This year, “RuPaul’s Drag Race” premiered its 15th season of drag idols sashaying and lip syncing their way to greatness. But despite the show getting long in the tooth with over 200 episodes aired, it remains a cultural juggernaut and an Emmys machine, racking up nine nominations for Season 15, including that coveted Best Reality Competition Program award.
“It feels like we’re in Season 3 to us. “We’re full of energy and love for this show. And I always say that I really think it’s a miracle that ‘Drag Race’ exists,” executive producer Tom Campbell said during an IndieWire Consider This panel supporting the series. “Our friends at Logo gave us a chance 15 years ago, we were the biggest hit on the smallest network … gay people discovered this show, and now mainstream audiences have discovered this show, and people are still discovering it. It’s been an honor, and I’m so glad we have this platform for telling queer people’s stories.
Campbell was joined by music producer Leland, production designer Gianna Costa, and director Nick Murray for a conversation with IndieWire Awards Editor Marcus Jones. The quartet discussed their histories on the show and broader “Drag Race” franchise, working on Season 15, and continuing to expand and improve for future seasons of the beloved program.
Costa spoke about how the audience growth has encouraged them to attempt to top all the work they’ve done in previous seasons, joking that the passionate fanbase of the show is also one of TV’s most critical.
“The audience has grown, and you know how people go on their keyboards, they have a lot to say after an episode is done,” Costa said. “You want to make something and have people looking at something cool, because you know people are gonna be pointing at and picking everything out.”
Every season of “Drag Race” features a “Rusical” episode that sees the queens performing in a mini musical, with this season featuring a “Footloose” parody. Leland spoke about how he went back to the original film in order to create the numbers performed by the queens during the Rusical.
“What I will do is I say ‘you will hear from me in a week,’ and I sit down at the piano for three or four days and work on the initial burst of melody and lyrics and get the chorus, and one we get the chorus I try to build it out from there,” Leland. “Because we’ve done it now for so long, those thing kind of come inherently, and we kind of chip away at it as we go.”
Rather than assign specific roles in the Rusical to specific queens competing on the show, each Rusical sees the queens cast themselves as the various characters. Murray said that decision makes the process interesting each year, because they rely on the queens’ judgement to make the right call.
“It’s amazing when you see the end product, you really couldn’t see anyone doing the individual roles, except for the the ones the queens are playing,” Murray said. “And the process it takes can be quite catty at times which is very entertaining to watch, but at the same time they hash it out, they know their strengths and weaknesses within the group. There have been a number of years where I thought things have been perfectly cast, and this was one of those times.”
Season 15 aired during a spike of anti-LGBTQ and trans legislation across the United States, as well as a wave of anti-drag sentiment. The show addressed the current events during the Rusical, which does featured some commentary on anti-drag movements, and did a partnership with the ACLU in order to combat the homophobic and transphobic legislation.
“We had no idea that eight months later, and it’s frightening to think that it was eight months later that this legislation, and this hate, and these lies were once being spread around and endanger our basic human rights,” Campbell said. “And when that came together it was kismet from the drag gods.”
“RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 15 is now streaming on Paramount+. Watch the full interview with the team behind the series above.
IndieWire’s Consider This Conversations bring together the cast and creative team members of television’s most prestigious shows to discuss some of the best art and craft of TV production of 2023.
