Provincetown, Massachusetts, is an enchanting queer (but mixed) town, and unlike Fire Island, it has actual streets. In addition to that, there are even things to walk to—like vintage stores, bike rentals, tea dances (at the Boatslip), John Waters sightings, drag shows, and the legendary Dick Dock. And there are so many other opportunities to stuff your face aside from that last attraction.

Culinary options include unmissable hotspots like the Portuguese Bakery, Spiritus Pizza (which becomes an impromptu party at night), and top-drawer restaurants (Front Street, The Mews, The Red Inn), open air eateries (Bubalas by the Bay) and plain old guilty pleasures (John's Footlong, where, for $10, your scrumptious meal includes pickles and coffee).

Provincetown town hall.

I find it best to go when there isn’t one of those special weeks going on (like “Bear Week,” “Family Week” or Carnival) because it’s less frenetic—while being frenetic enough, thank you—and it’s also easier to book an affordable hotel room. I stay at the Crew’s Quarters, a fabulously located, comfy bed and breakfast where there’s always gossip for days. And this time around, I got to catch an astounding array of drag and other talent around town, which is easy to book because the performers either stand on the street hawking their shows or they ride flatbed trucks doing the same, making the place a constant Pride parade. Here’s what I saw...

Ada Vox

Remember when Clay Aiken said that Ada Vox wasn’t booted off American Idol because she’s a drag queen, but because she wasn’t the best voice? Please. She was definitely robbed. In her show at Pilgrim House, the San Antonio-based singer proved she has extraordinary chops—she’s sort of Patti LaBelle meets Mariah—with the range, passion, and taste to match.

Sitting in a day-glow pink number with a black mesh top, Ada—who has moved to California to up her career—dazzlingly served standards by Nina Simone, Etta James, and Sara Bareilles, plus "Creep" (one of her American Idol songs) and "This Is Me." She even brought up a 14-year-old girl from the audience to sing an Usher song and was very encouraging to her. "You all want me to come back next year?” asked Ada, to a standing ovation. “Where is the owner? Sign the check!" After the show, I gingerly told Ada that Clay Aiken sucks. She informed me that once she tweeted out a comeback to his claim, he shut up. Yay—though the soulful drag star never should.

Mama Tits

This one’s a winner. In her show Mama Tits: Big & Loud at Post Office Cabaret, Mama was alternately raunchy and rousing, managing to put the tucking back into Sophie Tucker with bawdy humor, but also killing it with potent vocals. (I’d love to hear her do Cher some day.) With a “body by La-Z-Boy,” the Pacific Northwest-born drag queen sparkled in blue sequins, telling us her sexual secrets (“After a dry spell, even mediocre dick is amazing”), doling out positive messages from her rough upbringing, and rocking out on “The Masturbation Blues,” while working in zingy audience interaction. She was a bit pitchy on “Son of a Preacher Man” and I would drop the maudlin “Mr. Bojangles,” but with a few tweaks, the hugely appealing Tits could easily be the Queen of Ptown.

Liberace and Peggy Lee

“I had no idea we had ever gone away,” says glittery showman Liberace (David Maiocco), who is joined from the great beyond by Peggy Lee (Chuck Sweeney) for Lee Squared: The Liberace and Peggy Lee Comeback Tour at Pilgrim House. And they’re in fine form.

“Rocketman, eat your heart out,” crows Liberace, showing off one of his blinding outfits before launching into a jazzy concerto, as Peggy looks at her flaming costar and deadpans to the audience, “No one knew.” Pause. “It was a different time.” This show is a fast-moving and vastly enjoyable exercise in camp bliss, and the two stars couldn’t be better. Maiocco is a fabulous pianist, and also captures Liberace’s nervous giggle and slight creepiness behind the upbeat armor. Sweeney is pricelessly funny, nailing Peggy’s wacky mood shifts, bitchy but benign banter, and great vocals. (Peggy breathlessly trying to sing and dance “Proud Mary”—which seemed good on paper—is a particular delight.)

The ending, with Peggy softly warbling “I Can Sing a Rainbow,” followed by Lee doing the heart tugging “I’ll Be Seeing You” is a sweet change of tone, before the humor returns. “If you didn't like us,” says Peggy, over the curtain call, “we're Peaches and Herb.”

Bobby Wetherbee

At Crown & Anchor’s piano bar, Wetherbee—an elfin gent who used to play the St. Regis—lights up the room with tireless playing and singing, whether it be Annie, A Chorus Line, or “Sweet Caroline.” With an electric grin, he crows out song after song, leaning on the odd note to make it extra interesting (“If happy little Blooooooooo-birds fly…”), and also throwing in some fun banter while his hands never stop moving. “Carol Channing was a sweet woman,” he said the night I visited, “though she could be pretty bitchy. She was 99 when she found out her husband was gay. Huh?” Bobby is a Provincetown treasure worth singing about.

Lea DeLaria

On Commercial Street, someone was handing out passes for Lea DeLaria's new place, The Club, saying, "It's free and Sandra Bernhard's hanging out there!" So I went and said hi to Sandra and enjoyed the jazzy atmosphere, which included Grady West (AKA weirdlicious drag queen Dina Martina) hanging with Canadian comic Maggie Cassella. Upping the surreal fun, Lea DeLaria herself took the stage to scat with the house band. At one point, I asked Lea who she's dating, as I traditionally do. "I'm single," she said. "But that's my ex on the piano."

Unitard

In their Badassy show at the Art House, New York’s comedy favorites delivered a hilarious brew of stinging satire about wannabes and psychos clutching at their day in the sun. The trio (Nora Burns, David Ilku, and Mike Albo) tackled the insanity of cell phone addicts, internet trolls, gun mania, ambulance chasing lawyers (who’ll sue for you if Alexa gives you a wrong answer), NPR (where on-air personalities soothingly report on alarming things), Instagram, Dems fighting each other over candidates (thereby paving the way for another Trump victory), Pose, and Felicity Huffman, all while sprinkling in some Provincetown jokes for extra savvy points.

A highlight has Ilku as the voice of a credit card customer service worker who goes through Albo's transactions with him and somehow knows every narcissistic, slutty thing he did and why. And in the sketch spoofing the often contradictory textures of consent, a Unitard asks an audience member, "May I touch your shoulder while I dump a load in your ass?" Yes! These three can do whatever they like, as far as I’m concerned.

Tammie Brown

Tammie Brown does not pander. In her A Little Bit of Tammie show at Post Office Cabaret, the Drag Race Season 1 star never provides easy giggles, going instead for an esoteric trolley ride full of stream of consciousness chitchat that’s a little bit Pee-wee Herman meets The Gong Show with a hint of the B-52’s. Singing over her tracks (which seem to have full vocals), the Tejano Tammie welcomes us with, "I'll be your love pinata/Hit me with your love stick," before segueing into some of her other oddball hits, whether they’re about a favorite cat or the art of being “Clam Happy” and digging through the squishy stuff for pearls, leading to complications.

Non-sequiturs abound, but there’s method to her madness when she sings “Lip-Sync Suicide,” a re-telling of the Drag Race segment where Tammie didn’t feel like moving her mouth much. (The song includes a lovely thank you to RuPaul for the opportunity of doing the show and spreading love.) And you had to adore the moment when a sound cue messed up and Tammie didn’t freak at all, she simply remarked, "Could you imagine if I was Mariah Carey or something?"

Enchanted Wood

As far from a bump-and-grind burlesque show as you can get, this Post Office Cabaret offering is an artfully done, exquisitely danced hormonal delight, as choreographed by former ABT principal dancer and Tony nominee Robert LaFosse. This time, Troy David’s Malecall Dancers venture into the woods for some fairy tale flirting that has Little Red (Joseph Tudor), Hansel (Dannon O'Brien), and Jack (Vincent Marra) engaging in dances that are alternately elegiac and spunky, in between battling the fierceness of the Big Bad Wolf (Richard Schieffer). There may not be any bears in sight, but the show also treats you to those fabulous porkers the Three Little Pigs, plus an audience member chosen to be tied up and given a free T-shirt, and lots of peen at the end. "Jack had quite the beanstalk," said an audience member on leaving. Enchanting!

Billy Hough

Billy Hough is an edgy rocker-pianist who wouldn’t have been out of place in the 1970s new wave boite the Mudd Club, though he’s perfectly at home Friday nights at Enzo Guest House. There—and other spots—he stars in Scream Along With Billy, a bracing screamathon where the packed room joins in the mania. Last week, he did a Beatles number, then deadpanned that his backup musician, Sue, had gone off to get a drink. "She drinks top-shelf brown—which happens to be my Grindr handle," and I have no idea what that meant, but it was funny. His fans voiced their approval, and by the way, they're rabid and never miss a chance to scream along.

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Two New Gay Bars in the Village

Some nightlife excitement is happening back in New York, too. In fact, the West Village is aiming to grasp back at some of the gay energy that’s been lost to Hell's Kitchen over the years. As I reported here, Eric Einstein (who co-owns the long-running Pieces in the Village and the intimate Hardware Bar in Hell’s Kitchen) has taken over the old Boots & Saddle space on Seventh Avenue South and is turning it into a bar called Playhouse. Progress on this project has been painfully slow due to the red tape they’re being forced through, but it’s happening, aiming for this Fall.

And now, Einstein and company are negotiating for the Gourmet Garage space, also on Seventh Avenue South, which closed after years of serving fine foodstuffs. That’s a pretty big venue and, if it works, it could become the modern answer to gay hangouts of yore, like Uncle Charlie’s. And once again, we will have options.

Things are also happening in Murray Hill...I mean with Murray Hill, the long-running “Mr. Showbiz” who always puts the show back in the biz. On Friday, Murray gave a private tour of Vera Paints a Scarf at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), “critiquing mid-20th century American culture and domesticity through the designs of Vera Neumann.”

“This isn’t really my field,” cracked Murray to me. “Don’t judge.” I didn’t, since he did fine, and besides, I got a scarf to wear to tea dance.