By Amanda Waldroupe

Mark “Zebra” Thomas and Devan McGrath swear that Sissyboy’s special August 29 shows at Holocene won’t be as offensive as their old shows.

“It will still be offensive,” McGrath says.

“Absolutely,” Thomas affirms. “It’s going to be offensive in a smart way.”

“It’s not white washed,” McGrath says.

“It’s just racist enough,” Thomas quips.

During a Sunday afternoon chat, Thomas and McGrath talk excitedly when describing Sissyboy’s upcoming Portland performances (at 8 and 11 p.m.), the first live shows the infamous drag terrorist troupe has put on since amicably disbanding in October 2007—and they don’t spare the superlatives when comparing it to older shows.

The most singing. The most dancing. The most live music. Crazy dance numbers. “The best show we’ve ever written,” Thomas says.

Not wanting to divulge every detail, Thomas and McGrath tell Just Out the bare bones of the show, called “Sissyboy Washes Up.” Perhaps invoking The Pirates of Penzance—but with a gender-fucked twist, of course—Sissyboy will play the parts of Portland pirates sailing into New York, Thomas says, to take over the city’s performance art scene.

“We go on a metaphysical journey through the subconscious of a New York performance artist in search of the essence of art, basically,” McGrath says.

“We sail inside a performance artist’s mind and learn about art,” Thomas explains.

“There’s lots of nudity,” Thomas adds.

“Not all that nudity,” McGrath responds.

“Sh!” Thomas shoots back. “Lots of nudity,” he assures me.

The excited tenor Thomas and McGrath use to describe the upcoming show does not reflect how they feel when talking about Sissyboy’s breakup. At times reflective, and other times more critical of what Sissyboy was, Thomas and McGrath say the act had simply run its course.

“After three years of doing an original show a month, every month at Holocene, we got totally burnt out,” Thomas admits.

“Our shows were deteriorating in quality,” McGrath says.

And each member has truly gone his separate way. “As soon as it was over, it was like, whoa, I want to go to college,” says Thomas, who went to graduate school to become a special ed teacher. McGrath moved to Chicago to attend film school. And Lee Kyle—aka “Splendora”—now lives in New York City (which makes putting on an NYC show a whole lot easier, Thomas concedes).

Sissyboy probably would not have gotten back together. But Kyle pushed for a reunion after witnessing how surprisingly “watered down” the east coast scene appeared upon his arrival in March of this year. “I felt like New York needed a jolt,” he later says.

“It took me a while to see it as a good idea,” McGrath states. He’s quick to note that the Holocene shows and subsequent dates in New York (September 4-5) don’t mean that Sissyboy is getting back together. “We’re doing just this one [run],” he says.

“The reason why we’re doing this show is to practice for the New York show,” Thomas says, adding that it would be weird for Sissyboy to do a show in New York and not one in Portland.

Describing the venue Sissyboy will perform at in New York as a black-box theater, McGrath and Thomas express a little anxiety at the prospect of the troupe’s stage debut.

“Sissyboy is used to performing in bars, and this is not a bar,” Thomas says.

Rehearsing since July 18, the day after McGrath flew to Portland from Chicago, Sissyboy has a more articulate vision of itself this time around, Thomas says.

Whereas the shows the troupe produced used to be a communal effort with no defined power structure, Thomas, McGrath and Kyle—the three producers for the Portland and New York shows—are clearly in charge these days. Thomas says the newfound structure has given the show’s script more coherence and focus for what they want the show to be. “Now, it’s like, ‘Here’s your script, here’s your lines,’” Thomas says.

McGrath says “it feels good to be pretty” again, admitting that he hasn’t dressed in drag since Sissyboy split. Having bought only one dress—a bright blue princess number from a Chicago thrift store that he had to cut up and “get all slutty,” he reveals that he’s going to have a lot more shopping to do soon. After Sissyboy broke up, he got rid of the 50 wigs and dresses he had accumulated.

When asked what would happen if the New York shows are a success, McGrath and Thomas are unsure. But they are also slightly coy. “As time goes in, it gets harder to do Sissyboy,” McGrath reflects, adding that many troupe members have dispersed to New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

“I don’t think the collaborations will necessarily end with this show,” Lee says.

For his part, Thomas offers, “This is the last Sissyboy to ever happen, until the next thing.”