Gay 90s and a 651 number: Bob the Drag Queen recalls youth in South St. Paul
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“RuPaul’s Drag Race” season 8 winner Caldwell Tidicue, better known as Bob the Drag Queen, will perform at the Fitzgerald Theater on Friday for his “Now Clap!” comedy tour. The artist and producer says this show will be more personal that his previous comedy shows.
“I talk a lot about the state of the world that we're living in, but I also get really personal talking about my life, talking about, through a humorous way, obviously, what it's like to grieve and also do comedy,” Tidicue said. He has talked openly about his mother’s death in 2024.
The drag star is now an internationally renowned actor, author and comedian, but Tidicue credits his professional start to the Twin Cities.
“I was a young actor at my first ever professional acting gig, so I was living the dream. Shout out to CLIMB Theatre if you're still around,” he said. (Yes, the theater is still active). “Minnesota was my first ever professional acting gig.”
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The summer after his freshman year of college in Georgia, Tidicue moved to South St. Paul for nine months to work with the theater in Inver Grove Heights.
“I like to brag that I had a 651 number for a very long time.”
Tidicue said while much of his time in Minnesota was shadowed by struggles with alcoholism, he has fond memories going to the Mall of America and LGBTQ+ bars and clubs.
“I used to go to the Gay 90s, which is the gay bar out there, and on college nights when they would have 21-under nights, and the Saloon,” he said. “The Saloon used to have go-go dancers in the showers. I was like 19 from Columbus, Ga. So I was like, oh Lord have mercy! This is crazy!”
The Twin Cities is one of the first stops on the tour and Tidicue says he’s always excited to come back.
“My perception of Minneapolis has changed a lot. Now I think a lot about drag icons like BeBe Zahara Benet, Manila Luzon who have come through the Minneapolis scene, and so I've been able to really reshape what Minneapolis is for me from like a teenage children's theater actor to now a stand-up comedian.”
Tickets to his show range from about $46 to $83.
