Pandora Boxx

Pandora Boxx (born Michael Steck; May 2, 1972 in Jamestown, New York) is an American drag queen, comedian and reality television personality from Rochester, New York. He is best known as a contestant from the second season of RuPaul's Drag Race. and RuPaul's All Star Drag Race.

Early life

Boxx was born Michael Steck on May 2, 1972 in Jamestown, New York. His family later moved to Olean, New York. Steck has a younger sister.

Career

Steck was inspired to do drag after watching the drag queen Darienne Lake perform in an outdoor festival in Rochester, New York. For his first show at the gay bar Infinity in Rochester, Steck chose his drag name as a play on words of Pandora's box, an artifact found in Greek mythology.

Boxx auditioned two times before becoming a contestant on the second season of RuPaul's Drag Race. Highlights of his performance on Drag Race include an impersonation of Carol Channing on Snatch Game (a Match Game parody challenge). Performing well in the show's challenges, his failure to win one resulted in RuPaul calling him "the Susan Lucci of this competition." He was eliminated in the eighth episode, "Golden Gals." After his elimination, Entertainment Weekly called him their pick for "America's Next Drag Superstar." He was later voted the Miss Congeniality of his season.

Jonny McGovern

Jonny McGovern (born July 12, 1976), also known by his character name The Gay Pimp, is an openly gayAmerican stand-up comedian, musician and podcaster. He has recorded three albums as comedic singer The Gay Pimp, and is also a cast member of Logo's The Big Gay Sketch Show.

Early life

Jonny McGovern was born to Mary McGovern and Rob Gutowski in Brooklyn, New York. His parents traveled often and McGovern grew up primarily in Egypt and Thailand. McGovern later returned to the United States to study acting at Boston University, where he earned a BFA.

Career

Early career

McGovern stated that he was inspired to create his signature comedic character, The Gay Pimp, after listening to rap songs and interviews by Eminem. McGovern has said,

After the songs from the show began to get heavy rotation in New York City nightclubs, McGovern was approached about making a music video for one of his songs, Soccer Practice. The video for Soccer Practice, which received heavy rotation in dance clubs as well as notoriety on the Internet, featured McGovern in a shirt that was emblazoned with the sequined words "Gay Pimp."

Sketch comedy

Sketch comedy comprises a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches", commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as radio and television. Often sketches are first improvised by the actors and written down based on the outcome of these improv sessions; however, such improvisation is not necessarily involved in sketch comedy.

An individual comedy sketch is a brief scene or vignette of the type formerly used in vaudeville, and now used widely in comedy and variety shows, talk shows and some children's television series (such as Sesame Street).

Sketch comedians routinely differentiate their product from a "skit", maintaining that a skit is a (single) dramatized joke (or "bit") while a sketch is a comedic exploration of a concept, character or situation.

History

Sketch comedy has its origins in vaudeville and music hall, where a large number of brief, but humorous, acts were strung together to form a larger programme.

The Big Gay Sketch Show

The Big Gay Sketch Show is an LGBT-themed sketch comedy program that debuted on Logo on April 24, 2007. The series is produced by Rosie O'Donnell and directed by Amanda Bearse. The program was originally titled "The Big Gay Show" but was renamed during production. As the name indicates, the show features comedy sketches with gay themes or a gay twist. Sketch topics include parodies of old sitcoms like The Honeymooners and The Facts of Life under the Nick at Nite-parodying heading "Logo at Nite", a lesbian speed dating session and an extended send-up of Broadway legend Elaine Stritch working as a Wal-Mart greeter, among other decidedly un-glamorous jobs.

Logo produced a second season of the series. Paolo Andino and Colman Domingo joined the cast (replacing Michael Serrato and Dion Flynn). Season 2 premiered on February 5, 2008.

Production on season three began in March 2009. Erica Ash is no longer with the cast. In 2009, Logo announced plans for a search for new cast members. However, the result entitled, "The Big Gay Casting Competition", was limited to an online talent search, in which videos by contestants were uploaded to logoonline.com and voted on by site visitors. The winner, Wil Heuser, was a former American Idol contestant (verification needed, Wil Heuser was a Big Brother 14 cast member), who appeared in only one episode of the series, but as an extra, not a cast member. Season three debuted on Logo April 13, 2010.

Jonny

Jonny is a masculine given name, and pet name, in the English language. In some cases it is a simplified form of Johnny; in other cases it is a pet form of Jon. A variant form of Jonny is Jonnie.

References