On the latest episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, the queens are faced with the Maxi Challenge of competing in a Rusical. It’s a time honored tradition on the series, farmed out even to international editions.
This season it’s for The Sound of Rusic, inspired extremely loosely by The Sound of Music, and we have to ask: Is Drag Race hurtling toward an actual Broadway production?
For the past few seasons, the show has been turning out some really solid stageplays. Madonna: The Unauthorized Rusical from season 12, Moulin Ru!
The Rusical from season 14, Wigloose: The Rusical from season 15, and even JOAN: The Unauthorized Rusical from All Stars season 8 were all standouts. (We do not speak of Social Media: The Unverified Rusical in this house.) And while one could say that this is potentially just the show getting better at something they do every single year, the inclusion of Adam Shankman makes me think of how Jamal Sims clocked the hours for years as a choreographer on the show before taking up residence as the co-director of Drag Race Live!, the show’s Vegas residency.