After spending the last year growing beyond the expectations that come with RuPaul’s Drag Race fame, Suzie Toot is stepping into her newest era with maximalism, mischief, and absolute theatrical commitment. Her new one-woman show, Suzie with a Z, pulls from vaudeville, Broadway, classic television comedy, and pure drag absurdity — all filtered through a performer who proudly refuses to sand down her weirdest edges.
The tour kicks off on July 9 in Philadelphia and travels across the country with 17 stops through August 2 in Ft. Lauderdale. The show is the highly anticipated follow-up to Suzie’s debut one-woman cabaret show, If You Knew Suzie, which sold out its entire 2025 run including shows in Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Provincetown. Whether you’re a fan of Suzie, musical theater or RuPaul’s Drag Race, Suzie with a Z promises an intimate, offbeat, and laugh-out-loud night of cabaret that cements Suzie Toot as one of drag’s most exciting and endearing rising stars.
Ahead of the tour, Suzie opened up about channeling Liza Minnelli energy, learning to trust her own artistic instincts, and why the best kind of entertainment makes audiences forget reality exists for a little while.
Suzie with a Z is described as your most uninhibited work. What does uninhibited look like for you on stage, and was there anything you had to push yourself to embrace?
This is a show that’s uninhibited in a lot of ways because I felt like coming out of Drag Race there is an expectation of what to do and what you should do post-season, and things that are smart to do, whatever. But there is a freedom now because a whole season has gone by. We are over a year out. I can just be Suzie and everything I’ve wanted Suzie to be on her own because she has a life now. She’s grown and become someone.
And then uninhibited on stage I feel like… When I did my first the tryout for this show, which was called If You Knew Suzie, last year in Provincetown I was terrified. I was like, all the pieces exist. I know that I can do them, but I’ve never performed in this way. I’ve never had an audience in my hands for two hours and I felt like jumping off a bridge the first time that I did it. It was so freeing and so exciting and that was a huge learning experience for me. And since then, I’m like, “Okay, now I know what this is going into it. Let’s let loose, do whatever I want to do, whatever I can think of.” I’m very excited about this show.
You’ve called the show the culmination of your journey so far. What moments out of your career most directly shaped what we’ll be seeing on stage?
Oh, man. I… My reception on the show was very mixed because there were people who really got what I was doing and were so excited about it because it is so different, and there were so many people that did not understand. It was not in a package pretty enough for them to digest it. I loved responding to that side of things and taking the piss out of it and having fun with it and I think so much of this show is shaped by the realization “Oh, okay, this is not food for everyone.” And there is so much laughter. There is so much that is funny and subversive about that. I think that’s been a huge influence on my career in general, and especially this show.
You had mentioned If You Knew Suzie, how does this show differ emotionally and creatively from that show?
If You Knew Suzie was such a, “Hi, here I am. My name is Suzie. Here’s what I have to offer you. Here you go.” And Suzie with a Z, what I love so much about the title, A: the Liza Minnelli reference because she’s a diva. But also, it’s a command. It’s like a, “No, here’s how you spell it. Suzie with a Z.” It is so much more direct and full. It is, “Hi, I’m Suzie Toot, and here’s what I have to offer.” I think that’s the biggest difference between these two shows, and I’m really excited to step into that kind of world with it.
The show blends vaudeville, Broadway, and drag, of course. How do you balance honoring those traditions while still turning them completely on their head?
I think the art that I love is stacked and built on top of itself. I mentioned this in the last interview, but I’ve been watching a lot of The Muppet Show, and The Muppet Show has such a love and a reverence for old vaudeville and for old theater. It’s a new art form built on the legs of what came before it. And so, with Susie, I love that I like to do that, exactly that kind of thing, where we’re looking at it in a fresh way, but really the bones of it are the traditions of theater, what humans have created since the dawn of time – and getting to be a little bit vaudeville, a little bit Greek theater, and a little bit Muppet Show.
What is your process for building a show like this – something that’s both refined and ridiculous a little bit at the same time?
Refined and ridiculous is exactly it. It’s a lot of my notes page on my phone is always going, no matter where I am. I’m like, “If I think of something, this has to come.” And then you wake up later, and you look back at that notes page, and you’re like, “This is a mess” and you decipher what you can out of whatever crazy fever dream I was thinking of before. It’s a lot of time and a lot of deciphering what is usable. But what comes out at the end of it is something that is eclectic and that is so the many different parts of who I am.
The show’s title is obviously a reference to Liza, and you also cite Lucille Ball as one of your inspirations. How have you borrowed from each of them and where do you intentionally diverge from them?
I did a deep dive on Liza Minnelli, and the first time I watched Liza with a Z, the special, in full was such a moment of “Oh, that’s exactly what I want to be doing.” I knew I wanted to do theater, but the stage presence, the style of storytelling, there is no artist that is like Liza Minnelli in any way. And I felt the same way watching I Love Lucy for the first time, where I’m like, “She’s doing something that is so original and no one else on the planet could do the type of comedy that she is doing. And I like to think that all of my divas – like Carol Burnett and Cher – I take pieces of all of them and try to infuse it into my own art, but also, more than anything, just realize that what I do uniquely is the superpower. And that’s what all the great divas who have come before, they have their own superpower. And so that’s where I draw inspiration mostly.
What drew you to the classic era of performance, and why do you think it still resonates with audiences today?
When something is profoundly good, profoundly funny, profoundly enrapturing or exciting, it goes beyond just “oh, this person made a funny thing.” It’s like there are human roots, there are biological reasons that this specifically is hilarious or this specifically is so good. Things like that are evergreen. No matter what, people 1,000 years from now, if this planet is still around- … people are going to be watching reruns of I Love Lucy and be like, “Wow, this is hilarious,” because there’s a fundamental quality to it.
In the show, you’re singing, you’re dancing, you’re tapping. What has been the most physically or vocally demanding part of preparing for the tour?
I’m dancing a lot more in this show than I have in previous shows. My last one-woman show was a lot more sit down, “Hi, everybody.” And sometimes I’d get up and do a time step. But this is like we’re doing choreography. That is an element paired with a lot of singing that you’re like, “Oh, you gotta kinda train for this. This isn’t just a walk in the park.” The performers are athletes, and I’m trying to get there.
Your work is described as theatrical, cerebral and, of course, hilarious. How do you personally define the essence of Suzie Toot?
Those words do a pretty good job. The essence of Suzie Toot…I think reverence is a huge part of it. Ridiculous for ridiculous’ sake. Doing things that are fun and funny because they are, and it doesn’t have to be more than that. There’s so much that is Suzie Toot. That’s my answer.
What do you hope audiences will walk away thinking or feeling after seeing Suzie with a Z?
I really hope that they laugh. But in a serious sense, there are a lot of hard things in the world. The world is absolutely bonkers and crazy right now and I think a very important part of art, and especially drag, is escapism. I love the feeling when I go to a show and the curtain’s up, the show ends, and you’re like, “Oh, I was somewhere else for two hours. I was not here and that was blissful, and my life is better for it.” That I think is one of the biggest takeaways.
I’m still manifesting for you to be in Oh, Mary! On Broadway but is there anything else that’s still on your bucket list or some plans that you have coming up?
Oh, man. I’m, I’ve been enjoying the tour life. Getting to travel as much as I have has been so exciting. But I do, I manifest something long-term that’s here in New York City that can be a vessel. Broadway or not, whatever that may be, I just want to do theater that means something and is really good and also doesn’t require me to get on a plane. That’s what I manifest.
Get tickets to Suzie with a Z here. Keep up with Suzie on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
MORE POP CULTURE HEADLINES
