San Francisco drag personality Cookie Dough has taken ill while peforming in Puerto Vallarta and remains in a coma. Via SFist:
Local drag queen and party hostess Cookie Dough has fallen into a coma while staying in Puerto Vallarta this week, and her prognosis is unclear. Cookie was in Mexico along with the cast of the SF-popular drag version of The Golden Girls, and fellow cast member Pollo Del Mar delivered the news on Facebook this morning.
According to Pollo, Cookie Dough was feeling ill since arriving, and last night was taken to the hospital in Puerto Vallarta. It turned out she had a brain edema (swelling on the brain), and fell into a coma overnight, and she’s now being kept alive on a ventilator. An outpouring of support has appeared on Cookie Dough’s Facebook page in the last few hours.
The Golden Girls, a show in which four drag queens re-enact episodes from the TV show on stage, word-for-word, originated almost a decade ago with Heklina in the role of Dorothy and Matthew Martin as Blanche, along with Cookie as Sophia and Pollo as Rose, however Dorothy and Blanche were recast for the Puerto Vallarta shows because of performer commitments. As the blog Drag Queens Galore! explains, Daft-Knee Gasundheit! was to play Dorothy and Turleen was playing Rose.
As of last night, Pollo was posting that “with or WITHOUT Cookie… the show must go on!” They were set to open tonight at Puerto Vallarta’s STAGES II Theatre, and they posted a promo video yesterday with Kim Burly in the role of Sophia.
Cookie Dough regularly appears on stages at Castro Street Fair, Trannyshack, and her own weekly show at The Edge in the Castro, The Monster Show. The Monster Show was set to have a guest host tonight and next week while Cookie was away.
This news is sad for the San Francisco community, and a page has been set up to help her and her husband defray expenses while she remains in a coma. As of Friday afternoon, the fund has raised more than $13,000. It’s one thing for tragedy to strike at home, but when it happens out of the country it is particularly problemsome.
Last night, at Cookie Dough’s regular Monster Show party at The Edge (she had previously scheduled a substitute host), fellow drag personalities and fans shared their feelings for Cookie in a video created by David Hill:
The Monster Show – Get Well Cookie Dough from David C. Hill on Vimeo.
Let’s put the good vibes out there and hope for Cookie’s recovery.
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