San Francisco Drag Laureate D’Arcy Drollinger Shines a Spotlight on Oasis Arts’ Mission to Support LGBTQ+ Artists
When San Francisco Mayor London Breed named performing powerhouse, visionary nightclub owner, and Oasis Arts founder D’Arcy Drollinger as the city’s first drag laureate in May, the entire world took notice — and no one was more surprised at all the attention than Drollinger herself. “I was 100 percent not prepared for the media whirlwind,” she laughs. “I truly thought this was going to be a nice little nod to the drag community and the LGBTQ+ community, maybe a story in the Chronicle … not something that was going to spread like wildfire the way that it did!”
But Drollinger adds that all of the interest from major magazines like “Rolling Stone” and from newspapers across the globe has inspired and invigorated her — and she’s excited to redirect some of that global focus onto the Bay Area drag scene, as well as onto groundbreaking Oasis Arts programs.
“I think that what the city wants from me as drag laureate is a lot of what I’m already doing,” Drollinger says. She came into the 18-month position (the first of its kind in the United States) with a broad, fully formed vision — a vision that encompasses existing programs, short-term goals, and lofty longer-term objectives.
Oasis Arts Programs and Drollinger’s Plans for San Francisco
Oasis Arts’ Artist in Residence program — through which Oasis Arts supports and collaborates with local Bay Area artists, providing space and resources so they can develop performance-based projects — is one example of something that Drollinger had put into motion before stepping into her new public role. And as the organization’s grant funding and other resources grow, she hopes to greatly increase its scope (for instance, to support LGBTQ+ artists working in mediums other than performance).
And then there’s Oasis Arts’ new soundstage, where Drollinger is currently filming “Champagne White and the Temple of Poon” — the sequel to her campy, hilarious hit film “Shit & Champagne.” Her eventual goal for the soundstage is to give local LGBTQ+ artists, and especially (but not only) drag artists, a space where they can create film, video, and photography projects. “What I would love to do is be able to offer it, either as part of a grant or at a deep discount, to LGBTQ+ artists and filmmakers in the Bay Area — and of course our allies as well!” says Drollinger. “People were doing a lot of great stuff with video and digital drag during the pandemic, but they sort of stopped…. What if there were access to resources that allowed them to do video projects on a larger scale?”
“I want to be able to funnel money and resources into our community of LGBTQ+ artists and drag artists, where it’s so, so needed,” she continues. “It’s challenging, but I’m hoping now that I have a little more of a voice, as San Francisco’s drag laureate, people will listen to me — so I can take on these things like creating a theater program, creating a film program, creating an elders program.” And Drollinger is especially passionate about Oasis Arts’ Legacy program, which invests in drag performers who have been working in the Bay Area for 30, 40, or 50 years, and gives them an opportunity to perform, while giving younger people the opportunity to see and learn from them.
Building the Future of Drag
Drollinger has been a staple of the San Francisco drag and nightlife scene for decades. And her valiant efforts to support that community, and to make the Oasis nightclub a safe haven and a source of income (for instance, with the Meals on Heels drag food delivery service) for them, led to her feeling an even closer bond to that community. “For me and for Oasis, I wanted to support more people — the people I knew, the performers I knew: that became a larger group of people and a more diverse group of people, and I wanted to support them,” she says.
Her Oasis nightclub is the premiere drag performance space in San Francisco — the linchpin of the city’s queer nightlife and performance scene. And Drollinger’s desire to provide support and resources for innovative, counterculture queer artists was the germ of the idea of Oasis Arts. She explains, “These things were sort of birthed out of necessity … wanting to do better in my smaller circle, and then the broader scope presented itself.”
Looking to the future, Drollinger has big ideas: growing her programs for artists, funding and supporting film and video projects with the Oasis Arts soundstage, and creating a drag mall that could become a national destination for drag artists (she has her eye on a former Bed Bath & Beyond not far from her nightclub). “I’m obsessed with this idea,” says Drollinger. “I would love to create a makers mart where we could have booths or little stores where people could sell wigs,