Be Yourself Out Loud: Interview with Tranna Wintour

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Tranna Wintour brings all the sexually confused boys to the yard…and seduces them all without fail.  Always glamorous, always fabulous, Tranna will dazzle you with her sass and her sequins, all the while cracking you up with her whip-sharp wit. 

Her Fringe show, Trantasy, opened at the Wiggle Room, where she regularly appears to do stand-up on Signature Saturdays. I am so glad that I got to see this show in advance of the inevitable adoring hoards. The Wiggle Room’s sultry decor fits this performer’s esthetic to a tee. The show’s format is stand-up interspersed with song. I had a chance to talk to her before the show.



Angela Potvin (AP): Why did you write this show?

Tranna Wintour (TW): This show started before I started doing standup. When I decided that this was what I wanted to do, I write a one-woman show before I ever did an open mic, a full hour show, and I performed it at a friend’s apartment. A month later, I did my first five minutes, and I started backwards. This show has been evolving since then.

AP: What’s the Tranna Wintour origin story?

TW: I guess this must’ve been around 2008-2009, and it was Halloween and I just saw the September Issue, the Vogue documentary, and I fell in love with Anna Wintour, so I decided to be here for Halloween and that same Halloween my friend was a transgendered version of Justin Bieber, which might sound redundant, and everyone was calling her TransBieber, so I was like if you’re TransBieber, I’m Tranna Wintour, and we had a good laugh and then I fell in love with that name so I re-baptized myself. I’ve been using that name ever since.

AP: What’s the show about?

TW: The show is about the reality of fantasy. So much of our authentic selves, we are afraid to show it. We relegate a large part of our true selves to our fantasy world. A lot of people say, “I wish that I can be this certain way,” but I think that you already are. Whatever you wish to be is what you already are. What you are wishing for is to be able to express that out loud. That’s what the show is about. I don’t hit people over the head with it, but that’s where I am coming from. 

Voted Montreal’s #3 top comic in 2014 and a named as one of the Montreal Gazette’s top 20 young Montrealers to watch, and on my personal best-dressed list, Tranna Wintour is going places. Do yourself a favor, and sit up close to the stage. You’d best be there to see her while you still can.

Trantasy is playing at the Wiggle Room (3874 St. Laurent) as part of the Montreal Fringe Festival and tickets and details can be found here.