Skipper Meds: hilarious, terrifying and glamorous
8 Jul 2019.
a photo credit @jackiebrownphotography

On Nuit Rose this year, I wandered into the old Slack Alice, which was hosting a series of performances. A drag queen was just finishing her act when something interesting happened. The music got dark and weird. Suddenly, a guy in a full body stocking, face covered, with a horse costume strapped around his waist, took the stage. Over the course of four more weird songs, the performer shed the horse costume (purchased at an auction of Kids in the Hall props, apparently) and proceeded to eat an actual rotisserie chicken with plastic utensils glued to his finger tips. Later, the ghost of the digested chicken returns to lip sync a Radiohead song. The undercurrent of horror is predominant. It felt like I was watching a musical theatre version of Saw. It was hilarious, terrifying and glamorous all at the same time. Such is the world of one Skipper Meds.

Skipper Meds is the brainchild of David Kraft, a Toronto choreographer and performance artist. To say that I’ve never seen anything quite like Skipper Meds is an understatement. “My friend Robin Kelly came up with the name ‘Skipper Meds’,” explains Kraft. “When the B-Girlz started Downtown [their residency at Buddies] they asked me to come in and jazz up their drag competition. I asked Robin if I could use the name, and he said yes, so I went in and just did things that I thought were hilarious. I ended up being crowned Best of Downtown at the finale.”

Kraft trained as actor, dancer, and costume designer at Buffalo State University where he originally went to study psychology. He got into performing arts on a bet. “My friend Krista and I saw a poster for an audition for a play and she said, ‘I’ll give you ten dollars if you go in there and make a complete ass of yourself and see what happens’. So I went into the audition, and I got the part. Through that, I met my dance teacher Janet Reid, and I got into her dance company, which mixed contemporary, jazz, and African dance. Then I came to study at the Toronto Dance Theatre the day before 9/11. And I stayed.”

Skipper is something else. “She has the freedom to morph and be whatever it wants to be, everything from a glamorous sea monster with twenty eyeballs, or a sexy kitty cat with six boobs,” says Kraft. “Once I did a Scooby Doo thing where I played both Velma and Daphne with a bed sheet ghost chasing me around. I’ve already used animal masks, meat, televisions. Once I played a crazy man with a suitcase. I opened it, got in and closed myself in on stage.”

In 2007, Kraft entered MLT and won the Fellowship award. “I was the Sandra Bullock of leather,” he jokes. “That night, Elvira Kurt was hosting. Whenever I came onstage, she would say, ‘Here comes Smiles!’” But his dance career ended when he irreparably tore muscle tissue while working with a reckless personal trainer. Around the same time, he got hired at Woody’s. “Bartending was a good way to pay the bills, and I like people. I’ve been at Woody’s for a long time.”

So what is the future of Skipper Meds? “I’d love to bring Skipper to a bigger stage,” he tells me. “I’m going to dare myself to make bigger works.” One thing is certain - do not miss Skipper Meds the next time she alights on our planet for a show.