About
About D’Arcy
D’Arcy is an actor, writer, director, choreographer, producer and entrepreneur. D’Arcy is the owner and artistic director of OASIS, voted San Francisco's best nightclub/cabaret. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Drollinger created Meals On Heels, which employed out-of-work drag artists who delivered food, cocktails and socially-distanced lip-synch performances to give a little “sparkle” for the community during shelter in place.
D’Arcy has written over a dozen original works, including: Bitch Slap, Temple of Poon and Disastrous, as well as the web series Hot Trash. Drollinger’s first feature film, Shit & Champagne, became an instant cult classic and is now streaming on Hulu. Drollinger is the producer, director and co-star of the long running Bay Area holiday tradition, The Golden Girls Live.
D’Arcy is the executive director of San Francisco-based nonprofit, Oasis Arts, dedicated to providing access and resources to LGBTQIA+ artists. Other credits include: The Producers (first Broadway production), and Hairspray the Musical (first Broadway production). Drollinger is the creator of Sexitude™, the body-positive, age-positive, sex-positive dance experience based in San Francisco.
In 2023, D’Arcy was appointed San Francisco Drag Laureate, first Drag Laureate ever in the world.
Writing
Above and Beyond the Valley of the Ultra Showgirls
“Drollinger is so proficient at creating lively shows that he’s going to surprise us one day soon by crafting a true masterpiece – the next Hedwig or Hairspray or some beguiling genre that hasn’t been invented yet.” – Chad Jones Theater Dogs
“Raunchy, outrageous and undeniably, gloriously, tasteless (as you might expect from the title), writer D’Arcy Drollinger’s “Shit and Champagne” is nonstop funny.” Jean Schiffman – SF Examiner
Drollinger’s original work has always centered around heightened drama. With only the slightest nudge, the most life or death experience becomes hilarious – or what D’Arcy refers to as extreme comedy. His works is influenced by Farce, Commedia Del Arte, Vaudeville, High-Camp, The Theater of the Absurd and the Ridiculous. Even while exploring modern pop culture references, these classically unclassical theatrical constructs inform so much of the writing.
One bad joke is simply that. But a hundred bad jokes turns into an amazing joke or in Drollinger’s case a show; and he uses every pun, pratfall, Borscht Belt inspired gag to get there.
While mining for every possible laugh, Drollinger never lets his characters integrity suffer. Comedy can be debasing, but it loses it’s power when you sacrifice the subject. Escapism if very often the goal, and the result, but at the core of the original work there is always an underlying focus on importance of friendship, the need to love and be loved, and the reminder that the underdog can be victorious on their own terms.
Directing
D’Arcy on set directing his first feature film - Shit & Champagne
“Drollinger has a distinct style as a director, it’s a mix of heightened slapstick with almost a commedia dell’arte-flavored rhythm and a sharp sense of timing, but all favored with the real truth of experience.” — SF Chronicle
D’Arcy has directed for stage and screen. Original works, include Shit & Champagne, the Movie, the Champagne White Trilogy and Bitch Slap, as well his musicals including Scalpel!, Pink Elephants and Above and Beyond the Valley of the Ultra Showgirls. He has adapted and directed the “Live” drag parodies of Sex and the City, Designing Women, Rosanne, Friends, Star Trek, Three’s Company, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Facts of Life and The Golden Girls.
D’Arcy’s direction is broad, both on a physical and emotional level, gravitating towards melodrama. Even when subtle, his use of physicality to elicit emotion and comedy is in the forefront of every performance. After many years of directing and performing in unconventional theater spaces and then opening one (Oasis), D’Arcy developed what has been referred to as the Drollinger school of over-acting or Vaudeville 2.0 – an everything but the kitchen sink approach to comedy, rooted in the schools of Commedia, Farce and the Absurd; drawing on high-camp, slapstick and drag theatrics, while keeping the pacing and subject matter current and exciting.
Drollinger uses drag and camp as powerful tools, while hilarious and ridiculous, they can also be disarming – allowing an audience to look at the situation or a scene though a lens they could not with traditional casting.
Starring
The Rocky Horror Show
“Drollinger’s star power single-handedly carries the show – he’s simply a force of nature.” – Tray Butler, HX Magazine
“Drollinger’s charisma, unerring sense of comic timing and wink-wink ease at interacting with the audience are infectious.” – Jean Schiffman, SF Examiner
Drollinger’s style is broad, over-the-top, ridiculous and very honest. His winks and nods to the audience invite them in – almost as willing participants – and once hooked there is no turning back. Drollinger’s characters, often brash and crude, are never cheap. The laughter and tears always spring from a sense of truth and integrity.
