Nina West

Y'all wanted a twist.

[barks] Dis- Disney divas, not just Nina West no more.

[whooshes]

Um, guess what my press looks, you're not ready for them.

He's also been in Slacker Cats, Adventure Time.

Divine is actually played by Nina West.

Oh.

If you don't know Nina West of RuPaul's Drag Race, she was in...

Oh, I should look this up.

She was in season 11 of RuPaul's Drag Race.

They were like, plenty isn't a real name.

Like the way Nina West is a name.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we specifically did that because, again, to highlight as part of our anniversary, this idea of collaboration and Columbus was really important to us.

Nina West will be playing the role of Ruth in that.

Yeah, I was just

going to say, I'm like, there's a celebrity in that one.

Yes.

Why did you pick Pirates? Is it just it fit or because Nina West was available and you were like, this is what we're doing.

So partly because this is a new version.

So this was the version that was on Broadway just a few years ago.

So Andrew LeVette was in town doing hairspray.

Oh, Nina West.

Okay.

Nina West.

All right.

And so I got to interview Andrew at the Ohio Theater on the stage.

There, there's a lot of that- Yeah ... which I love, but- I love an accent scarf.

If you wore one out here, if you wore one here, someone would say, "Look at that dandy." [laughs] I just look like a football pl- I just look like Nina West in bad drag.

[laughs] So I can't do it.

I've tried.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I look like Nina West when I do drag, but not as good.

So, uh, anyway, and Rochelle says, "I know you haven't had time and you haven't had sex, and you're going all the way to Italy, so okay." Wait, wait, wait.

So Johnny played him.

But Nina West was like, I would love to do Golden Girls.

And we're like, we would love to have you.

And we were like, who can Nina play? And Jackie's like, Do you think she would do it out of drag and be Stan? And she was like, totally.

Like, is she just going to break her neck for us? Like, what's going to happen next, you know? Right.

So you need a little bit of like that well-roundedness.

But it was something I was, you know, kind of wondering because, you know, do you guys can you guys see the stars? Because like there's certain girls who you guys even allow to get on your stage like a Nina West or an Alaska, you know, I think.

I

Now it got moved because of sea conditions, but it ended up being on the last night and kind of earlier than you would expect a Halloween deck party, 'cause it was last night.

And they had, um, Andrew Levett, who, uh, is probably best known for his drag persona as Nina West, also does a lot of D23 stuff, um, s- do I Got- I Put a Spell on You with Susan Egan and Jodi Benson, and I thought that was so cool.

I mean, you know, I'm blessed enough to have heard Jodi Benson sing Part of Your World I don't know how many hundreds of times.

But to hear her do something else and kind of lean into it was really cool.