The Keri Croft Show
The Keri Croft Show
SZN 4, EP-5. It's Nina West, BABY! From a Conservative Upbringing to Drag Icon: Embracing Identity, Activism, and the Power of Positivity!
Be still my beating heart, it's Nina F*cking West, BABY!
(Seriously, please inch me!)
Nina West, the extraordinary drag performer and activist, joined me to share her deeply personal journey through the tumultuous landscape of identity and activism. Growing up in a conservative environment, Nina bravely recounts the struggle of masking her true self and the transformative power of theater and supportive allies. Her story is one of resilience, where personal hardships are met with an unwavering commitment to advocating for change and inclusion within the LGBTQIA+ community.
Navigating the polarizing shifts in society since 2015, Nina reflects on the normalization of divisive behaviors and the challenge of staying positive amidst a changing political landscape. With warmth, she shares her journey of self-discovery and acceptance, influenced by mentors like her choir director, Kathy Ringley, and the vibrant community at the Players Guild of Canton. These relationships played a crucial role in nurturing her true identity, offering vital support during pivotal moments of her life, ultimately shaping the remarkable persona of Nina West.
From college experiences to the creative joys of preparing for a drag performance, Nina highlights the power of resilience and the artistic process. We explore the impact of musical theater icons like Bette Midler and how they inspire confidence and authenticity. Embracing positivity and gratitude, Nina encourages listeners to stay engaged and hopeful, teasing the exciting opportunities on the horizon. Join us for this heartfelt and inspiring episode, as Nina West illuminates the strength found in embracing one's true self amidst life's challenges.
P.S. Buy your tickets to see Nina performing in "Into the Woods" to support the Butterfly Guild here:
https://my.cbusarts.com/overview/8134?queueittoken=e_cbusarts~q_410763f2-2de5-40b7-85bf-e1a56565ae8e~ts_1738423335~ce_true~rt_safetynet~h_0a769d312d9ad7fb78c5bfebed00a6821409bedeb386c89e7887df124a611478
Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, it's me. It's me, nina West. Hello, be still my beating heart. Are you really here? I'm here. Is this a mirage? I'm here.
Speaker 2:I'm here. I'm here.
Speaker 1:Let me get my hold on, let me get my ya-ya's out. I am so excited to have you here.
Speaker 2:I'm really excited to be here. Thank you for having Yaya's out.
Speaker 1:I am so excited to have you here. I'm really excited to be here.
Speaker 2:I mean this is like I wouldn't be more happy if I had like J-Lo or I wish.
Speaker 1:No, I'm serious.
Speaker 2:Like I am so excited I'm going through a big divorce right now. So no, I mean no, Where's the drama? Give me the get.
Speaker 1:Let's get right to the tea and the juice.
Speaker 2:How are really good. I'm really, are you?
Speaker 1:fucking freezing.
Speaker 2:It's welcome to ohio in january. Oh cryo. It's so cold.
Speaker 1:I mean the whole east coast, I mean everything is so cold right now it is, but you know it's warm in our hearts, isn't it?
Speaker 2:oh it's, yeah, I'm keeping that holiday season carry over, carry crop show can we keep it holiday season like 365?
Speaker 1:I'd be so happy, so give me like how are you right now, currently? Just how are you doing? Yeah, I'm good I am.
Speaker 2:you know, I am keeping myself busy while it feels like the world is burning, and so I'm trying to focus Figuratively and literally. Yeah, I'm trying to focus so that way my energy is protected and preserved for the work that I need to do in the upcoming period of life that is happening right now.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I'm trying to really focus on that, but that's difficult because you know the world is so. The world is worlding right now and we are in the midst of trying to figure out I think all of us how we fit into this new kind of global landscape and conversation that's happening in the world.
Speaker 1:Speaking of that, how did you handle this past election when the dust settles and this shit happens and you wake up like a week or two later and you're like, OK, this is where we're at?
Speaker 2:You know, I think, because I'm a person who likes to keep myself busy and because I really do I think, you know, therapize is not the right word but because I do allow my work to kind of express what I'm feeling internally or I somehow channel that, you know, into my work. Express what I'm feeling internally or I somehow channel that, you know, into my work. I don't think I really acknowledged it until, you know, until we were going through some of the bigger pieces of this transition into a new administration. So you know, I had done a lot of campaigning and done a lot of events and throughout the season, but then I was, I was producing a show, so I was just so busy so I didn't have the opportunity to really allow that reality to sink into my, you know, kind of my psyche and begin to process it.
Speaker 2:So I think that I was slow to accept the results of of the 2024 election yeah um of I accept it, but it doesn't mean that it's not going to be challenging for people like me. And of course, I also feel like because I am a cis male. I have a responsibility to really work as a gay man, but I'm cis presenting. I have a really major responsibility to use any platform or ability that I have to speak to the needs of people who don't have this opportunity, so that we can make life better for people who are going to definitely be disenfranchised and attacked and used as scapegoats for bigger pieces in this larger puzzle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and not to you know, I feel like you're a person who sees the positive and pushes forward and has been able to be extremely successful.
Speaker 1:But can we just take a minute for just feeling like man? Why is there always an uphill climb, you know and for? But for someone like you, who from you know north canton ohio, who grew up and you clearly probably knew at a young age, like something's a little bit different here, you know, don't you kind of feel like sometimes, where it's like god, there's always like some kind of adversity?
Speaker 2:well, you know, I feel like the true, I feel like my community, my LGBTQIA plus community, really has defined itself on these times, and like how we are able to come together and rise above and to provide access and a space for people who don't necessarily see themselves. You know, who are going to come under attack in these periods of history and, as we know now, come under attack already, come under attack in just a few days of this new administration. You know we have.
Speaker 2:I find that these challenging a lot of things that are going to be really alarming to many of us and should be alarming, I think, to all of us but I think therein lies the rub. You know, is somewhere along this way in this process, specifically, I think, the last since 2015,. This behavior that has become normalized is troubling, to say the least, and I think there are a lot of different factors that feed into that.
Speaker 2:Social media, the rhetoric from people in power. You know how we, how we talk to one another, how we talk about one another, how we actually maybe not communicate at all with one another and how we don't have any conversation or collaboration or ability to constructively disagree with one another is super problematic to me, and you know, therein again lies the rub, but also the work, and so I'm, as a usually perpetually optimistic person, going back to that point. I'm usually perpetually optimistic and I think that you know I need, like everyone else, I still need some time to really figure out like where it is that my skills and my talent and my ability best rests, to be unrested and to be activated and to be mobilized. You know, like I oftentimes will rely on the things that I've done so often in the past. You know, ok, I know how to do this, I can do this really well.
Speaker 2:I'm really good at organizing, I'm really good at fundraising, I'm really good at connecting people, I'm really good at speaking to an issue, but right now, I think this is where it's really. This might be the second administration of someone like donald trump um, but we are not um, and so we, we already have an idea, but I actually don't know if we really know what's about to happen and that I think is most unnerving for people who are who are on the the docket for having their rights taken away.
Speaker 1:Have you always been a leader, even when you were young. Like, what were you like as a leader? Even when you were young, Like, what were you like as a kid? Were you like? Sometimes people are just born this way and you're like you know what. Even I look back when I was six or seven, I was always kind of let's call it bossy, that's what they call it. Girls. What were you like when you were in child form growing?
Speaker 2:up, I think when I was a kid I was a pleaser. I wanted to make sure that my teachers were, and I still think I'm very much the same way. So when I do like a project, I want to make sure I'm doing it right. I want to make sure everyone who I'm working with specifically like if it's like a like, you know, like a play or like a musical or like a collaborative project- like that you know, performance project.
Speaker 2:Specifically, I think I want to make sure I'm like really performing and like giving you what you asked for, like I want to. You know I was a pleaser as a kid, so you know good student showed up. You know wanted to be the best in the class. Was, you know, yeah, an active, I wouldn't say a Pollyanna. I don't know if I was a Pollyanna but, like you know, I wanted an active, I wouldn't say a Pollyanna. I don't know if I was a Pollyanna but, like you know, I wanted. I wanted to be teacher's pet. I think in a lot of ways I wanted to appeal to the adults to show them how much I could be an adult.
Speaker 1:Were you like that with your parents too? Who were you trying to?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I was. I'm the youngest of three.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So I mean so yeah was the kid, I was the golden, I in my mind. I mean again, like we were talking before our, our lens of the world is probably my lens is probably vastly different, but to me I think I was the golden child. You know my two sisters who might watch this, might disagree, but they're like wait a minute, hold on just hold on just what are your sister's names? Emily and amanda emily and amanda.
Speaker 1:I want to hear. I want to hear on dm from you like who's the who's the real fame and what's the real skinny here with this kid?
Speaker 2:I mean so as a kid, it was, you know I, you know I, I was the, I was the overachiever. But then when I started to come to terms with my identity, I think, uh, my academic slipped, my, um, my desire need to uh kind of mask that like I was doing I was just trying to do overtime, of trying to hide who I was from my family from people in school, especially in middle school and high school.
Speaker 2:You know I was over committed. I was doing sports, I was doing after school activities, yearbook, choir, swimming. My freshman year of high school I did football. I mean, I was just trying to like do everything I could to not let people know that I was different in some way or another.
Speaker 1:That had to be such a heavy. I think that's common.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people who are queer, specifically, are just trying to get through, you know, just trying to survive, trying to live, and oftentimes, you know, it presents itself by, you know, like almost like not assimilation but like hiding amongst, you know, amongst the masses, until you really can find your support group. And I went to a Catholic high school so I just was like you know, I was like I don't know. I went to a Catholic high school so I just was like you know, I was like I don't know. I mean like it was all very I was just doing. I was doing all of these things to just make sure that people knew that I was a, that I was a good heterosexual kid.
Speaker 1:But how do you even then figure out when you're that young and you're like some, like when you don't even know yet yourself when did finally go? Okay, wait, this is what. Or do you even remember that?
Speaker 2:well, I remember I mean I don't. I mean I remember my grandma would like my mind is going in 15 different directions because, you know, I remember when my grandma and grandpa on my, on my dad's side, I would like I would help out at their house, and so it would be mowing or planting flowers, but me and my grandma, specifically, were buddies, and so she would pick me up from school and we would go see movies. She'd always surprise me with a cassette, and my grandma's cassettes that she would give me were like Bette Midler, oh yeah, and, like you know, cast recordings, and so it's like I don't know if she knew she's no longer with us and I never had this ability to have this conversation. She passed when I was in college, before I was really out to my entire family.
Speaker 2:I was out to my parents at that point, but by the time she passed, I don't know if we never had the opportunity for me to have that conversation with her about who I was, but I feel like she knew, and so you know, there was this like encouragement of just embracing these things that I loved, which was the thing that allowed me, I think, to figure out subconsciously, or even consciously I really don't remember fully to kind of navigate a path towards finding people who were either like me or could accept and love me. And so you know it was because of my grandma, who saw a lot of talent in me, that she paid for me to go to this young writing camp. It sounds like riders, like a horse riding camp, but no, it's writers, Like you know.
Speaker 1:W-r-i-t.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a writing camp at Duke University and I went it was the first time I ever went on a plane and I went from the Akron Canton Airport down to Raleigh-Durham and the counselors were Duke University students and often involved in the English department or in the arts, in the theater, dance departments, and I had started to cultivate and find friendships from around the country of people who were just not like me, you know, people who were from different races and different backgrounds, which was not anything that I had in my little town of North Canton, ohio, in Greentown, ohio.
Speaker 2:Homogenous, yeah I mean very, very white. And so that was the first step. And then I remember meeting this counselor named Julie, whose best friends were all gay and she, she, she, she didn't call it out but she embraced me and said I, I, this kid needs me, and she, boy, was she right? And um, that's kind of where the process really of my coming to terms with my identity really started. And maybe I was in middle school at that time and I did the writer's camp for like three years or four years. So from the time that I was in middle school to like my first two years in high school, the first person that I dated was was from this writer's camp. You know, I mean the first, like that first acknowledgement that you know, the first boy I kissed, you know, I mean it was very, it was very heartstopper in that way.
Speaker 1:You know, when I think about it, are you still in contact with her, with Julie off and on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's been off and on. Yeah, what a pivotal.
Speaker 1:It's funny how a relationship yeah you know, sometimes people just come in your life and it's strange how big of an imprint they make.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, and this is at the advent of having the Internet in your home and having access to email and like not we didn't have phones, but we had I had this ability to log into.
Speaker 1:AOL.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. Well, I think it might have been AOL.
Speaker 1:Remember the noise it would make first Getting on the internet. You're like we got it, it's coming.
Speaker 2:I was like, why isn't it working? But that allowed, you know, she introduced me to friends who I've never met in person, but people who were my pen pals, who I could share my you know my fears with as I was coming out and coming to terms with it, even though I hadn't told anybody yet I hadn't told anybody except Julie and her friend Mark and her friend Dana.
Speaker 2:Mark and Dana are people I've never met in person, never in my life ever met them. But I have printed off. It was just so crazy I was going through and getting boxes out of my parents' house and I had a whole like office bin box of all of these emails that I sent back and forth to them and like I haven't been able to go through them because I don't know. I don't know what I will read other than I've romanticized how I was, how I've come out and come through that process. But that was a really scary time for me and I don't know if I'm even like, really willing to go back and to see a younger version of myself and figure out how I you know how I came to be here.
Speaker 2:But there's a lot of pain and there's a lot of. You know there was a lot of things that happened in that period of my life that I, you know, if it weren't for Julie and if it weren't for Mark and Dana and you know my friend Laura Bunnell, who I was the, was the first person that I came out to in high school if it weren't for those pivotal relationships, my choir director, kathy Ringley. I mean those. Those people literally held my hand and ushered me into the next chapter of my life, otherwise I don't know if I would be here. And that's a that's a true statement.
Speaker 1:So you're saying like you were in some really dark places. Can you think of specifically like because I know I can do that with my life where you have a specific time or moment or some place you can go back to where you're like?
Speaker 2:OK, this was definitely, when I look back at it, like I was in deep Well, you know, I think I grew up you know this is very this is a story I have shared very readily is that I grew up in a really conservative family. My father's father was active in the Republican Party in Stark County and so when I was a kid I went to the Republican National Convention in 1992 in Houston, texas, and I was the first time I ever got drunk was with a group of right to lifers, which is really funny. How old was I in 1992? I mean, I was born in 78. So I was 14 years old and I was drunk on sangria at a right to life event in Houston Texas and I mean, yeah, I guess anyway, free drinks the commentary in Texas and I mean, yeah, I guess, anyway, free drinks.
Speaker 2:The commentary, um, um, but I, I, this was at a time period when, uh, when I was coming out, I'm of the generation that you the rhetoric was you're gonna die alone, you'll die of AIDS and no one will love you. And so I had that to contend with, let alone my own internal hate and disgust for myself and not wanting to let anybody down, you know, like when you, I was, I am a mama's boy and so not wanting to have my mother or father be disappointed and not, and trying to still juggle that idea of I can give them, I can give them this idea of who they think I am and still be the person that they want me to be. But then you're, but I can't and, uh, you know, I mean I. There were so many moments of just absolute despair and fear and I think, like you know, this is it. But like every time, you know, I think Kathy Ringley, who was my choir director, who's also no longer with us, was pivotal in making sure that I found my way to my community theater, who made sure that I she in during the pandemic, this during the pandemic, we had this opportunity.
Speaker 2:My friend, jason Daunter, who produced these virtual events during the pandemic, was producing kind of these, these story, these story series where people that he knew from like the theater world would be reconnected with someone in their life that shaped them getting there, and I didn't know the premise of this. I had agreed to do the interview and I sat down and Jason was just kind of catching me up. He's like I have a surprise for you. Your choir director, kathy's here and that was, I should say it was a really important process for me because just a few months later Kathy would pass away and so I was.
Speaker 2:I was very grateful to have this opportunity but Kathy came in and surprised me in this like stream yard Zoom conversation and she said you know, I knew before you did and she herself was a lesbian and I knew before you did and I felt it was my responsibility to make sure that someone was watching out for you and so you know she had. She took me to the Players Guild of Canton and you know I did my first audition for one of the plays there that she was music directing and I got in and the ensemble and I played the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come because of my height and I mean. But it just opened the door and I started to meet people who I started to meet out, gay men, who were, um, thriving and happy and were had, were surrounded with people who loved them. And I met other people who were you know, you know, you know affirming, you know now we call them allies, but we didn't have that language in 1996, 1995. We were just there, were gay people and there were non-gay people.
Speaker 2:We didn't have the language, we hadn't evolved the way we approach the conversation and our identity, how we talk about identity. It's so nuanced how we talk about gender, how we talk about gender identity and you know, she gave me the opportunity to be surrounded by people who would love me regardless, Were you overcome with, were you overcome with emotion when you saw, when you saw her on the Zoom?
Speaker 2:I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't believe it because it was right before. So I had there's so many pieces to this puzzle, this story, my relationship with Kathy, because it was so special. I would go. The first time I ever went to New York City my favorite place in the entire world was with our choir, and the first time I saw a Broadway show was with Kathy. The first time I saw a Broadway show was with Kathy. The first time that I, um, I kept going, I went back, uh, twice as a graduate to to chaperone the group and go with Kathy.
Speaker 2:Uh, kathy would come down for choir conferences here in Columbus and I would meet her, you know, after uh while, and she would be supportive of my drag and, like you know, we would talk and we would catch up about that um and so. But we had to have the. We had not had the ability, you know, to be together even in that sense and in a few years, and I hadn't yet I had hairspray. I had, I had agreed to do hairspray. Then the pandemic hit, hit, so hairspray was taken away and so I didn't think I was doing hairspray and then hairspray was back on the table literally like a couple weeks before the producers called and said we want to go back out with hairspray. Well, it was still. I was being very tight-lipped about it, as I am with like almost everything. I'm like I take an NDA very seriously. So I'm like, oh, I can't say anything. But I never told her and in that conversation you know, like a couple, it was like a couple weeks after I had known that Hairspray was going to happen and I was so excited to tell her that Hairspray was going to happen. I was so excited to have her come to San Diego, which is the city we opened in in 2021. We opened in in 2021. I didn't get that opportunity to have this full circle moment with her of having her protect this kid and allowing me to.
Speaker 2:Always I always loved the arts. I always I wanted to be on stage. My parents were separated when I was a kid I can't remember if I was four or five, but we lived right in Northeast Ohio and so my dad, when we were with him one weekend, took us to go see Cats in Cleveland at Playhouse Square, and it changed everything for me because I was like, oh my gosh, people can do this right, you can be on stage and you can be a cat I want to do that and just the joy that people had in the audience, and I mean all of those things. This is such a fragmented conversation.
Speaker 1:No, it's great.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's kind of how I view it all. My life is really fragmented and disjointed, but it all has come together to form a really beautiful tapestry, and Kathy was so important to that.
Speaker 1:So, before we move into the theater and your talents and all these other things, before we go back to shore we're still in deep waters here. Okay, we're going to stay for one minute. So, when you finally got the balls, when you're like, okay, it's, it's time, it's time to like, let's come out with this, let's talk to the parents coming out.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay.
Speaker 1:So when you look back on it, like when you told them, were they like, did they disappoint you? No?
Speaker 2:Or were they like you?
Speaker 1:know what we knew it. Was it so much easier than you thought?
Speaker 2:No and no, they didn't disappoint me. The situation with which I had to come out was I was in college and it was my sophomore year and I came out under pretty terrible circumstances and duress, like I was running for student government, for the vice president of student government. I had made the decision at August orientation I believe it was August orientation I made the decision that once my parents dropped me off, I was just going to be myself. So if people and I am, you know, I'm a, I'm an effeminate guy, you know, like I mean, I have an effeminate nature to me. You know, I definitely embrace the feminine side of of who I am. You know there's a masculine, there's a feminine, um, and I knew that it wasn't worth it anymore for me to hide any part of myself.
Speaker 2:And I was at college. I thought, oh my gosh, I'm at college, that's going to be loved and accepted, or just accepted because people here at college are different. Well, I went to Denison University and at the time that I was there, it felt like and I don't know if people who were there at the same time that I was there would agree, I'm not, I'll give my my kind of eye on the, on my experience, it felt to me as if the student body was more conservative than the faculty, which is such an interesting dynamic in a university setting yeah so, uh, it's small little liberal arts school for people who might not know, in Granville, Ohio, which is about 45 minutes east of Columbus.
Speaker 1:Didn't Jennifer Garner go there too? Jen Garner went there the same time as you. No, she's a little older than you.
Speaker 2:She's a little bit older. Yeah, so I'm 46. I think Jen is 15.
Speaker 1:Jen is, but you look good girl, you look good. You better queen, but you look good girl. Jen looks so good queen.
Speaker 2:You better, queen, but she's a fellow Big Red alum, and so Steve Carell and Hal Holbrook, and there's a great legacy of actors who've come from Denison. And that's not what took me there. What took me there was financial support, because I wanted to go to all these places. But, you know, when push came to shove, I had to go where it was most, you know, financially uh, feasible for me to go and I had gotten a lot, I'd received a lot of scholarship from from Denison. Um, but I, I just made the decision. I, again, august orientation I was just going to be out and if people asked, or if you know, if I would present myself in some, but I just made the decision again, august orientation I was just going to be out and if people asked or if I would present myself in one way or another, I would just be like, yeah, I'm gay.
Speaker 2:But that didn't translate to my home, my home life and my, because I was living on campus. So my home life versus my campus life were two very different things. I think my parents knew right, because there were conversations throughout my growing up. My parents took me to therapy when I was in high school, I think, wanting to maybe try to fix the problem as they saw it, which, again, you know, like I say that and I'm like I wonder how does that hit people's ear? Who's going to be listening to this? And I don't fault my parents for trying to handle what they saw as an issue. You know, trying to be parents you know, they didn't know.
Speaker 2:I didn't know. But again, as luck would have it, to talk about that therapy conversation, I ended up with a therapist who was in fact a gay man, who was saying this isn't you know like was talking. Every time I would go in would be like you're OK, are you OK? There's nothing wrong with you, do you know? There's nothing wrong with you? And then he would have sessions with my parents. I don't know what their sessions were about, but then we would have. We had a come together where he said I can't, there's nothing here for me to fix. You have to fix how you approach this issue with Andrew.
Speaker 2:And so, like it wasn't, that wasn't my coming out. That was a process of I didn't put words to my identity when I was doing therapy, but I think they thought this would be something that would fix me. So then fast forward to college, and I think it was known, but it was never stated that I went through this period when I was running for student government and people. There was a group of people, an underground hate group at Denison and who was just trying to intimidate me, scare me, carving things in my door, leaving voicemails on my answering machine, just harassing me, putting things under my door in my dorm room, broke it into my dorm room to come and get me. So throughout that process I'd moved out of my dorm room and moved into an all-girls dorm and thanks to my friend Heather Evans, who, again, there are people on my journey that I am grateful for, like if they weren't there.
Speaker 2:I don't know where I'd be. And so there came to a point where there was supposed to be a campus governance kind of situation where we were going to have a conversation with how things were going to be dealt with. And at that point, the night before it happened, I called my mom and dad and I just said I'm in deep and that you have to know what's going on. Because that might have been, I've had a few really dark points in my life and I was out. I felt like I was out on an island without a raft, without support, without you know, I just had no, I had nothing and I was like I have no choice but to tell my parents who I am what's going on.
Speaker 2:So they did not long long story longer. They did not disappoint. They were there, they showed up, they were there the next day on campus, they drove in, they sat through the hearing with me, they talked to administration. I mean, there were a lot of fumbles in this situation and this story with me along the way, and I will commend the university now, you know, and their president for apologizing for the way things were handled and the way their behavior, with which they desired to sweep it under the rug Because that's what happened to me in 1998, 1999, because that's what happened to me in 1998, 1999, was there was a need for me not to report it to the police, not to take it outside of the university system so that it would be handled internally, which hindsight's 20-20, you know.
Speaker 2:But as a kid when you look to authority figures to take care of you, you need an advocate for you and I didn't have anybody in that room advocating for me before my parents were involved. I didn't have anyone protecting me. I didn't have anyone speaking up for my best interests. That was a major lesson for me and probably was one of the main points in affirming who I am today. Was that how do we learn to be our best advocate for ourselves and for others? And no one was in that room advocating for me and I didn't know that. I thought their advice was the best advice. We're going to handle this, don't worry.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, and I'm goosebumps because in the most uncomfortable kind of way, right, it's like what a disservice they did to me to not have that Be part of the story that they could handle, that I needed to have appropriate action taken against the individuals who are responsible. So you know, as a result, here we sit and I don't know if they ever imagined that I would have the platform that I have now, because I talked about it on Drag Race Not to like a full extent, and there are many, you know, and I think there are many things with which you know again, hindsight is 20-20, but, like, my job now is to ensure that it doesn't happen again, and I don't know how to do that other than keep speaking about it, showing up for people, learning how to utilize my platform in a way with which that services not only people like me, but people who are also disenfranchised or are pushed out or or othered because of, for whatever reason. Women um immigrants, I mean the write the list just goes on and on.
Speaker 1:Well, you're, you know you. You're the Julie, you're the Kathy, you're the Heather for other people. You know, like you're the mentor, that's what you're doing, is you're the voice and you're the person helping to pull other people along too. That's what you can do.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 2:And being an advocate for, for who you were you know, yeah, because you know these are not things that I think anyone thought of, you know, right, and the conversation is so different now versus what it was four years ago, versus what it was in, you know, in 1998, 1999. But, uh, but one thing that hasn't changed is, um, you know, some people will, people will speak to their, to their interests, not to what is best and what serves. What served the university at the time and what served me were two very different things and I was not aware of them. And so, uh, yeah, it was that lesson, in my darkest point, galvanized me into who I am today, for sure to figure out who am I and why, you know, do I fit in and you know all these things.
Speaker 1:And then externally in the world, it just builds such a resilient, gritty person. And that's the thing like, like looking at you today and the platform that you have and what you're able to do. It's like all of these dark times create. If you allow it, if you tap into it and leverage it, you know such a strong person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like it's what's crazy. Carrie is like it's not, like it's never intentional right, like it's not, like I ever set out to go. I'm going to like this, is this what I'm going to do? Now it just is like it's like just this building of well, this isn't right. And then going through therapy and going wait, that's what happened and I didn't. I mean, it took me a process to even maybe gosh I can't even tell you how many years later that I said wait, I was not taken care of, I wasn't literally in the process of it all, I wasn't aware which is heartbreaking and like I had to take off what I thought were rose-colored glasses. I had to take those off and go. Wait, what did happen to me?
Speaker 2:You know and this is post-Matthew Shepard so there were a lot of things that were happening that just made you go. What is they brought Judy Shepard to campus and they had these conversations. I mean, like it was just all of these things that they were doing which seemed right, but on paper they were doing everything right and they, you know, in action they really were doing so many wrong things. And again, you know to speak, you know to put a pin in that you know, to speak to the university today, after I was on season 11 in 2019, and that story came to light and I think there was some conversation surrounding that and the university reached out to me and apologized and wished you know, wish to have a further dialogue about it and I, you know, I think that takes some balls.
Speaker 2:And I think they did the right thing by doing that.
Speaker 1:Did you have the conversation?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's different people. I mean there are some people there. There are still some of the same players there, but the president has just since changed Um. You know a lot of the players who were there are no longer there. Yeah, Um, and so, yeah, but that conversation is vital to allow, you know, change to occur and hopefully it's better for LGBTQIA plus students on that campus and university. I mean, I'm sure it is.
Speaker 1:I mean I can't.
Speaker 2:I mean I'm not sure it is because you know it's challenging, but my college years definitely informed everything else about my adult life, especially the formation of Nina West, you know, because when I was in college we were bringing in drag queens from Columbus, you know, to do an end of year drag show, which I mean it was also crazy because prior to my ever going to Denison, james R Mel Smith was a student at Denison University and he started doing these drag shows there and which is crazy, I think Oberlin, denison, maybe a couple other universities in the West Coast Coast and maybe one or two on the East Coast were doing drag shows. It was not really common in the 90s and James was bringing drag queens in, and so I kind of inherited that when I became the president of the LGBTQ student organization at the time.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, that's how I met drag artists and saw their, saw their personhood and saw their humanity and saw who they, you know, saw these real people behind the creation of the art speaking of drag, would you say drag is your absolute happiest place, or is so if you had like theater, like being on stage just doing like a play or something, or being in drag like, are you like? Is it the same?
Speaker 2:high. It's all different, right, because drag gives there's, drag is like I don't there is, there's an energy to drag that doesn't necessarily exist in the same way, it doesn't present itself in the same way in the world of theater. It's exciting. They're both equally exciting, they're just very different.
Speaker 2:Drag, subculturally has just a different vibe and energy and you feel it when you're surrounded by a group of other queens or kings, entertainers. You just feel it and theater has a different energy. I think drag can be collaborative, but it's oftentimes more individual. It's an individual almost presenting art form that you get to do with other people, that you celebrate and do with other people.
Speaker 1:Theater is a collaborative art form.
Speaker 2:So you have this whole, you're telling it, you're all coming together to tell a story which is very different. Oftentimes. These are not like set in stone, like hard facts, it's just like oftentimes that can be the truth. So, yeah, but drag is exciting because it presents an opportunity to really. It is your creation, it is your character, it is your art and your heart. It's all out there on the line.
Speaker 1:Do you love getting ready? Do you love with the makeup and the process, and how long does that take you?
Speaker 2:I love it because I love the transformation of it all. I love allowing myself to have the thoughts of what I'm thinking about while I'm putting it on, because it's a thought of. Okay, it's like getting in the mode, getting in game mode. What is this event, what is this show that I'm about to do? What is my job there? How am I'm about to do what is? And you know what are, you know what am I being like? What is my job there? How am I going to accomplish that? You know, like and transforming into the character.
Speaker 1:I just saw you start to do that a little bit just now. I mean you started to like yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fun and so I love it and I love what it how it makes me feel when I'm in drag. It takes me about two hours. I mean I can do it quick. I like two hours just because I like the time.
Speaker 1:You do all the contouring and it's a whole thing.
Speaker 2:All of it, from sit down, from shaving to out the door, dressed about two hours.
Speaker 1:So with theater, if you had to pick I know this is gonna be hard, like picking like between children or dogs or something top three all time like if you had to pick three, like musical theater productions these are my favorite to watch. They're my favorite shows.
Speaker 2:Three Yep Wow. This is serious, I don't know, maybe I mean it's kind of crazy I get to do a production of it. But Into the Woods is one of my very favorites, I would say well, when I was. Another kind of important musical to me was Rent. That came out when I was in high school, when I was going through all of that turmoil and that period of really not knowing who I was. So Rent would be probably a big one for me.
Speaker 2:I mean I don't know if I mean it's like I don't know Little Shop of Horrors maybe I love Little Shop, that was really. I mean it's like I don't know Little Shop of Horrors.
Speaker 1:maybe I love Little Shop. That was really, really good.
Speaker 2:I love it, it's, the it's. Maybe I mean, I don't, I mean we're talking stage musicals, those are, those are the stage shows, maybe Gypsy, I don't know, if we had, I don't, I mean like I could, I could go on, put you on the card, those three We'll rest with those three.
Speaker 1:Hold your little toes to the fire on that. So, while speaking of Into the Woods, let's give a little love to that and give some more detail around what you're doing and what it's for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm doing a production. I'm partnering again with the Butterfly Guild, which works with Nationwide Children's Hospital, and they raise money for hospice and palliative care for nationwide children. And the second production I've done with them the first time was in 2019. I did the Little Mermaid and I played Ursula the sea witch, and so this time we're collaborating again and I'm playing the witch in Into the Woods. Into the Woods is a fantastic story written by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine. It is brilliant. Right, it's Sondheim. It's brilliant. Complex, complicated, heavy layered, very difficult to master musically.
Speaker 1:Can you give us a little tune, not this early. Can you give us a little tune? Not this early.
Speaker 2:But the joy of the show is in the first act is the folklore, fairy tales that we're all familiar with Cinderella, rapunzel, little Red and the first act is like, oh okay, these are familiar stories. And then we get to see what happens after the happily ever after and it's funny, beautiful, and we're doing it for a wonderful cause. So I hope people will come out to the Palace theater. When is it March 7th through March 9th at the Palace Theater. Tickets are available at the Butterfly Guild's website.
Speaker 2:Okay, and we will definitely tag that. It's going to be fabulous, yeah, and it's got an all-star cast of incredible Columbus performers directed by David Baggett Baggett.
Speaker 1:I said Baggett, like a piece of bread.
Speaker 2:Hey, baguette, baguette, tomato, tomato let's call the whole thing up um, yeah, so uh, and it's gonna be great. Into the woods was the first show that I saw. Um was one of the very first musical experiences I had was um exposed to because they did a recording for pbs great performances, and I remember it coming on I was like what is this? And that's when I first met Bernadette Peters. In a conscious sense I knew that Bernadette Peters was in Annie, right, but I didn't know who she was Bernadette Peters. But she is a theater legend and so my love for her really grew.
Speaker 2:Then I was probably like maybe 10. I don't know when they did that great performances, but it was like I was not very old when I was first introduced to Into the Woods maybe 11, I don't know. I was young and so it's a really important show to me. So to have the ability to play the witch and also which is typically not cast male and the fact that I get to do this role and, I think, have the layer of drag to it, to tell that, to add that commentary to it, to what the story is sharing about the world and about how we interact with one another, is so important yeah, so you mentioned Bette Midler earlier and she happens to be one of my, so so when I say that name like what's the musically, what's the first thing you think of?
Speaker 2:um Bette Midler I I think of a song called Blueberry Pie that she recorded in the mid-90s. I can't believe that. That's the first thing I think of when you ask me that, because I think of beaches.
Speaker 1:I mean, I do think of beaches.
Speaker 2:I'm going on. I think of industry, out of titsling.
Speaker 1:Oh God, I think of when she says your face is your fortune, this is your fortune. So some wise man spoke my face is my fortune. That's why I'm totally broke.
Speaker 2:She was another one. I mean, there are people who come in, there are people and stories that come into your life. She was my, like my gay icon. You know, like a lot of people who are older than me, it's like Judy Garland. Bette for me was I just loved her. I love her, her, I love her. I love her to the ends.
Speaker 2:And I remember when I was kind of this is a story about my grandma I loved Bette Midler so much as a kid and she was doing the Divine Miss M tour which was going around. Did you go to that? Here's my story. She was going to be at Blossom Music Center with that tour and up in I forget where Blossom is, it's like up near Cleveland, and it was me, my mom, my grandma and I think my sister Emily went to that one, maybe Amanda, and we get there, we're sitting on the lawn to that one.
Speaker 2:Maybe Amanda, when we get there, we're sitting on the lawn, you know, and just kind of sitting there and I'm just so excited and I got a program and Bette comes down, I think on a moon or something, I can't remember. She's lowered down and all around us, you know, we see, I'm sorry to say like men kissing each other and hugging and kind of like sitting on blankets together, and I think my grandma was like, okay, it's time to go, because it was too, it was almost too much in their face. This, because it was so queer, so gay, attended right, um, and you're up on the blank and just like I love her um and I mean I wasn't very old then.
Speaker 2:I mean that might have been 1982, I can't even. I don't even know when that would have been. I'd you know. But um, bet is like this wonderful hero. You know someone who spoke again that when I mean a lot of people in that time period were speaking to, I think, queer people you know Madonna, but for some reason Bette was the one who connected to me, that resonated so deeply with me and I love her so, so much and I just love her.
Speaker 1:I always think of too. I think it's gonna rain today. Oh my gosh, you're just naming all the hits on that Beaches album, but it's so good, bette and me.
Speaker 2:I love her. I've never met her.
Speaker 1:I was going to say you should get that opportunity.
Speaker 2:I love her so much. I don't know what I would do if I met Bette Midler. I've met a lot of really cool people I've never met Bette, but she's just one of those people who, I think, had such a profound impact on my life that I was unaware at the time yeah of how much.
Speaker 2:You don't know how much I needed that, even if it was in the present, in the presentation of this camp, like giant, you know, goddess, who was just so unabashedly herself, yeah, who all who oftentimes spoke, always spoke, affirming love to LGBTQ people, to gay men who just affirmed them.
Speaker 1:Powerful, very powerful. So, speaking of love, affirming love do you speak on your? Personal life. I know you're single. How deep do we go on that? Are we ready to mingle? I know you're single, do we? How deep do we go on that? Are we ready to mingle? Are we like this?
Speaker 2:is hard.
Speaker 1:I'm very single Um, but are you probably would be hard to date, because that's my reality. Well, I mean, you know, here, here. Here's why I mean that. Well, first of all, because you're like, you know, you're not. Not everyone can get to you. First of all, I'm not very accessible. Yeah, and then you also are like, I feel like you have a, you're like the total package and you probably know that. Like, I just feel like you like?
Speaker 2:I don't know that. Oh well, you should listen here, honey I don't know that, but thank you, you're the total package.
Speaker 1:Thanks, okay, I wish. Do I call it the total gay package for a gay man like I mean?
Speaker 2:I don't know I think gay guys don't. I don't know if gay guys really want to date a drag queen, but we can say okay, but you know what?
Speaker 1:there is a niche of gay men that would love to date a drag queen.
Speaker 2:I just don't want them to fetishize it. You know what I mean like.
Speaker 1:Is that what you get? Is that what you get usually um?
Speaker 2:sometimes, yeah, I mean, or they call them race chasers, like if you've been on drag race, people who long, who look to engage with people from the show yeah in after hours. Types of ways.
Speaker 1:So like groupies in a in a drag. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean. So, like I, just I am, I am flirty to a point with, with fans, like you know, like, like I, it definitely stops. Like it's like okay, I can read, I can read a room really well, yeah, um. And so like I'm like it's at all, I am very guarded.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which I understand totally. But what, I guess? What is your perfect mate like for you?
Speaker 2:Independent, smart, smart, independent. An ability to hold a conversation Tend to like guys older than me. That's just. I tend to be attracted to that, um, just more because they're more I just, you know someone who's just established in their in their life and then they're in their ritual and in their. Are you looking like you're thinking? Are you thinking, are you trying to? Are you thinking of somebody?
Speaker 1:my well. My next question was this. I was like, okay, is this appropriate question to ask? Are you more in? Is there like a, do you like more masculine men or is like, does that, is that fluid?
Speaker 2:it's, that's fluid. It's fluid because how I it's energy. I'm really attracted to energy yeah so it's like how people engage with the world, how they treat other people, how they treat themselves. You know, I want someone who takes care of themselves, who puts themselves. I like someone who puts themselves first.
Speaker 2:I think that's really important you know, and I can benefit from that. How do I, how can I take better care of myself? And I'd like to think I take care of myself. But you know, is there someone out there? Is there, you know, a mate, a person who can, who can encourage, challenge, embrace. You know all of those things about me, about me, and like I'm no picnic, you know like I'm going to be. I mean, I'm very driven, I'm very career focused and career minded, but that doesn't mean I'm not also open to finding love. But I don't know what that looks like.
Speaker 1:You know I am a matchmaker. Oh man, you got to be careful. Ask, menashe, ask. Oh, I'm that's one of my, it's one of my, you know. It's like.
Speaker 2:It's one of my many hobbies. I would like to. I mean, look, I yeah, I don't know why I'm getting flustered all of a sudden. You're getting a little. Don't be blushing.
Speaker 1:Nina, yeah, here we are. Okay. So If someone DMs me and says you know I would like the opportunity to have coffee with one Nino West, I may have to just sort of broker some sort of.
Speaker 2:I mean you're going to have to vet. Oh listen, no, honey, listen.
Speaker 1:I'm not just going to plop, this is my name behind it. Okay, Give me a little Like. I would absolutely vet the hell out of it, especially for you. Are you kidding me? You'd be like I'll never talk to you again. Who did you set me up with? Oh my god. So what's the longest relationship you've ever had um five years? And it would have to be someone who has their own thing going on because you are so busy I've done a variety of things.
Speaker 2:I've dated people you know, oftentimes I think the thing that I fall into is I really want to take care of people in a way and to a fault, and, like you know, like I don't, that's not the kind of thing I want to do, you know, like it's really important for me to find someone who's just got their own thing going and that there is. We meet. We bring our best selves together.
Speaker 1:And you need someone to take care of you too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I want, yeah, I mean, I think that's a balance right. Any good relationship is a is a dance, it's a balance and you know it's a give and take and um, you know all of my. I would like to thank all of my previous boyfriends for allowing me to have those experiences to be hopefully a better, a better boyfriend now so what is the last?
Speaker 1:well, this has just been like the highlight of my month.
Speaker 2:Oh, stop it had it listen I've been listening.
Speaker 1:I've been listening here, honey I'm just gonna say listen, linda. Did you just say listen, linda?
Speaker 2:I did listen, linda do you remember that?
Speaker 1:with the little girls like linda, listen. That's the best I still say that see, I just, I just love you so much but here's the. I'm gonna get depressed. This is what happens to me. When special people come on Now I feel like we should be friends, and then you're going to be like honey we had our moment.
Speaker 2:No, we're going to be friends Because you're going to hook me up with somebody eventually. I am, I mean, I totally am. I mean then we're going to get married.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing If I do end up hooking you up with someone, can I marry you?
Speaker 2:Are you ordained?
Speaker 1:I will get ordained for that.
Speaker 2:Well, hold on, let's see how it goes first, but I'm saying I want to marry you.
Speaker 1:Let's go to a coffee date first.
Speaker 2:And then listen, you're being noncommittal.
Speaker 1:I am, because what if it all blows?
Speaker 2:up, but what if I hook you up with? You know, thank you for making my month. I mean, you're not making my month. It's so great, all right.
Speaker 1:Thank you Seriously. You are absolute light and I love you and you're not my new bestie, and now I can just like thanks for having me live the rest of my day as a champion. No, it's so true. All right, if you're still out there following your girl, follow me on YouTube, spotify, apple or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, go buy your tickets to Into the Woods, dm me for a date with Nina and keep moving, baby, keep moving. Oh my God, it's going to happen. Oh no, it's going to happen.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:Listen here, honey.
Speaker 2:Linda.
Speaker 1:I am, I am.
