Dito van Reigersberg has plenty to celebrate this May.
The actor and co-founder of Pig Iron Theatre is marking two major milestones: the 30th anniversary of the acclaimed local theater company and two years in remission from leukemia.
But it’s the 20th anniversary of van Reigersberg’s debut as Martha Graham Cracker—his larger-than-life drag persona—that takes center stage. He and his band will headline Ensemble Arts’ presentation of ‘The Martha Graham Cracker Cabaret: 20th Anniversary‘ on May 16 at the Miller Theater.
“Martha is the vehicle through which I’ve learned to become more outspoken,” says van Reigersberg about the primary differences between he and she and Martha’s true start during his acting school years in New York.
During nightly visits to NYC’s Neighborhood Playhouse, van Reigersberg witnessed “singing drag queens” such as the world-famous Joey Arias.
“Acting school did this weird thing to you, then, by telling you to create commercially viable characters you should be able to pass as straight,” he says with a laugh. “That felt closet-y. But watching singing drag queens like Arias helped me embrace my true identity… and part of a coming out process that involved me creating my own character who was fabulous, melodramatic, feminine and with an inflated sense of self based on my grandmother and 1940s movie queens.”
Martha Graham Cracker connected van Reigersberg to more glamorous “forbidden fruit” and helped him embrace being gay. “Martha is much braver than Dito,” he says. And much more willing to bawdily bust out in big song; something he/she and her pianist, Victor Fiorillo, did first on the intimate stages of Queens Village’s L’Etage in 2005.
“A revelation happened there and then – the place where drag and cabaret met,” says Dito. “The wig was ratty. The dress wasn’t that glamorous, my bag of drag – the blue suitcase I still have – had a lamentable sophistication when it came to make-up. I needed to shave.”
Still, everything snowballed for MSG after that first night – “from 25 people to sold out crowds and a bigger band” – and van Reigersberg developed the character as more improvisational and flirtatious, and the band’s set expanding set list offered the actor a necessary structure. A star was born.
“She became a person that people responded to; a uniquely Philadelphian creature.”
Beyond celebrating his take on drag, cabaret and the likely music of Nina Simone, Prince, Lana Del Rey and Lady Gaga (just a few of Martha’s faves), the Cracker team is partnering with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Light The Night campaign to raise funds for blood cancer patients and research.
Van Reigersberg truly discovered Philly’s love of Martha Graham Cracker and the community built around her when – after a year away due to his leukemia scare – Martha returned to the stage at Union Transfer in the summer of 2024 with a sold out, loving crowd showing its appreciation.
“I, Dito, was changed by hearing I had ‘the Big C,’ he says of his leukemia diagnosis and his subsequent battle victory. “Facing the vividness of your mortality will do that. And though Martha and Dito are different personas, like Venn Diagrams, we overlap. What happens to one happens to the other.”
As for what will happen during “The Martha Graham Cracker Cabaret: 20th Anniversary” on May 16 at the Miller Theater, van Reigersberg says little, save for stating that they will “indulge in some nostalgia with songs from that first 2005 show,” and “weird stories like the time someone set their hair on fire over a candle at L’Etage or when Victor bled all over his keyboard.”
Beyond that, Martha-loving audiences can expect the unexpected.
‘The Martha Graham Cracker Cabaret: 20th Anniversary‘ hits the stage at the Miller Theater on Friday, May 16. For information and tickets, visit ensembleartsphilly.org
