Jinkx Monsoon Shares 19 ‘Volatile’ Songs That Help Her Get Into Character for Broadway’s ‘Oh, Mary!’

These days, erstwhile she’s not engaged casting her spell upon packed Broadway audiences, two-time Drag Race champ Jinkx Monsoon makes playlists. But we’re not talking astir a fewer twelve songs oregon a mates hours of euphony — these are Spotify odysseys encompassing hundreds of songs, philharmonic monsoons that you could autumn dormant to, aftermath up and find that you’re not adjacent halfway through.

Unlike astir playlists, these weren’t created to beryllium shared with the world, but they bash service a purpose. Monsoon – who precocious solidified her presumption arsenic a Broadway unit acknowledgment to a show-stealing crook successful Pirates! The Penzance Musical, followed by her taking implicit the pb relation successful the Tony-winning smash Oh, Mary! — uses these playlists to hole for acting roles, spinning them portion rehearsing and queuing them up earlier showtime to get successful character.

Her playlist for Oh, Mary! – which she exclusively shared with Billboard and is allowing america to connection a peek into beneath – has much than 500 songs, clocks successful astatine implicit 27 hours and is inactive being updated by the creatively restless star. These songs are informed by however Jinkx sees the stifled, manic Mary Todd Lincoln, however audiences respond to the quality and however she herself relates to the role.

“What I would accidental wide astir the playlist is that it is volatile,” Monsoon tells Billboard. “Mary is grieving the nonaccomplishment of 1 narration portion celebrating the opening of a caller relationship, and those are other ends of the spectrum. The songs bounce backmost and distant betwixt heartbreak, breakup songs and falling-in-love for the archetypal clip songs.”

While Oh, Mary! takes spot successful the 1860s, astir of the songs connected her playlist tally from the 1920s to contiguous day. (Aside from the information that recorded euphony which could beryllium played backmost didn’t go a happening until the 1870s, Monsoon quips that listening to songs fashionable during the American Civil War felt “a small excessively prescient” fixed what’s going connected now.) Even so, this expansive playlist leapfrogs done decades, genres and zip codes, revealing Monsoon’s staggering cognition of amusement implicit the past 150 years and her aggravated dedication to doing close by the role, her co-stars and the audience. (Unsurprising, Jinkx kills it arsenic Mary. Her performance, which runs through Sept. 28, is simply a no-notes masterclass successful drama with empathy. Simply put, Oh, Mary! remains the champion happening connected Broadway.)

From Chappell Roan to Laufey to Helen Ka...