Dude looks like the Lady
When it comes to finding Gaga superfans, you need look no further than the Gay 90's, the downtown Minneapolis club that's home to nightly drag shows. After all, Gaga is a queen's wet dream come true: a dazzling array of wigs, drag-a-licious makeup and elaborate, over-the-top costumes, complete with song and dance routines. And there is one Gaga impersonator in town on the tip of everyone's tongue: Nina D'Angelo.
But it wasn't exactly love at first sight for Jamie Olsen, a 14-year drag vet who performs as D'Angelo five nights a week at the 90's.
"At first I thought, what a weirdo!" he recalled in his dressing room backstage. "It was kind of shocking, and so different." He was won over by an impromptu two-hour show that he saw her perform in Palm Springs, Calif., in April 2008. "I think the fact that she's so limitless inspired me to go that extra mile -- that onstage, there's no limit to what you can do."
Olsen has an affinity for the sewing machine and glue gun. He motions to a red-hooded costume, patterned on Gaga's "Beautiful Dirty Rich" video, and a polar bear head (from "Bad Romance") perched on a shelf in his closet. It's all ridiculously detailed.
"I kind of overdid these," he says, showing off a pair of bejeweled sunglasses inspired by the ones on Gaga's debut album. "They're so heavy I have to wear a string around my head so they don't slide off."
But what makes Gaga a favorite among drag queens also provides a constant challenge.
"It's so hard to keep up with her," Olsen says. He hasn't been able to replicate her infamous Kermit the Frog outfit -- at $40 apiece for the stuffed toy, it was too expensive. And he hasn't figured out how to get smoke to come out of the cigarette glasses from her "Telephone" video.
"My parents are like, 'You should go on "Project Runway,"' Olsen says, "and I'm like, 'I'm on "Project Runway" every day.'"