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A look back to 1997
In recognition of October being Gay History Month and our upcoming Leap Peepin' Cider Sippin' Revue, here's a cover story written about us in 1997 in preparation of that's year's Revue. It was written by Susan Green for the then weekly paper VOX "Vermont's Voice of Arts, Entertainment and Culture." We've transcribed the article.
While many see fall foliage season as just a glorious splash of color, the ever-inventive Sisters LeMay - themselves a rather glorious splash of color - perceive the annual autumn ritual as yet another opportunity for madcap satire.
The Leaf Peepin' Cider Sippin' Revue, this dynamic duo's latest extravaganza, will unfold in a three-night stand at 135 Pearl in Burlington on the last weekend in September. Armed with that old chestnut "tourists welcome," the LeMay ladies believe their show complements the razzle-dazzle display provided by the state's legendary maple trees.
Amber and Marguerite, who claim that Bob Bolyard and Mike Hayes are merely their alter-ego drag personas, were born about five years ago when the guys swang "campy cabaret" during a Vermont Gay Social Alternatives shindig at the Sheraton. "Bob and Mike are our dear friends," gushes Amber, the more petite of the towering twosome. "They have a nice Burlington house. We live together in a double-wide trailer at the Hot Damn Trailer Park in Beaver Pond, Vermont.
And where is Beaver Pond located? Why, in "the Northeast Queendom," of course.
But Marguerite is quick to point out that the politically incorrect LeMays are "not drag queens or female illusionists or transvestites."
To which Amber adds, "Do you want us to be called female impersonators? I don't think so. We're drag performers."
Well, OK, but the impersonation part of the act is just as funny as the tunes they belt out. Their interview outfits - relatively tasteful black-and-white frocks that would be acceptable for, say, office managers - are tame compared to the garish regalia, most of it sewn by Margauerite, that adorns the Sisters LeMay on stage. (The family name they've chosen for themselves is a tribute to lame, the glittery cloth of theatrical ill repute.)
Amber mentions that Bolyard and Hayes have been kind enough to allow the siblings an entire basement to house their costume shop. There, almost every inch of space is given over to the hilarious conceit: Shelves full of feather boas, boxes of wigs, jewelry, crinolines, purses and enough shoes to make Imelda Marcos drool. (On second thought, the former First Lady of the Philippines probably couldn't have handled the five-inch, spiked faux leopardskin heels that highlight the LeMay collection. "We have a bigger selection of women's size 11 and 12 than any Payless store in the country," confides Bolyard.
Queried about undergarments, Marguerite shyly demonstrates just how birdseed-filled nylon stockings can masquerade as mammary glands. Don't ask, don't tell.
The basement also holds dresses galore, everything from slinky velvet chanteuse gowns to the bold, psychedelic-patterned minis that provide these sonstresses with their Salute to the Sixties attire.
Themes are important to Amber and Marguerite who have a country-and-western show called LeMay Goes Gingham to their credit and a sailor-girl routine for which they're decked out in seafaring garb. During the last presidential election, they helped the Vermont League of Women Voters by passing out informational brochures while trying to pass as respectable Republicans in demure suits and pill-box hats. "That was our Drag Queens for Dole bit," Bolyard recalls.
Clearly, it would take a provocative repertoire to complete with the LeMay look. Amber dreams up new words to those familiar songs the team wants to tinker with, songs that don't automatically prompt a wink.
"Cole Porter is one of our favorites," Marguerite acknowledges.
"He wrote such campy material," Amber suggests. "It's amazing what he got away with."
"Like ‘My Heart Belongs to Daddy,'" Marguerite says. "We don't have to rewrite a word."
On the LeMay version of "Moonlight in Vermont," the perfect anthem for their upcoming performance, the lyrics take aim at the very tourists they hope to make welcome. "Cows are in the road. Maple syrup, everywhere. Yes, you're in Vermont. Come and spend your dough, On some homemade thingybob. It's made in Vermont..."
While cows and maple syrup often define the Green Mountain State, Bolyard is hardly crooning the old Broadway standard that begins, "Why, oh why, oh why-o? Why did I ever leave Ohio?..." He left that midwestern mecca ten years ago, after a childhood spent growing up in Lima , population 50,000. The Home of Phyllis Diller, as it's known, is not pronounced Lee-ma - even though the founding fathers in the 1800s apparently named it for the Peruvian capital city, from which medicines were imported to counter a local malaria epidemic. No, Bolyard's hometown is called Lye-ma, as in the bean.
"The town mascot is a large, stuffed lima bean," Amber explains. "If I still lived there, I'd probably be the one in the costume."
"In heels!" suggests the ever fashion-conscious Marguerite.
A non-graduate of Ohio State, Bolyard is data manager for the Vermont Cancer Center at UVM.
"Amber was a beauty-school drop-out," says Marguerite, whose own credentials as Mike include the following: fourth generation Queen City resident; Castleton State College grad with a major in theater and ma minor in dance and psychology; Castleton instructor of costume design and construction. He currently works a Rags and Riches, the South Burlington fabric store. "A gay decorator - oh, my God!" quips Hayes.
While making costumes for a Lyric Theatre production of Annie almost a decade ago, Hayes met Bolyard and the rest is entertainment history. "We had seen that other drag performers were being accepted," says Amber. "We decided that we could do as well or better."
Although Bolyard and Hayes profess fondness for rival drag performer Cherie Tartt, the LeMays are always ready with a dig. "To us, she's Prune Danish," Amber says. "On stage, we'll trash her. But it's all in good fun."
For the Gay Pride Day parade of 1996, the LeMays rode a convertible singing Burt Bacharach and Judy Garland songs. To poke a little fun at the event's serious theme, Pride Without Borders, Amber and Marguerite billed themselves as representatives of Pride Without Girdles. As part of the 1997 Gay Pride commemoration, they went country-and-western in a pickup truck, offering a medley that included a few treasured Patsy Cline numbers like "Crazy" and "I Fall to Pieces."
"I believe she was a LeMay," says Amber, almost teary-eyed. "Because she had heartache."
With a nod to contemporary artists such as Joan Osborne, the Amber and Marguerite rendition of "One of Us" has some significant changes - for example, "What if God was a LeMay. Would they scream and run away? Just because he might be gay."
In a Rotary Club variety show at the Flynn, Bolyard was the emcee and Marguerite served as the "card girl" (the person who flips the titles) and sang while wearing a red balloon-sleeved and flared dress, accessorized with long black gloves.
"I looked like a Rose Bowl float," she remembers.
"The Rotarians loved it," Amber says.
This summer, Bolyard and Hayes were part of the Nunsense cast during the Growling Pup Theatre Festival at the Magic Hat Brewery. Someone who works with Hayes told him they didn't look much different than any of the nuns in her parochial school.
The LeMays once had a gig in Provincetown and, before that, an all-male campground in Quebec. Two years ago, Bolyard and Hayes celebrated their respective 40th birthdays with a fiesta at the old German Club. "It was the 11th anniversary of the LeMay sisters' 29th birthdays," says Amber.
They're not in it for the money, doing mostly benefits and parties. The LeMays confess that commercial success would not be unthinkable but neither has the time to attend to the necessary business side of show biz. "Amber and Marguerite don't have the balls to hit the big-time," Bolyard snipes.
Meanwhile, the sisters are content to play bars, where, according to Amber, "the more they drink, the better we look."
In discussing the upcoming show at 135 Pearl, Marguerite spices things up with a little gossip: "Of course, Amber had to sleep with Bob to get the gig!"
Be that as it LeMay, the rest of us can reap the rewards from their unholy tryst by enjoying the leaf peepin', cider sippin' antics of those might big girls with the birdseed boobs.