Seattlest Interviews Fanny N' Flames and Kitten La Rue of the Atomic Bombshells

What drew each of you to burlesque in the first place? How did you get started?

Fanny N' Flames: I had a friend in New Orleans who was pretty integral in putting together the Shim Shamettes. She asked me to be part of it, and I had never seen burlesque or been on stage in that capacity before, and I just thought it was amazing. That's how I got into it.

Kitten La Rue: I've been dancing and performing my whole life, so I was always looking for outlets. Burlesque was a natural progression for me as far as being a dancer, because I was raised on MGM musicals, old '40s style glamour. I've always been in love with that time period. I was also raised on old music, the music involved in dancing vintage burlesque, so it was just a natural progression for me.

Now you're at the Triple Door, but that's not where you started in Seattle. What's your Seattle career been like? How did you form and get other people involved?

Kitten La Rue: Basically, we sort of booked ourselves a show before we had the troupe. We bluffed our way through it, so to speak. We knew we could get something really amazing together, so we marched up to the Showbox and said, "We want to do this show with Dita Von Teese. We guarantee it'll be great." They believed us, and so we started auditioning girls from around the city.

Fanny N' Flames: We hadn't even hired the girls yet.

Kitten La Rue: After we were booked, we hired our girls. So that's how we started. After the Showbox show, we were set to do a run at the Mirabeau, but we were offered a national tour by Camel cigarettes, and toured around the country for two months. So we really exploded immediately, going from no recognition to national recognition, which made it easy for us when we got back to Seattle to do what we wanted to do and play amazing venues like the Triple Door.

So that Valentine's Day show with Dita Von Teese was your first performance?

Both: Yes.

What makes you unique in the Seattle scene, compared to the other burlesque troupes in town? What's the Bombshells aesthetic?

Kitten La Rue: What makes us stand out . . . one is that we're very true to the vintage form. We're really about reviving that classic burlesque aesthetic. The other thing is that we're committed to having a highly produced theatrical fully fleshed out show. It should be theater, as opposed to something more underground or casual. We really want to have a quality, produced show.

Another thing that makes us stand out . . . people tell us they're amazed that all the girls in our troupe are serious dancers. Everyone has a lot of dance training and performance experience. It adds a whole other level of entertainment.

Fanny N' Flames: And it is a real theater show in the sense that there's a common thread running through each different show that we do. So this time it's the fairy tale theme, and we've done three other shows in Seattle with different themes.

Kitten La Rue: Right. Fully fleshed out concepts.

Having seen your first show and a couple at the Mirabeau Room, and now Fairy Tails, what you have now seems more like what I've heard classic burlesque is like. You've got the interaction with your host, Vincent Drambuie, and fully concepted skits. Do you see it that way as well.

Kitten La Rue: Yeah, I'd say that's true.

What's burlesque like as a business? Do you have day jobs, or is this a fully self-sustaining enterprise?

Fanny N' Flames: We do have day jobs, but I treat it more as a supplement to my income as a performer. I would ideally like to solely support myself performing. At this point, I like to make sure I've got backup.

Kitten La Rue: I'd say I've worked very little as far as day jobs are concerned since starting the Bombshells. It's definitely been our main business, our main focus, and it's paid most of my bills for sure. Because our show is so polished and has such a high level of production, it's also very marketable, which is lucky for us. We perform not only our runs, but we get hired by corporations and companies to perform events. So it definitely can be a lucrative business. It's hot right now, so . . .

What kind of balance do you strike between burlesque as performance or theater and burlesque as personal expression?

Kitten La Rue: I think it's intrinsically self-expression. I know a lot of girls feel as though their burlesque persona is some sort of alter ego, an exaggeration. There's definitely an exaggeration of what it is to be a woman, and it's very personal in that sense. Everyone adds their own element to their character.

It's both, really. It's theater, it's acting. It's so much more than just striptease -- it's facial expressions, it's connecting with your audience, it's all of that.

That does raise another question. What's the relationship between your stage personas and your off-stage personalities? Are they kind of related, completely distinct, exaggerations...?

Fanny N' Flames: It definitely is an exaggeration. I find it fun to play around with different personas onstage. The one I've mostly stuck with is a very dominating one. That's interesting to explore on stage.

Kitten La Rue: I'd say it's equally parts of exaggerating parts of your personality, and I draw from so many other sources when I'm onstage. Some of my favorite old Hollywood actresses, my grandmother, my favorite icons...there's all kinds of things that I draw from.

I know you were trained by actual burlesque performers. Who were you influenced by that was not a teacher of yours?

Fanny N' Flames: I really love Lily St. Cyr as a visual artist. She was one of the more trained of the old burlesque dancers. She was really amazing. Had beautiful stage props.

Kitten La Rue: I draw from Ann-Margret a lot, her mix of funny and sexy. That's such an important element of burlesque, the equal parts of humor and sexiness. That's what makes it approachable and fun and entertaining.

You've said in the past that a lot of your audience is women. Having been in your audience, I know that's true. Is there something about burlesque itself these days that appeals to women, or is there something about your show in particular? Obviously, traditional burlesque didn't draw as many women in. What's changed?

Kitten La Rue: Actually, that's sort of a misconception about burlesque not drawing in women. It varied from city to city and scene to scene. But I know in the bigger cities -- for example, Bourbon Street in the '50s was a destination spot for couples. They got dressed up, they went to the burlesque show. There were different levels, like with any form of entertainment, and the bigger stars pulled all kinds of people in.

I would say absolutely the strongest responses we get at our shows are from women. They want to be doing it. They see that it's such a wonderful expression of your power as a woman and you're using your sexuality as a fun, sexy, powerful tool. It's exciting and beautiful and glamorous. It's a spectacle. Yeah, women get extremely excited about what we're doing.

How does someone go about becoming a Bombshell?

Fanny N' Flames: We really have a great core of performers that we work with now. Occasionally we hold auditions and hire new girls. Women express interest all the time. We're definitely open to auditioning, but right now we've got a really strong core of girls.

Kitten La Rue: The important thing to us is someone who has dance and/or theater performance experience. You have to feel really confident on stage and project confidence. If you've been performing for a while it's easier, even if you've never done burlesque before.

My wife wanted to know: do you make your own costumes?

Kitten La Rue: Actually, it's a mix. Some of them are vintage costumes that we got in New Orleans, but Fanny makes a lot of them, along with another girl in our troupe.

Fanny N' Flames: Kitten's current costume is definitely inspired if not -- is it vintage?

Kitten La Rue: It's not vintage, but it's a direct replica of Wild Cherry's costume from the '40s.

Fanny N' Flames: Right. We all have different vintage costumes, but then we also had an amazing costumer in New Orleans who made a lot of our costumes true to the vintage aesthetic. I do a lot of the costuming and the headdresses especially, and the hats for the show. And we also work with J. Von Stratton Designs. She does a lot of the costumes as well. We work together. We definitely design all of the costumes ourselves and then create them through different means.

What goes into creating a show? How do you come up with a theme, and how does it go from conception to execution?

Kitten La Rue: Usually Fanny and I will sit down and just have a brainstorming session and think of different ideas and themes, based on themes used a lot in the '40s and '50s in burlesque acts. Then we'll try to stretch that to be a whole show. Then we start blocking out concepts -- the script, costuming, the music. I'm solely responsible for the most part for choosing music and choreographing group numbers. As far as laying out the production of the show, I do a lot of that, then Fanny starts designing the costume concepts and the colors.

She and I map out the show, then after we get it fully fleshed out we start rehearsing the girls, and we rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and sew and sew and sew and piece it all together and there it is.

Fanny N' Flames: With a big poof of glitter at the end -- pfff!

How long does that take, from brainstorming to stage?

Kitten La Rue: We usually work nonstop on a show for at least a solid month.

Fanny N' Flames: Like all free time. Insomnia nights.

Kitten La Rue: There's press, promotion, all that stuff. So much that goes into it. She and I handle all of that, really, so at least a solid month if not more.

Will you be starting that process again at the end of February, once you're done with the current run at the Triple Door?

Kitten La Rue: We're going to take a month off. Everybody needs a vacation right about now, because we've all been working hard on the new show. We'll take a little small break and have everyone waiting desperately for more.

So that means you do three different shows a year?

Kitten La Rue: No, we usually do about two. We usually have long runs, about three months. So we build about two shows, then so far we've been either touring or doing a stint somewhere else in the country during the summer months. So we'll do two shows in Seattle and then we'll usually spend our summers performing somewhere else.

Last summer you were on the east coast?

Kitten La Rue: Right, and the summer before that we were doing the Camel Tour.

Do you consider yourselves sex workers in any way, shape, or form at this point?

Kitten La Rue: For myself, absolutely not. For me it's theater. It's performance. Pure theater.

Fanny N' Flames: I don't either. There are obviously elements of sexuality in our performance. Strong elements. But no. I think that there's enough distance between -- we involve the audience very much in our performance, but there's enough distance and space...

Kitten La Rue: Honestly, sex is not even in the top five things that are the most prominent elements of our show. And that's not just coming from me, that's our audience. It's really about transporting yourself to another place, and it's about the costumes, and the music, and the dancing. The sexuality is almost a tongue-in-cheek side effect.

It's definitely sexy! But not in an obvious way.

Yes, it's definitely sexy. From a societal perspective, burlesque used to be much more "seedy."

Both: Absolutely.

I think someone like Gypsy Rose Lee would have acknowledged that people thought she was a sex worker, whether she thought so or not. Do you think the shift is primarily a change in the time's attitude towards what you're doing?

Kitten La Rue: Absolutely. Considering that what we're doing now is so much less titillating than what you see on the beach now. You know what I mean? It's all about the context. Compared to what you see on TV, what you see on the beach, what you see in movies, what we're doing just seems comparatively innocent and lighthearted.

Do you think people outside the burlesque scene get that, or do you think they still associate even contemporary stuff with being more risqué or sexual than it actually is?

Fanny N' Flames: I think it depends on where you are in the country, pretty much. In New Orleans, it was widely accepted and everybody was cool with what you were doing no matter what. I feel like people are more reserved on the West Coast and in Seattle. I haven't run into anybody who questioned what I did as a performer up here, but it's a different feel.

Kitten La Rue: Yeah. I would say that people are so jaded now to nudity in general -- and in our show we're covered in sequins and feathers and fishnets -- the general reaction we get is just "oh, that was so beautiful, so gorgeous." I don't think it's so much titillating anymore. It's almost titillating now because of what you don't reveal. That's almost the surprising part.

Fanny N' Flames: I agree with that. It's more about the tease and the connection with the audience through your eyes and facial expressions.

What do you think makes a great burlesque performance -- not just in your own show?

Fanny N' Flames: Somebody who can just get up on stage and own it, no matter what they look like. Some of the best performers I've ever seen don't have the most societally accepted forms of physical beauty. They're larger women who just get up on stage and work it like nothing I've ever seen before.

Kitten La Rue: The two things for me are confidence and humor. Every great performance I've seen has both of those elements. Like she said, someone who completely owns it and someone who gets it. They let you in on the joke. It's funny.

Fanny N' Flames: A lot of great performances are about revealing or letting the audience in on some sort of joke that's happening. So yeah, you've got to have humor, too, You can have all the rhinestones you want and still not be engaging.

Kitten La Rue: It's about not taking it too seriously. It should be fun and lighthearted and humorous, and when those elements are there, then that's entertaining for the audience.

This is another good question from my wife: Do your parents know that you're Bombshells, and have they seen the show?

Kitten La Rue: My dad has been to my show and he got a tear in his eye when I got done performing. So absolutely.

Fanny N' Flames: My mother definitely knows. My mother and father, but my mother's seen my show. As well as my brother, while he was covering his eyes at several points. My grandparents actually know as well, a more watered down version.

Kitten La Rue: The majority of the music I use and a lot of the stylistic elements I've gotten straight from my grandmother. So yeah, she sees our photos and is just thrilled.

Fanny N' Flames: The nana factor!

What are your future plans for the Bombshells? How long do you see it going -- indefinitely? Do you have a career path? Basically, what's your goal?

Kitten La Rue: Our immediate goal is to travel more with it, like we've already done.

As long as it gives us satisfaction and joy, then we'll keep doing it. It's definitely not going to be an indefinite thing. I know that we're going to want to do other things, and it basically consumes most of our life at this point. But that's great. We're young and glamorous and fabulous right now, and as long as we being that way, we'll keep on doing this.

Fanny N' Flames: She summed it up. As long as it keeps being fun, we'll keep doing it.

So you don't see yourself like Tempest Storm at 80, still doing burlesque?

Both: No, no, no!

Fanny N' Flames: More power to her, but no.

Kitten La Rue: There's a time limit.

Fanny N' Flames: There's a time to hang up the pasties!

Have you performed at the Miss Exotic World pageant?

Kitten La Rue: I have not been to the performance yet, but I plan to go this year.

Fanny N' Flames: Me, too. The first Tease-O-Rama was held in New Orleans, and we were part of that. And we've been to a couple of New York Burlesque Festivals, if not all three.

Where do you think the burlesque scene is in its pop culture life span? Still ascending, or kind of maxed out? I noticed that the PI, last time they mentioned your show, basically said that if you're not tired of burlesque already, the Atomic Bombshells are putting on a show. If the PI's sick of the scene, does that mean the mainstream has moved on?

Kitten La Rue: Like with any art form, I think it's going to have its moment where it's crammed down everyone's throats and therefore there's going to be a backlash, but burlesque is an art form that's existed for decades and decades. I can't see it going anywhere. We've definitely seen the rise and fall of mass interest, but if you have a quality show and quality entertainment, you're always going to have fans. Regardless of what's going on in pop culture with burlesque, we always have packed shows. Because we have a really great show. Provide a great show, people are going to like it no matter what's going on.

How do you attract someone to a show who's never been to a burlesque show before? Someone who might be curious, but not realize the difference between now and then, or this and a strip club, or whatever?

Kitten La Rue: I don't know how to appeal to them before they see the show, but once they get in there... Basically, the overwhelming response we get from people who've never seen a burlesque show before is they come out of it with a glazed look in their eyes and say, "That was so much more than I ever expected! I've never seen anything like it." Because it's this mixture of so many different things. It's funny, it's sexy, the music, the comedy, the dancing. It has so many elements of entertainment. The person who's never been exposed before basically is just dazzled.

Fanny N' Flames: I think a lot of people come to our show via word of mouth. Friends come to see it and then say, "Oh, my God, you've got to go see this show." That's why our show has been so successful.

The Atomic Bombshells are performing Fairy Tails the next three Wednesday nights (the 8th, the 15th, and the 22nd) at the Triple Door.