Mackenzie Miller, Provincetown’s self-declared “neon hype girl,” was born in the great state of Alaska, in Big Lake, an hour north of Anchorage. There, in the “arctic tundra,” she says, her parents traded their dogsled team of 10 huskies for a different kind of litter: human triplets. “So nice, they made it thrice,” says Mackenzie.
Amid the spruce trees and snowbanks and siblings, Mackenzie’s imagination thrived. She even imagined leaving Alaska, and when it came time for college, she crossed the country to attend Boston Conservatory, which merged with Berklee College in 2016. “I was a big musical theater kid,” she says.
It was during freshman year that she first tried doing drag. Every year, Boston Conservatory put on a drag fundraiser for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. “I wanted so badly to be involved,” says Mackenzie. “There was a cute boy I wanted to hang out with who was also doing the show.”
But there was more to it than that. Once she was in drag, Mackenzie says, “I fell in love with the self-expression and the freedom that it brought. I was bitten by the drag bug.”
Now, 18 years later, she says she has “one hell of a career.” Mackenzie moved to Provincetown in 2013 and has been here since (except for a “gap year” when she fell in love and moved to Seattle). In town, Mackenzie hosts Drag Race watch parties, performs in an annual April 20 marijuana-themed show, and does “philanthropic drag” at fundraisers for local nonprofits. She also makes sandwiches at Pop+Dutch.
In short, Mackenzie has her hands full in Provincetown. She rarely goes up-Cape — though she does sneak up to Orleans for Wendy’s and TJ Maxx, she says. But this year, when the Lower Cape called, she answered. The first-ever Lower Cape Pride, a weekend of events from drag shows to live music to panel discussions, happens Friday, June 13 to Sunday, June 15, launched by Joan and Rick Francolini of Orleans.
Mackenzie will perform at Friday’s Pride Social at The Alley in Orleans and again on Saturday at the Cape Rep Theatre in Brewster. She says she’s the right queen for the job: “I promote queer love, tolerance, and acceptance. I want you to forget all the problems of your day and realize that life is beautiful and you are beautiful.”
Mackenzie is “never malicious and never nasty,” she says. Instead, “we’ll have some fabulous barbecue” at the bowling alley.
That should fuel her for Saturday’s drag finale: “Mackenzie’s Angels.” The angels are Provincetown’s Kira Stone and May Happs. “She’s so beautiful to watch,” Mackenzie says of Stone. “She’s giving you the classic ballad, she’s giving you Whitney Houston.” May Happs is “a dancing diva — she knows how to move like nobody’s business.”
Mackenzie brings “the wacky clownage” to the mix. When she sings, it’s “anything from the ’90s or European house music.” Part of her show is technical skill — the dancing, singing, and acting she learned in Boston. The rest is her authentic persona. “I embrace every ounce of who I am,” she says, “from inside to out.”
For her makeup, she chooses “a gentle neon aesthetic.” Her routine is less intense than that of queens who take three hours for makeup. “I don’t glue my brows down,” she says.
Her face used to look “terrible,” she says, then adds, “Just kidding. But the face I started with is definitely not the face I have now.” Every drag queen goes through a “crunchy period,” she says, “where you realize that your eyebrows don’t have to be that high up.” Mackenzie knows her angles and what to highlight. “It’s all about creating something that feels beautiful to you,” she says.
This weekend, “I’m going to make you feel nothing but joy,” Mackenzie says, though she might be a little “fresh and spicy” here and there. It’s a “fantastic sort of spiciness,” she says. “It’s never too hot — it’s a nice little kick, like you’d enjoy in your food.
“Something I’ve learned about myself in drag,” says Mackenzie, “is that there’s no difference between out-of-drag Mackenzie and drag Mackenzie. I’m just emphasizing what I’ve already got.”
Loud and Proud
The event: Lower Cape Pride
The time: Friday-Sunday, June 13-15
The place: Various locations in Orleans and Brewster; see lowercapepride.org
The cost: Free
