2007

featuring celebrity judges:

• James St. James, author Disco Bloodbath, and Freak Show, and club kid

• Fernando and Greg from Energy 92FM

• Peaches Christ

• Anna Conda, Miss Trannyshack 2004

• Brent Smith and the Men of HotHouse Entertainment

Question: What do you get when you have over two thousand die hard Trannyshack fans beating down the door and you are no longer able to let any more of them in?

Answer: You move the Miss Trannyshack Pageant to a much larger venue – THE GIFT CENTER

After last year’s hugely successful Miss Trannyshack Pageant, we needed to move to a much larger venue to accommodate the growing throngs of fans clamoring to attend and be part of one of the most anticipated downtown events of the year.

HEKLINA, Mistress of Trannyshack, has outdone herself with a diadem of new surprises - hereby making the Miss Trannyshack Pageant 2007 the most anticipated...EVER! If you’ve missed the previous 11 sold-out competitions, you won’t want to pass up your chance to witness the heavenly highs, the lumbering lows, the dizzying dazzlement, the visceral vortex and ruthless reality which are all a part of claiming the coveted Miss Trannyshack crown and sash. These gals, guys and others go all out to make this spectacle worthy of two documentary films to date.

The 2007 Pageant features a celebrity performance by superstar comic, actress & singer Miss Sandra Bernhard. Sandra will also judge the Pageant along with James St. James, author and club kid legend, and other noted celebrities. The studly Men of HotHouse Entertainment will be in attendance to entertain, enliven and engorge the festivities.

The contest will be held on Sat. night - November 17 – at our larger and more opulent location The Gift Center – 888 Brannan St (at 8th St. - south of Market) in SF.

The Miss Trannyshack Pageant 2007 will be hostessed by the astounding Trannyshack mistress of ceremonies Heklina, drag enfant terrible Juanita More! as well as that ever present, second to nun Sister Roma.

Juanita More! will serve as talent coach and consultant for this year’s contestants. Judging the contestants in the categories of swimwear and most importantly “talent”, will be celebrity judges: Sandra Bernhard, James St. James, Fernando and Greg - (DJ’s from Enegry92 fm), Peaches Christ, Anna Conda (Miss TS 2004), Brent Smith and the men of HotHouse Entertainment.

Doors open @ 9:00 pm, Pageant begins @10:00 pm (sharp).

TICKETS $35 advance tickets, $45 at the door on the night of the Pageant.

Advance tickets available at BODY - 450 Castro St.; PIEDMONT BOUTIQUE - 1452 Haight St.; Clubcard - 2275 Market St. #7, and at The Seventh Heart - 1592 Market St.
Tickets also available – www.ticketweb.com

Making her final official walk down the catwalk to (reluctantly) relinquish her tiara and to crown the 2007 Miss Trannyshack winner, will be drag sensation Raya Light. Door diva Miss Chocolate will be at the door to relieve you of your money, and resident Trannyshack DJ Pinky Ring-Cameron will be spinning tunes for your dancing pleasure before and after the Pageant.

Trannyshack, now in its 12th award-winning year, is San Francisco’s longest-running weekly drag and performance hotspot. Its midnight drag showcase has become the object of legend, and it serves as an important venue for up and coming local gender-bending talent, as well as visiting out-of-town drag luminaries.

HEKLINA is the hostess, producer, and creator of Trannyshack, SF’s longest-running drag performance night club, now in it’s 12th year of shocking and delighting packed audiences every Tuesday night at midnight at the STUD Bar in SF. Defying all expectations, Trannyshack incorporates everything from low brow trash to high brow performance art, and has become famous (or, infamous) worldwide as the quintessential San Francisco experience. No visit to the City is complete without a stop at Trannyshack. The club has been featured in OUT (which named it one of the top 10 reasons to move to SF), GENRE, and PAPER magazine and has won numerous Best of the Bay awards. Trannyshack has branched out its empire, with London, LA and NYC. Heklina has been seen on the E! Entertainment Network, BBC Television’s AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 RAVES, and as a guest on the Jerry Springer and Ricki Lake shows. She was voted Community Grand Marshal of the 2004 San Francisco GLBTQ Pride Parade. trannyshack.com

SANDRA BERNHARD has been challenging fans and critics with her knife-edged humor, satire and emotive performances on film, television and stage for 25 years. Her critically acclaimed 1998, one-woman Broadway hit, “I’m Still Here...Damn It!” which played the Booth Theater, had critics raving. Created and conceived by Bernhard, the show first ran for five months off-Broadway at New York’s Westbeth Theatre, where it garnered ecstatic reviews. The show went on to play sold-out runs in Boston and San Francisco, and one of the Bay Area performances was filmed for an HBO special (“I’m Still Here…Damn It!” which aired in the summer of 1998) photographed by cinematographer Haskel Wexler, and produced and directed by Marty Callner.

Since her first film accolades in 1983 in Martin Scorsese’s, “The King of Comedy” featuring Jerry Lewis and Robert De Niro, Bernhard has since appeared in numerous films including “Inside Monkey Zetterland,” “Hudson Hawk” and more recently, “Dinner Rush”. Throughout her career, Bernhard’s formidable presence has also had a place on TV. From 1991-1996, she portrayed Nancy on “Roseanne”, and has had guest starring roles on “Ally McBeal”, “Chicago Hope” and “Will & Grace”. She has appeared on “Late Night with David Letterman”, as well as “The Tonight Show”, “Rosie O’Donnell” and “The View”. She hosted the season premiere of “MadTV” and the Bravo network recently profiled her career. In 2001, Bernhard hosted her own talk show, “The Sandra Bernhard Experience” for A&E TV.

Along with writing for performance, Bernhard has put her musings into book form. Currently working on her fourth collection, her books, just as her shows, are full of personal insights, introspective rants, prose and essays. She made her publishing debut in 1987 with “Confessions of a Pretty Lady” and followed that up with “Love, Love, and Love.” Her third book, “May I Kiss You on the Lips, Miss Sandra?” was published in 1998, prior to her Broadway run. Her work has also been published in numerous magazines, including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Conde Nast Traveler, Rolling Stone, Interview, Spy, Elle and Allure. sandrabernhard.com

JAMES ST. JAMES was a Club Kid of the Manhattan club scene in the late 1980s/ early 1990s and the author of Disco Bloodbath (now published under the title Party Monster). He was notorious for a lifestyle of excess that included constant heavy drug use, partying, and bizarre costumes. His new book, Freakshow, was released May 17, 2007.

St. James came to New York in 1984 and became a celebutante after becoming a close friend to nightlife icon and columnist Michael Musto. Michael Alig came to the city around the same time and looked to St. James as a role model, however he was shunned by St. James and the others at the top of the club scene caste system. Alig soon created his own scene by gathering up other creative rejects of the nightlife world by copying St. James' flamboyant style with self-promotion and innovative, themed parties. Alig grew on St. James and he morphed from celebutante to Club Kid.

Michael Alig infamously murdered club kid wannabe, Angel Melendez. The event is documented in St. James's memoir Disco Bloodbath. A documentary titled Party Monster (1998) was based on the events leading up to and surrounding the murder, and a feature film of the same name was released in 2003, which starred Seth Green as St. James and Macaulay Culkin as Alig.

St. James wrote several columns, most famously for the New York City-based gay publication OutWeek in the early 1990s St. James currently resides in LA, working for the production company World of Wonder Productions, makers of "Party Monster". He has made numerous appearances on America's Next Top Model, Tyra, and other pop culture TV shows and contributes to a number of newspapers and magazines from PAPER Magazine to the Times of London and is a tireless activist in fashion reform. He can be seen everywhere in anything, and is currently working on his next novel
DOGBREATH: KISS OF THE WOLF-BOY, a fable for young fags.

For a hilarious video clip of James St. James on a 1990 Joan Rivers talk show, visit: worldofwonder.net/movies/joanrivers.mp4

To arrange an interview Heklina, Sandra Bernhard or James St. James or for additional information call Lawrence Helman at 415/ 661-1260.

CALENDAR EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:

WHAT:
MISS TRANNYSHACK PAGEANT 2007
• With performances by Sandra Bernhard, Miss Juanita More! and Heklina
• Celebrity judges Sandra Bernhard, James St. James and others
• The studly Men of HotHouse Entertainment will be in the house

WHEN:
SAT., NOV. 17, 2007

TIME:
Doors open @ 9:00 pm
Pageant begins @10:00 pm (sharp)

WHERE:
The Gift Center
888 Brannan St. (@ 8th St.) IN SF

TICKETS:
$35 advance tickets,
$45 at the door on the night of the Pageant.

Advance tickets available at:
BODY - 450 Castro St.;
PIEDMONT BOUTIQUE - 1452 Haight St.;
CLUBCARD - 2275 Market St. #7,
THE SEVENTH HEART - 1592 Market St.

Tickets also available – www.ticketweb.com

WEB SITE:
www.trannyshack.com

To download PRESS PHOTOS and for additional information about the event visit http://trannyshack.com/pageant2007/index.htm

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PAGEANT PHOTOS:
more on FLIKR