For those who follow RuPaul Charles’ ubiquitous “Drag Race” competitions on VH1, Ginger Minj needs little introduction. The star of Music Theater Works’ “La Cage Aux Folles” is a three-time alum of RuPaul’s reality show franchise, which tasks drag queens with everything from sewing a couture look from scratch to writing a telenovela script to choreographing and performing an original mini-musical.
Minj excels in all of the above, and she hasn’t really slowed down since she debuted on the high-profile competition series in 2015. The week “La Cage” opened at Skokie’s Northshore Center for the Performing Arts, Disney announced she’d be playing Winifred Sanderson (aka the Bette Midler role) in the highly anticipated “Hocus Pocus 2.” Meanwhile, Minj’s second country music album, “Double Wide Diva,” continues to chart. And it’s worth noting that at the 2016 Trailblazer Awards, Minj brought Harvey Fierstein—bookwriter and original star of Broadway’s “La Cage”—to tears with her performance of the score’s powerhouse anthem “I Am What I Am.”
