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Fringe Spotlight: Midnight at the Palace

A new musical inspired by the story of The Cockettes.

Gaydar

31 May 2025 — 5 min read

Midnight at the Palace is a new musical inspired by 70s San Fran drag ensemble, The Cockettes.

Described as a night of radical joy and glitter-encrusted anarchy, the musical brings to life the story of The Cockettes.

With an original score by Brandon James Gwinn and a book by Rae Binstock, the production will be directed by Paul McGill.

Performance Dates: 30th July – 24th August 2025
Venue: Gilded Balloon Patter House (Big Yin), 3 Chambers Street, EH1 1HT
Tickets: www.gildedballoon.co.uk

Paul McGill on How To Date Men

For our podcast, How To Date Men, we caught up with Paul McGill for a behind-the-scenes look at the production.

In the conversation we talk about the enduring cultural relevance of The Cockettes, casting unicorns, and how drag bans in the US have shaped the development of this production.

Listen to the episode

This is a new musical that brings to life the story of the Cockettes. Who were the Cockettes?

The Cockettes are amazing. I didn't really know who they were until this project came across my desk. And now that I do, so much of the lineage of drag makes so much sense to me now.

The Cockettes were a group in San Francisco in the late 60s, early 70s. They had odd jobs here and there. One of the jobs that one of them had was running the movie palace - the late night movie palace. It was the eve of 1970 when they stormed the palace and put on a show, and the Cockettes were born.

The thing that I love about them so much is that it was not about drag as we know it today - it was about radical self-expression.

While what they represented still culturally resonates, has the story of the Cockettes been lost in the mists of time?

By today's standards, by commercial standards, they were considered a failure. In the sense that when they came to New York City, all of New York came to their show. - Andy Warhol, Angela Lansbury, everyone in between. And they kind of flopped.

They did what they did in San Francisco, but it didn't read in New York. New York audiences, especially in the 70s, were ultra-culturalized, hyper-critical, and a little too cool for school. They were hoping to see Hair, you know? And what they got was the Cockettes.

I want to bring their name back to the mouths of people.

For this musical, the score has been written by Brandon James Gwinn and the book by Rae Binstock - at what point of the process did you come on board?

I came on when there was a first draft of the script and score. I came in on the first reading and we sat in a room for a week and really restructured things and the collaboration was immediate.

Brandon's music and his lyrics are so evocative of the time - the late sixties, early seventies. He's drawn from a lot of that music, but the lyrics pertain to both the script and the storytelling - they're also evocative, with an understanding of the way of speaking from the the 60s, with poetry, flair, and a strong vocabulary.

What about the casting process - did you have a clear understanding of the performers that you were looking for that could embody that spirit of the Cockettes?

In this time that we're in, finding fully unlocked humans who are young, who are fresh out of college, who have that thirst for truth, who also have a killer technique and a voice that could blow the roof off - we are looking for unicorns. We are seeking a tribe of people who can carry the message in a way that is able to be received by a cultured audience - especially at the Fringe - and yet have the freedom and the authenticity to fully express. So it has been a challenge, but we're finding some excellent, excellent people.

What sort of age are the cockettes in this story?

They're in their 20s. A lot of them didn't really know how to or care to do laundry. It was a time when they would eat spaghetti and live off of the system. It's around the time of the Kent State shootings. It's around this time in America when things were in upheaval, much like today.

They were a group of young people who - Ray says it well in the script - they blew their own bubble that they could live in.

You touched on how the period of change that the Cockettes were existing in has resonance with today's environment - we're talking about drag bans and trans-panic in the US and other places. How is that shaping this production as it comes together? Is that something that you're hyper-aware of?

I'm always hyper-aware of it as an American, as a queer American.

The Cockettes were about smashing boxes, smashing labels.

As a show, the wider lens on what drag is, what queer expression is, hopefully helps people to step back and just be themselves.

Obviously, because of the name, people think the Cockettes were a bunch of gay guys, but the Cockettes had women, the Cockettes had trans people, the Cockettes had straight men who were in the Cockettes doing drag and just getting up there and expressing. So it's not so much about sexual identity or gender expression as much as it is about freedom of expression and freedom of speech.

What do hope that people feel when they come to see Midnight at the Palace?

One of the themes of our show is "the cunt of the universe never closes". And so to step through the cunt of the universe is a theme in our show.

Can you just talk a little bit about what that means in the context of this show?

The theme appears when they decide to stomp through the streets of San Francisco and get up on stage and radically express themselves. That's the first time that we see anyone in their full drag regalia, their fullest expression, their highest Pokemon level, you know?

My hope is that people, when they leave the theatre, they too have the permission to express fully however that is, however that looks, and to accept other people. Live and let live, I think, is a big part of it.

I hope people loosen their rigidity, expand their minds, whether with or without drugs, just expand their minds. And the hope is that they carry that message into the street.

It is a raucous time, there's a lot of glitter and cardboard and the costumes are outrageous. It is going to be a feast in every sense.

I hope that people leave wanting to express themselves, and loving each other.