01/22/2024
I have something to tell ya.
Hello everyone, my name is Lexi Angel Royale-Issues and I founded the Royal Angels in December 2018, with our first show happening in January 2019.
I started performing in the burlesque and drag communities several years prior to that, and first begin producing burlesque and drag shows in Seattle in 2017.
I made a lot of mistakes early in my burlesque/drag career, the big one being when I first started producing in 2017, I produced a show with a person I barely knew, and people said our first show was so good and we made a great team so we should keep doing it. I was honestly unsure if producing or leadership was really for me, but I felt very pressured. I felt some red flags about the person, but lots of my friends encouraged me to trust her and work with her. We started a production company and about 7 months in,I realized this person was incredibly toxic and I experienced a lot of abuse and trauma at her hands. She did a lot of bad things I didn't know about, and as soon as I found out, I posted about it and went public with the info. This lead people to assume I knew everything and was a part of her attempt to prey and scam. I got a no contact order and it took years of therapy to heal what she put me through, but she still was able to continue affecting my reputation. I had multiple producers tell me they will never work with me again solely because they associate me with an unsafe person (which I sort of understand, but I also was abused and got a no contact order, so having people say 'you are unsafe because we associate you with your abuser' really cut deep).
I experienced a lot of toxicity and drama in the drag and burlesque communities. I constantly felt like a high schooler being surrounded by mean girls. I decided I wanted to start a show that was unlike any of the parts of the community I was trying to get away from. I wanted to create a show that aligned with my core values and my truth, and surround myself by people I know and trust.
Piccadilly Circus is a venue I have frequented since I was a young child, when it was still a tea room. They had never had drag or burlesque shows there, but it was a safe space with amazing people and I felt like this was the place. Royal Angels started with only 8 members, 6 performers, a DJ, and a kitten. Our shows were accessible, free to attend, and had an all ages first half (all things that no other burlesque or drag shows nowhere really offered at the time). I only worked with a small group of people so we could keep proper communication between each other. We were all really good friends. We would have these amazing shows with life changing moments, it was always an amazing audience and decent profit. We would have karaoke after parties after the show and hang out regularly. Royal Angels shows in 2019 and the beginning of 2020 are honestly some of the happiest memories of my life.
Then covid hit. We went on lockdown and had to be on hiatus for a while. We restarted our shows in May 2021. The world now was so different than before. Getting enough customers to come and spend money to make a profit was suddenly difficult when it hadn't ever been before. We couldn't just have the same 6 people every show, everyone's lives changed so drastically and a lot of new people entered, and I lost having a group of friends that communicated, I was suddenly surrounded by a million newbies and I was trying to keep it going and under control. It just kept getting harder, and I kept wanting to quit, but every day I would have people telling me how important and amazing everything I do is. I kept being told I created a community and a safe space and it was what I wanted, but it was destroying my health and my relationships.
In August 2023, I was offered the position of house troupe of Catalyst Cafe. I knew that I would not be able to be the sole producer with this many show dates, so I expanded my production team, which was really hard for me to do because I had not co produced anything since 2018. I realized if there were this many show dates each month, we needed even more performers in our troupe. I had always sworn I would never let anyone become an official member of Royal Angels unless I had known and worked with them for a minimum of 6 months, I never wanted to put trust and commitment on a person who looked professional on paper but I had never worked directly with. And I diverted from my truth and my core values, when I allowed people to apply to become new members of the Royal Angels and announced new members in December. The more I continued to divert from my truth and my core, the more the universe made it clear to me that I'm heading in the wrong direction. It's like I worked so hard to create a space without any of the toxicity and nastiness I had experienced before, and suddenly I was surrounded by all that cattiness and drama all over again. I just don't have the strength to fight it and start over again.
I spent a long time meditating and journaling, and processing, and I have had a really rough past few weeks. I have spent some time remembering who I am at my core, and continuing to produce shows in this industry right now diverts from my values. While I work on healing, and making big changes to my life, I am officially stepping down from producing shows, as well as taking a huge step back from live performances. This might be a 1 to 3 year hiatus, or it could be longer, I'm not sure yet.
I still plan to keep performing shows at Piccadilly Circus, but I'm going to be giving all the Piccadilly show dates to Levi U. Wanton-Moore/Olga Rubbinyerson and Desmond Pounder/Knights of the Pound Table as the new producers there. Any future announcements for burlesque and drag shows at Piccadilly Circus will come from them, not Royal Angels.
Now, this isn't goodbye, its not. But Royal Angels is gonna be taking a break. Listen, running the Royal Angels for you guys has meant so so much to me and it's changed my life. It's kept me out of trouble, most of the time, and it's been a lot of fun. And, I want to say to all the fans of Royal Angels ,thank you. Without you, I wouldn't have had any of this.
So, til I see you again, I'm Lexi, and this has been the Royal Angels.
