Welcome back to hot takes and deep dives and I am here with who I think is the greatest cabaret performer of our generation.

No.

Truly, you might know her from starring on Broadway in Kinky Boots, Lempica, Legally Blonde the Musical,

but also like some off-roadway stuff that I fucking love, bear a pop opera.

I want, I need another revival of that.

Please welcome to the stage, Natalie Joy Johnson.

Hey.

This is so long overdue.

Gee, I'm so excited to be here with you.

Thank you for having me.

How are you doing?

Oh, I'm doing, I'm doing well. I'm doing good. As you can see,

I'm sitting here with some electrolit, trying to just, you know, make up for the deficiency

of hydration following last night's performance at the Green Room 42. Yeah, I had two champagains on stage, which was fine. It was the two margaritas

afterwards that I'm just kind of working through at the moment. But otherwise, well,

your show was incredible last night. You have, I guess we would call it a residency at the green room.

Sure, yeah, yeah. I mean, you're just about every month or every other month. Every month, every other month. Because, you know, my dear friend Ben Rimmelauer, who directed my... Excuse me, my dear friend, right, done. Our dear friend. He literally directed my first cabaret back in the day. And now he books everyone there. So God bless him. How did you first meet him? Okay, yes. After Bear,

he was directing this play Joy. I don't know if you remember that. And he was doing it. It

eventually had an off-Broadway run, Joy. I did this play where I played, that might have been the first lesbian

role in, of course, many, many, many, many, many that would follow.

When I really like look at, I did a count one day and I was like, I think it's truly like seven,

eight roles.

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