Hot on the heels of her breakout turn on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 17, the scene-stealing Suzie Toot is trading the soundstage for the spotlight of a 17-city national tour this July. The acclaimed performer is set to debut her newest one-woman cabaret, Suzie With a Z, a high-concept production that promises to blend Vaudeville and Broadway herstory with a modern, edgy comedic sensibility.
The tour, which kicks off July 9 at City Winery in Philadelphia, marks a significant milestone for the performer.
“It’s my first solo cabaret tour,” Suzie said during a recent interview with The Pop Break. “The people of the United States may have seen me elsewhere, doing other shows, but this is unique in that it’s all live singing, all live tap dancing, storytelling, stand-up comedy. It’s just me on stage for roughly two hours, and I cannot wait to do it.”
“Suzie With a Z” is the highly anticipated follow-up to her 2025 debut, If You Knew Suzie, which sold out its run in major hubs like Minneapolis, Atlanta and Provincetown. Suzie notes that this new production represents a more confident chapter in her career following her global travels.
“If You Knew Suzie was such a byproduct of being on television and processing that and trying to introduce myself to the world,” she explained. “I’ve grown so much as a performer and as a person. And, if ‘If You Knew Suzie’ was me sheepishly introducing myself to the world, Suzie With a Z [is] a declarative statement of who I am.”
That declarative statement is deeply rooted in the building blocks of classic American entertainment. Drawing inspiration from legends such as Liza Minnelli and Lucille Ball, Suzie aims to bridge the gap between vintage glamour and the expectations of contemporary audiences.
“The building blocks of [entertainment] are still around and still true,” she said. “Young people haven’t [seen the] style of Lucy. They haven’t seen ‘Liza with a Z.’ They don’t understand. Or they don’t know what they’re missing out on. So a big part of my drag, I think, is introducing people to that type of performance.”
A cornerstone of that performance is her signature tap dancing, a skill she began honing at the age of 6. Influenced by film icons like Debbie Reynolds, Ann Miller, and Eleanor Powell, Suzie has integrated the art form into her drag persona to carve out a unique niche in the industry.
“It became a part of my identity,” Suzie shared. “And so when I started doing drag, and especially with this sort of vintage character, it didn’t take very long for me to realize like, ‘Oh, I could be the first great drag queen tap dancer.”
She noted that this realization led to her talent show performance on Drag Race, which she considers her “defining moment.”
Beyond the stage, Suzie’s recent ventures into cinema, including her debut in the campy horror film Big Easy Queens and her self-produced short La Dichotomie, have begun to influence her theatrical staging. She noted that film is an aesthetic medium that uses light and color to establish mood. “I love to play with, ‘What does this picture look like and how does that translate to telling a story on stage?’” she added.
Following its Philadelphia premiere, the tour will travel to major venues including Brooklyn’s 3 Dollar Bill on July 17 and Chicago’s City Winery on July 22.
Whether fans are coming for the powerhouse vocals or the cerebral storytelling, Suzie describes “Suzie With a Z” as, simply, “my favorite kind of drag.”
