In the heart of Hell’s Kitchen, where red velvet curtains glow and winter nights hum with mischief, BROLESQUE: XXX-MAS is rewriting holiday magic one rhinestone, one tease and one outrageous fantasy at a time. Created and directed by international dancer and creative force Locky Brownlie—whose career spans touring with Katy Perry, Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears, and starring in Wicked—this all-male, high-octane spectacle is shaking up queer nightlife with a burst of glitter-soaked irreverence.
After years away from the scene, Brownlie returned to New York’s stages with a mission: to give queer dancers a place where they could be the stars, not the backdrop; where sensuality, humor and theatricality could collide in full, unapologetic bloom. BROLESQUE: XXX-MAS turns the Gingerbread Man, the Nutcracker and the burly lumberjack into deliciously subversive icons—complete with daring choreography, costume-strip transformations, campy storytelling and the kind of audience interaction that turns Thursday nights at Balcon Salon into the unofficial start of the weekend.
With the show’s blend of burlesque, dance, comedy, acrobatics and interactive play (including a very cheeky Oven Mitt Challenge), Brownlie channels nearly two decades of global performance into an intimate, immersive 60-minute experience that feels both fresh and long-missing from the city’s queer landscape. It’s a holiday celebration for your chosen family—bold, sexy, joyful and irresistibly naughty—rooted in the freedom of self-expression Brownlie’s championed since the beginning of his career.
BROLESQUE: XXX-MAS runs every Thursday at 11:00 p.m. at Balcon Salon in Hell’s Kitchen—a vibrant, intimate home perfectly sized for the glitz, glamour, and wild heart of New York’s newest queer tradition.
BROLESQUE: XXX-MAS turns classic holiday characters into sexy, subversive fantasies. What inspired you to reimagine the Gingerbread Man, the Nutcracker and the lumberjack through this playful, queer lens?
I wanted to bring some holiday cheer in a different way. Something fun for the community. For our queer community. We’ve been gone for a few years, but we’ve recently come back and started doing shows again this August. I wanted to switch up and do a holiday show and bring some fun characters that we all know so well. Just kind of switch the narrative a little bit and make them a little naughty, fun and campy.
You’ve toured with legends like Britney Spears, Katy Perry and Jennifer Lopez and even starred in Wicked on Broadway. How did those massive productions influence the creative vision behind BROLESQUE?
Yeah, I did. Wicked was the first job I did back in Australia. After its success on Broadway, they brought the show over to Australia to continue on. That was actually my first job I did in Australia. I was 18. I came over to America with my visa and all the legal stuff that has to go on. Which really snowballed my career over here. I am forever thankful for Wicked. I had been a professional dancer since I was 18. I danced my whole life growing up. I’ve always been a part of a show, whether it was being in the audience or ensemble. Dancing behind the artist or the star are what makes these big shows come to life. When I was starting to want to venture out to the creative space, like producing or being the director of the new show, I wanted to put dancers at the forefront of the show. Have them be their own stars. Especially for the LGBTQ dancers in the dance scene. I wanted us to have something that we could be a part of and be the star of. That’s kind of how it started. I wanted to give dancers the extra job to do. They are always looking for big breaks working with these pop stars or in musicals. So I wanted them to have something to go to. To have some freedom to be out and take their clothes off and be masculine, but also in touch with our feminine side. The sexual freedom that comes with doing burlesque and dance and mixing those two together.
You’re currently on THE KNOCKOUT TOUR with Violet Chachki and Gottmik. How does performing with two drag superstars feed your artistry and challenge you creatively?
They asked me to jump on their tour this year and it’s been amazing. We are doing 46 shows, different cities, so it’s a full tour bus show. They are solely producing it themselves, which is amazing. As a young producer and as someone who is going through the highs and lows of producing a show, to see friends and other creatives that I look up to go through the same thing and work through the same obstacles that I am challenged with is really inspiring. On the creative side, being with them and creating their numbers and talking about their visions, they have some deep expectations, which I love because I’m also a big thinker and I really try to strive to have these ideas come to life. To work with people with the same type of artistry and all the glitz and glamor and rhinestones–and Violet brings in the burlesque element. Working on this show has actually taken me a step back to do what I need to be doing. This is just adding to my artistry fire.
BROLESQUE mixes burlesque, dance, comedy and audience participation — including segments like the Oven Mitt Challenge. How do you decide just how mischievous you’re willing to let the show get?
Thursday night, I feel, is the beginning of the weekend. Where everyone starts to get a little bit edgy and they are ready to look for some trouble, especially in the city, especially in New York, especially in the winter months. So I think I’d like to say that we are the beginning of what the weekend could look like. Some of the acts in the show do get down to not much covering them. Maybe just a hat covering their private part. Or maybe a little cocktail glass could be covering something. We do like to be a little risque, but also keep it classy and tasteful. Just enough for everyone to go, “Oh, I want to know what’s behind that hat.”
Balcon Salon in Hell’s Kitchen has become a hotspot for queer nightlife. What makes this venue the perfect home for BROLESQUE?
Balcon is a fabulous space. You have a great stage. It’s a petite stage. It’s not huge, but it really works for a lot of different types of shows. Along with that, it visually looks stunning. It’s got an atrium and it’s got this red curtain. It just looks fantastic. It’s in a great space. It’s not super small–it’s a nice size. It feels very intimate, in a good way. It doesn’t feel like it’s super squishy. We have definitely paid for spaces where you have all this extra room behind the crowd you’re working for and it kind of is hard to get into it when you’re dealing with the giant big space. This space is perfect. It could do a lot of different things. It could be a drag stage. It could be a musical act stage. It could turn into different things. It is a very versatile space. Right in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen.
The cast of BROLESQUE blends highly trained dancers with larger-than-life personalities. What qualities do you look for when casting performers who can embody both sensuality and comedy?
Definitely charisma. I come from a theater background. In all of my work, I like to really bring in the theatrics of it all. The drama. I myself am a very expressive and theatrical performer. I’ve got to find people that match my creativity and what I’m thinking for each of the shows. Dance ability. Obviously, we need people who are very versatile in their dancing. But it really does come down to the interaction with the audience. We do dance numbers on stage, but then we go through the audience and we like to connect with them. Collect the tipping from the audience. It’s very immersive, interactive. The audience gets the permission to be able to touch the dancers and to put the dollar notes into anywhere that they can find an elastic band. Or someplace the dollar would stay. The performers have to be comfortable interacting with the audience. That is surprisingly not that easy to find.
Holiday shows often lean family-friendly — but BROLESQUE: XXX-MAS goes deliciously in the opposite direction. Why do you think audiences are craving this kind of alternative holiday entertainment?
Yeah. This is for your chosen family. Perhaps LGBT family or sorority girls family for a fun little campy date night. You sit there and watch and fantasize about it and think about what you might do with your loved one later that night. It is definitely a different type of family night, for sure. I think there is a space for all types of cheer for joyful expressions. I like mixing a little bit of the risque, sexy type fantasy that we go through, along with this Christmas cheer. When you think about it, Santa Claus is so campy. Santa Claus in that big red suit and the little elves that help him…all of it is so campy. So you kind of switch that into imagining or fantasizing what they might look like in sexy lingerie or masculine lingerie. I bet we all have those kinds of thoughts. It is allowing people to kind of come and think and fantasize that way.
With nearly 20 years in the entertainment industry, what moment or artist pushed you the most — and how does that show up in your work as a creative director today?
I have toured with so many different pop girls and done so many amazing jobs. Working with Katie was a huge part of my career. It was the first major pop artist of that large scale. I worked with her for five years and did all of the tours. And took that to Australia and performed for my family. I remember how finishing Firework in Melbourne and knowing my family was out in the front was such an emotional moment for me. That was definitely a special time. But then, working for Jennifer Lopez, that was a hard show. I pushed myself physically and creatively, just to get through that show–which I think as a dancer is hard but feels amazing. Each of the jobs I have done has been different and all bring different stories and different ways that I approach them. Those are a few of the highlights, but I think everything I have done has just been such an amazing journey in its own way.
BROLESQUE has been called part of a new wave redefining queer nightlife in New York City. In your eyes, what is the show giving to the community that’s been missing?
The fact that there is an all male cast that is doing costume changes, it’s a high level production. It’s a 60-minute show. It’s got all the glitz and glamor. I think we have been missing shows like that. There are a lot of drag shows. There are a lot of shows with singing, but to have an all-male cast that is dancing, doing tricks and acrobatics, it’s fully choreographed, it’s got costumes and production level. That to me has been missing. Which is the reason that I started it. I didn’t see anything like this happening. Not that I could be a part of. I was looking for this type of thing when I was in and out of jobs. So I think I’ve created something that is definitely new for the queer nightlife. I just want it to get bigger and better and in more cities. For everyone to experience the fun of it all.
You’ve performed for stadiums, global superstars, and Broadway audiences. How does the intimacy of BROLESQUE compare?
It’s so different. Doing those big shows for me is easy. There are so many people in the audience. You have no idea who they are. You just kind of see the sparkle of the lights. Doing these smaller shows and shows when you know your friends in the audience and you can see their faces and their reactions because they’re much closer than they are in those big arenas…That is much harder to me. It’s different, not harder. You see people’s reactions. You see if they are enjoying it or not. And that can sometimes put you off as a performer. Or you can get distracted in different ways. When you perform in front of the giant audiences, they kind of become this big blur. You don’t know if they’re enjoying it, other than hearing their screams. During these intimate shows, you also get to know the audience. By the end of the show, you see their whole journey of how they go from wondering what the show is about. Halfway through the show, they start to get a little smile. And by the end, they are standing on their feet, clapping and saying, “Oh my God, that was amazing.” So, as a dancer, you see this whole journey of the audience that you wouldn’t see in a big show.
The show is every Thursday at Balcon. The showtime is 11:00 p.m.
