PERFORMANCE

DRAG

Under the name HercuSleaze (he/him), Fitzgerald is Canada’s most acclaimed drag king, known for his exquisite makeup and historically-inspired style. He can be seen on season 1 of OutTV’s Call Me Mother where he broke down barriers as one of the few drag kings to appear on international television. Herc has also grown an impressive instagram following that places him among the top twenty drag king accounts in the world. He crafts his own elaborate costumes and creates spellbinding stage acts.

DRAG PERFORMANCE EXPERIENCE
At Montreal Pride 2022, Herc performed at the Olympic stadium to an audience of 30,000 people, alongside icons and winners of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Notably he also performed on the main stages at Montreal’s Just for Laughs in June 2022, at Toronto’s Just for Laughs in September 2022 and at Toronto Pride in 2023. Herc was delighted to perform in America’s oldest operating gay bar, the White Horse, as a headliner at Oaklash in May 2022, a drag festival in Oakland, California.

DRAG SHOW PRODUCTION EXPERIENCE
In Montreal, HercuSleaze produces and hosts the cabaret MYTHOS, which features a gender-balanced cast and showcases the best weird and wonderful drag with guests from the burlesque, circus, comedy and live music spheres. MYTHOS sold out it’s first six editions and was part of Nuit-Blanche’s officially 2023 programming. The MYTHOS team presented a collaborative number at Montreal Pride’s Mainstage show, MajestiX, which was nominated for Best Drag Act at the Montreal Gala des Drags. In the future the MYTHOS team will be expanding from a live show to community-based, educational projects.

DRAG INSTRUCTION
Online, people can learn from HercuSleaze at the Drag Academy, where he has a 4 part, pre-recorded course on everything you need to know to transform into a drag king. He’s taught the annual workshop, King-for-a-Day, by Voulez Vous Productions since 2019. In March 2023, he taught a week-long course for all kinds of drag artists at Studio 303. Herc has also participated in community projects such Rainbow Story Hours, and enjoys reading to people of all ages!

Photographs, makeup and costumes by Meags Fitzgerald

IMPROV THEATRE

Fitzgerald performed improv comedy professionally from 2005 to 2017. She still occasionally improvises in the cross-country duo We're So Strong (with Dave Morris, based in Victoria). She specializes in theatrical and character-driven long-form narrative improv. Fitzgerald is formerly an instructor of Montreal Improv Theatre. 

IMPROV INSTRUCTION
Since 2009, Fitzgerald’s performed and taught in theatres across Canada, in the United States, Europe and Australia. Born and raised in Alberta, Meags is an alumnus of Edmonton’s Rapid Fire Theatre and Calgary’s Loose Moose Theatre, where she studied Johnstonian improv. For nearly a decade she worked as an improv-educator with the Canadian Improv Games and Improv Camp, with whom she taught thousands of teenagers. In recent years she has been an ensemble member at the Winnipeg Improv Festival, Victoria’s Paper Street Theatre’s Improv Festival, Toronto’s COMBUSTIONfestival, Halifax’s East Coast Improv Festival, the Ottawa Improv Festival, and at the Vancouver International Improv Festival.

LIVE STORYTELLING

Fitzgerald performs autobiographical stories at events including Confabulation, Carte Blanche’s This Really Happened, Grownups Read Things They Wrote As Kids, and Letters from Montreal, the Maisonneuve Magazine lecture series.