Jinkx Monsoon Wants Her Broadway Success To Send An Affirming Message To Trans Youth

“This was exactly what I wanted to do and exactly how I wanted to do it,” the “RuPaul's Drag Race” champ said of her latest work.

More than a decade after “RuPaul’s Drag Race” catapulted her onto the global stage, Jinkx Monsoon is happily embracing her Broadway era.

This spring, the actor, singer and drag icon originated the role of Ruth in Broadway’s “Pirates! The Penzance Musical,” Rupert Holmes’ New Orleans-set reimagining of the 1879 comic opera “The Pirates of Penzance,” which also starred Ramin Karimloo and David Hyde Pierce. A month after her “Pirates!” run concluded, she joined the smash comedy “Oh, Mary!,” succeeding Tony Award winner Cole Escola as first lady Mary Todd Lincoln.

Monsoon has been honing her theatrical chops for some time, having made her Broadway debut two years ago in “Chicago” and, later, joining the off-Broadway company of “Little Shop of Horrors.” As a transgender performer, however, she’s hopeful that young actors and singers who are trans or nonbinary will be encouraged by her recent success.

“This was exactly what I wanted to do and exactly how I wanted to do it,” she told HuffPost. “It was always knowing what roles I would be best at, and [knowing] it was going to be unlikely that people were going to cast me in those roles. But I let go of that idea, and now I am playing those roles.”

She went on to note, “I’ve kind of realized this whole year, I’ve played female characters who thrive under extenuating circumstances and limited agency. And I am witnessing my agency being taken away every other day as a trans woman in America right now.”