Michael Venus is a Canadian artist, actor and producer.
Born October 9, 1973, in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada, Venus moved to Windsor, Ontario, at the age of 18 where he began working in the arts community of Windsor and nearby Detroit. There, with friends, he formed the artist collective "House of Venus" and began putting on various art shows, club nights and other events including an annual wearable art and wig festival called "Wiggle" which continues to this day. [1] In 1995, he moved to Vancouver, British Columbia where he worked as an artist and event producer for 18 years.
In the mid 1990s, Michael also began work as his drag alter ego Miss Cotton who is House Mother and leading "Venus Girl" Cotton has done numerous stage and television work including legendary NYC Outdoor Drag Festival, "Wigstock" in 1999, starring in The New Pornographer's music video for "Sing Me Spanish Techno"and hostessing and curating the pre-show for the Official 2010 International Olympic Committee afterparty introducing INXS. In the year 2000 Michael started the Icons and Demigods photo series where he collaborates with photographers recreating "POP" and "subculture images that shaped his aesthetic. In 2003 the first 17 images were exhibited at 1.6 Gallery in Venus Rising which was also the spotlight piece on Fashion Television the following year. In 2010 Venus put together another show and catalogue featuring 50 works in the series. Michael also produced short super 8 experimental films he shot through the late 1990s in Vancouver called "Supa 8". In 2012 he revisiting the series and is working on another eight. In 2009 Michael created many different Andy Warhol wigs for Douglas Coupland's "Mum and Dad" exhibit. In 2012 for Toronto Nuit Blanche Michael co-starred, cast and styled Coupland's "Museum of The Rapture".
In 2001, Venus began collaborating with filmmakers including Mark Kenneth Woods with whom he would later help produce the World's first LGBT sketch comedy series called the House of Venus Show . [2] The series began airing nationally in Canada on OUTtv in 2005 and would later air in France, Belgium, Switzerland on Pink TV, The Netherlands on OUTtv and the United States on the here! network. He also co-produced and co-starred in the feature film Deb and Sisi which premiered at the Out On Screen Vancouver Queer Film Festival in August 2008. [3] in 2013 and 2014 co-stars in the TV comedy The Face of Furry Creek on OUTtv for two seasons. Michael is working on 5 publications and celebrated numerous events to celebrate the House of Venus 20th anniversary in Toronto for World Pride and Vancouver for Wiggle 20 (Vancouver Art Gallery and Fox Cabaret). For World Pride Michael co-produced the stage Venus Rising with Peaches, Hercules and Love Affair and others like DJ Dickey Doo. Michael won Throbbing Rose Art Collective award for the first ever Nuit Rose festival during World Pride for his Icons and Demigods Show. Michael is currently working in Snow Queen- a herstory and expose of drag in Canada and a few other documentaries for OutSpoken Series on Out TV.
Drag is a performance of exaggerated femininity, masculinity, or other forms of gender expression, usually for entertainment purposes. Drag usually involves cross-dressing. A drag queen is someone who performs femininely and a drag king is someone who performs masculinely. Performances often involve comedy, social satire, and at times political commentary. The term may be used as a noun as in the expression in drag or as an adjective as in drag show.
Michael Lewis MacLennan is a Canadian playwright, television writer and television producer, best known as a writer and producer of television series such as Queer as Folk and Bomb Girls.
Chris & John's Road Trip! is a reality television series originally broadcast on OUTtv in 2005 and subsequently aired in Australia on SelecTV in 2006 and here! in 2008. The series chronicles best friends and self-proclaimed "culture aficionados", Chris and John, on a summer long road trip adventure for a lifetime.
The House of Venus Show is a Canadian LGBT sketch comedy television show created by Canadian filmmaker Mark Kenneth Woods and co-produced by Michael Venus. The first season aired on the Canadian LGBT channel OutTV in July 2005. The second season began airing in September, 2006 and, after a hiatus, a third season debuted in July, 2009.
Mark Kenneth Woods is a Canadian writer, actor, producer, director and TV host.
Charles David Lubiniecki is a Canadian actor, writer, director and producer, best known for the male lead in the LGBT horror series Dante's Cove. He has also worked as a TV host on a number of shows like F.Y.E!, SpyTV, Bump! and Crash Test Mommy.
Out On Screen is an LGBT-oriented arts organization based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It began as a small, community-based film festival in 1988 and was registered as a BC society in 1989, in anticipation of the 1990 Gay Games. Since then, Out On Screen has evolved to become a professional arts organization with two key program initiatives: the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, the annual queer film festival in Vancouver, and Out In Schools, a province-wide educational program aimed primarily at high school students, but with program delivery across the education system, that employs film and video to address homophobia, transphobia, and bullying.
OutTV is a Netherlands-based television channel which can be viewed via cable television/digital television as a premium channel in the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Israel and Spain. OutTV was launched on 2 April 2008 by OUTtv Media B.V. and has been available on cable since 11 April 2008.
OutTV is a Canadian English language specialty channel and streaming network that was launched in September 2001. It broadcasts and streams general entertainment and lifestyle programming aimed at the LGBT community both in Canada and internationally.
Deb and Sisi is a blue comedy/dark comedy feature film, written, produced and directed by Mark Kenneth Woods, which had its debut at the Out On Screen Vancouver Queer Film Festival in August, 2008. The DVD was released May 25, 2010 through MKW Productions and the film aired on television for the first time on October 30, 2011 on OUTtv in Canada.
Although same-sex sexual activity was illegal in Canada up to 1969, gay and lesbian themes appear in Canadian literature throughout the 20th century. Canada is now regarded as one of the most advanced countries in legal recognition of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights.
We're Funny That Way began as an annual charity comedy festival in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1996. Launched in 1996 by Maggie Cassella, the festival featured stand-up and sketch comedy shows by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender comedians. It ran until 2012 when it took a five-year hiatus, returning in 2017. The festival has grown to a broader performance festival and now includes musicians, story-tellers, burlesque artists, plays, drag performances, generally following the genres associated with live cabaret.
Vance and Pepe's Porn Start is a comedic mockumentary directed by and starring Mark Kenneth Woods, and co-starring Michael Venus, Ryan Steele, and Rachelle Lachland. It had its debut at the Out On Screen Vancouver Queer Film Festival in August 2011. The DVD was released January 17, 2012 through MKW Productions and had its television broadcast debut on July 29, 2012 on OUTtv in Canada.
The Face of Furry Creek is a television series produced by MKW Productions that stars writer/comedian Mark Kenneth Woods, actors Michael Venus, Amy Goodmurphy and Ryan Steele as multiple characters competing in a small mountain town reality-show type contest. It was created by Woods and the series premiered on OUTtv on June 3, 2013 in the network's coveted Monday night 9pm time slot previously held by Season 5 of RuPaul's Drag Race.
Peppermint, or Miss Peppermint, is an American actress, singer, songwriter, television personality, drag queen, and activist. She is best known from the nightlife scene and, in 2017, as the runner-up on the ninth season of RuPaul's Drag Race. In 2018, Peppermint made her debut in The Go-Go's-inspired musical Head Over Heels as Pythio, becoming Broadway's first out trans woman to originate a lead role.
The Pinco Triangle is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Patrick Crowe and Tristan R. Whiston and released in 1999. A profile of LGBT life in Sudbury, Ontario, the film mixes interviews with past and present LGBT residents of the city with vignettes depicting aspects of the directors' own childhoods in the city, acted by a cast including Michael "Bitch Diva" Fitzgerald and Lorraine Segato. The film takes its name from blending the pink triangle, a common LGBT symbol, with the INCO Triangle, the former employee magazine of INCO's mining operations in Sudbury.
Call Me Mother is a Canadian reality television series, which premiered on OutTV in 2021. Hosted by Entertainment Tonight Canada reporter Dallas Dixon, the series is a drag competition which will see up-and-coming drag performers join one of three drag houses to compete in group challenges, with one drag artist eliminated each week until the winner of the competition is crowned the "First Child of Drag".
Barbada de Barbades is the stage name of Sébastien Potvin, a Canadian drag queen most noted as one of the drag house mothers in the reality competition series Call Me Mother.
Fantasia Royale Gaga is the stage name of Latavia Goldson, an American showgirl, drag queen, and entertainer. She is best known for winning the first season of Hot Haus and for competing on the fifth season of The Boulet Brothers' Dragula.