Lashes, Lipstick, and Leukemia: Philly Drag Legend Martha Graham Cracker Tells All

Dito van Reigersberg a.k.a. Martha Graham Cracker / Photograph by Kyle Kielinski

Raised in Virginia, trained in New York, and now a full-fledged local legend, South Philly resident Dito van Reigersberg talks platform boots, bone marrow, and drag in the time of Trump as he celebrates 20 years of the Martha Graham Cracker Cabaret.

Let me start with congratulations. Twenty years of Martha!
It’s pretty wild.

Y’all have your big anniversary show coming up at the Miller Theater next month, which I understand is the biggest venue you’ve played to date. What will that look like?
I am nervous to perform at this unprecedented scale. There will be some notion of cabaret-style seating toward the front of the audience — on top of the orchestra pit. And I may indulge in a little bit of reminiscing and nostalgia, like I guess you should on a special anniversary.

Did you know you were onto something so big — so lasting — when you first started?
I had no clue. I knew … well, what did I know? Not very much. I went to acting school in New York, and I’d seen these drag queens — singing, not lip-sync, drag queens. It was exciting to me. All my life I’ve loved singing, and here it was suddenly, like, “Wait, this is something I can do.”

That must have felt …
Tantalizing. Though I was a bit scared too. Like, “Can I do this? Will my parents come see it?” In a weird way it felt connected to coming out and that whole delicate experience. In the earliest days, it was just me and Victor Fiorillo on piano. A duo. We soon added Andrew Nelson on bass and Ned Sonstein on drums. And then in 2008, we decided we needed a guitar, so that’s when Rich Hill became a member of the band. And we played a monthly show at L’Etage in Bella Vista until COVID shut that down.

Did your folks come see it?
Yes. My dad wanted my mom to go first and tell him how it was. I think maybe he imagined it might be scary, or, like, hypersexual. My mom went and said, “I really don’t think you’re gonna be freaked out.” So then my dad came and thought it was great. He saw it was really playful. Fun. He’d come and see me all the time.

My understanding is that your parents had pretty high-powered careers in D.C. as language interpreters for people like Neil Armstrong and George H.W. Bush. Were they cool with you deciding to go into theater?
They were. My parents were big theater attendees, and my mom loved opera. They took me to plays all the time as a kid. They were the rare parents who said if it makes you happy, you should do it. So I was really, really lucky in that regard.

Dito van Reigersberg with parents Fernando and Stephanie in Georgetown in 1973 / Photograph courtesy of Dito van Reigersberg

Beyond your parents, what was the reception to Martha in those early days? Were you a hit from go?
Oh, we definitely had to build it up. Back then, we felt lucky — really excited — if 20 people came to the show. Then we started building a song repertoire, and I started feeling more comfortable as the character. I got better at knowing how to read a person’s playfulness or not-playfulness — a very important skill if you’re doing crowd work.

And Martha is known for her crowd work.
Often people are like, “Should I be scared? Are you going to attack me?” But I will only attack you if you seem to want that. Martha is pretty sweet. She doesn’t want anyone to look like a fool or feel bad.

How much of that banter is impromptu versus rehearsed? What’s the creative process like?
Basically, the band and I collaborate on a set: These are the songs, this is the order. It’s pretty fun singing with the same band for 20 years. We have this real understanding. The first song might set a tone for the rest of the show. Like, oh, this show is about feminism. Or this show is about flirting techniques. This show is about how tired I am. But then once the first song starts, it’s really about who’s in the audience, what the vibe is. So there’s a lot of riffing. Sometimes, I make lists in my phone of things I’m thinking about — a little brainstorm about topics that might come up.

Can you share a current list?
It really won’t make sense to anyone. I don’t even remember writing some of these things. But, okay, here it goes: the power behind the throne. No wire hangers. My grandmother. Blue. Wicked. Toilets overflowing. Luigi, the CEO killer. Spray and pray. Canada. Curling. And oh, bag of drag story.

Bag of drag?
[Here, Dito tells a funny story, too long for our purposes, about how a fan once took his Martha costumes — a.k.a. the bag of drag — and nearly lost them forever in a New York taxi. I tell him it reminds me of Hemingway’s wife once losing his manuscripts on a train, which leads to a brief discussion of Hemingway’s tragic death by suicide.]

Yikes. I didn’t mean to take us down this dark road. Quite a detour.
Yeah. Let’s talk instead about how drag is going to be outlawed in the next six weeks of this presidency.

Oof. I was going to save politics for later, but let’s do it. Where’s your head at right now with all of this?
God, I’m just trying to keep my head at all. There’s just so much going on that feels destructive. And … what’s the word? Vindictive. Yeah, this feels like a presidency of revenge. Of burning everything down. And really bullying. Like this — bullying — is the new mode that makes us American. It’s scary, of course, in terms of all my LGBTQ brethren and sistren. And artists. Taking over the Kennedy Center is a disturbing move. I feel very sure that this man has never seen a play, gone to the opera, gone to see dance. So it’s like, why are you doing this? And I guess the short answer is probably control and power. And again, revenge. It feels like a really scary time to be an American.

I agree.
And yet one of the things I love about Philadelphia, why I’m so proud to call this place home, is not just that we now have the best football team, but because it’s also a place where I feel — knocking wood as I say this — pretty safe as a drag queen. Like, we are considered part of the fabric of the community, part of what makes the city great. And I think a lot of people feel that way. It’s a very accepting city.

Martha Graham Cracker with longtime stylist Max Brown / Photograph courtesy of Dito van Reigersberg

Speaking of great and acclaimed Philly things, your theater company, Pig Iron, debuted 30 years ago, right? Multiple anniversaries!
I know! I feel so old. Yeah, in 1995, Quinn Bauriedel, Dan Rothenberg, and I started making summertime shows at Swarthmore, where I went to college. We decided to make a play and go to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest and most important art festival in the world. We did that two years in a row, ’95 and ’96.

Then the first Philly Fringe Festival, modeled on Edinburgh’s, took place in ’97. By then, I’d graduated from acting school and was in New York feeling like commercial acting wasn’t my way to go. We were all still pretty excited about Pig Iron. So it was just one of those lucky, lucky things. We did Philly Fringe, and it was fun and went super well. So we put down roots in Philly, started making shows here and growing little by little.

How involved in Pig Iron are you these days?
Very. We just made this piece for the last Fringe Festival called Poor Judge, an Aimee Mann cabaret, which did really well. And I’m teaching in the grad school we’ve had for, God, 11 years now.

Your husband, Matthew, is a choreographer and co-founder of yet another city gem, BalletX.
We’ve been married for three years and together for 20. He and Martha were kind of neck and neck.

Dito van Reigersberg with husband Matthew Neenan (left) at their wedding in September 2021 / Photograph courtesy of Dito van Reigersberg

What’s it like to have two artists under one roof?
I think we’re mutual fans. I’m always blown away by his artistry. And it’s nice to see the inner workings. He’ll say sometimes, “Okay, do you think it’s this or this for the first song?” Or “What about this title?” It’s fun to collaborate on these things. We also have to go over each other’s calendars — we’re both always kind of bopping in and out.

I know Martha frequently plays Joe’s Pub in New York. I just read, actually, that Marisa Tomei and Christian Slater showed up there , separately, for shows. Any other celebrity visits stand out for you?
Well, Joey Arias, the first drag queen I ever saw, came and sang with me once. We sang the old jazz standard “Why Don’t You Do Right?” — the Jessica Rabbit song, as some know it. Which was wildly crazy and lucky and surreal. And Rachel Bay Jones, a Broadway actress I love, came and we became friends, so I got to sing with her too.

What’s your favorite song to sing, overall?
Huge question. It changes all the time. Right now I’m really into “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window.” It’s the Beatles, but there’s an Ike and Tina Turner version of it. We’re doing it closer to her style. It’s really funky. It’s got stank on it. And a really sexy bass line. Andrew, our bassist, is very excited.

Oh, on the topic of bandmates: I have to note here that your keyboardist, Victor Fiorillo, is also my colleague here at the magazine. What’s it like spending so much time with that guy?
My nickname for him is Ruff Ruff. He can be very sweet, but the first impression you get is that he’s pretty gruff. A little bit like “don’t waste my time.” Which I appreciate. That’s a good voice to have in a band — someone who wants to keep it moving. But when I say sweet: When I was in the hospital with leukemia in 2022, he and my friend Stephanie organized a drive with a group called Be the Match to have people scrape the inside of their cheeks to see if they could be bone marrow donors. A bunch of people came.

Martha took a break for more than a year after your leukemia diagnosis. What a scary time that must have been.
I felt so supported by my friends and family. But yeah, it’s like there’s the moment before you hear someone say the big C, and then there’s the after. Like losing your virginity. You’ll never­ be the same. So maybe it’s more intense than losing your virginity. You have to form a relationship with the idea that you’re not going to always be here. You learn a lot about how precious time is. I got really­ weak from all the chemo. I did magnesium infusions every day, at first for four hours a day, and had this no-nonsense­ nurse who said to me, “You need to treat this like your full-time job.” Then I showed her my calendar: “So I should cancel all these shows?” “Yeah,” she said. “Cancel.”

It’s pretty scary to go from being a performer, having a great time and feeling good, and then suddenly my only job is working on getting rid of this leukemia. I don’t even know how to talk about that, exactly. It puts a lot of things in perspective. Like, okay, those are just shows. When I recover, I can do more shows.

Did any of those swabs turn up a match?
I’m too weird. There was no one they could find in all the world who matched with me. So they took stem cells from a donor umbilical cord and introduced them to my system, and those cells built new bone marrow. I now have 100 percent my donor’s bone marrow.

I was at your comeback show at Union Transfer in 2024. The crowd was visibly moved. Did you feel the love?
I felt so much love, especially because my leukemia doctor, Dr. Lai, came. It was an amazing thing to point to her and say, “This is the reason I’m able to return.”

Martha Graham Cracker / Photograph by Kyle Kielinski

What is it about Martha that resonates with so many people?
Oh, God, I have no idea. Maybe it’s a bunch of things coming together. If you’re just a person who likes music, hopefully the music side of the show is satisfying to you. And maybe there’s a feeling like anything could happen, which is exciting and weirdly liberating. My favorite compliment I’ve ever gotten is “My face hurt after your show, I was laughing and smiling so much.” That’s all I really want: people to go on a crazy journey with a drag queen and have a great time and a deep belly laugh.

Once, in an interview, you said that you thought live music experiences were a bit like church, a sort of communion. Are you religious at all? Can I ask that? I figure we’ve talked politics. Might as well toss in religion.
Everything you’re not supposed to talk about. This is a terrible dinner party.

I know! I’m sorry.
I was weirdly fascinated by religion as a child. It felt very profound to me. We went to Catholic Mass a little when I was growing up, but I don’t remember it too well. I think — well, getting back into politics a bit — there’s so much hypocrisy around ideas of religious belief, so many holier-than-thou stances and real misreadings of what religion is supposed to be. So my feelings are complicated, because there are things at the core of religion that are very interesting to me, especially in terms of communion or community, or how we are all interdependent, or how there’s mystery we don’t understand. But I guess when it comes to organized religion, I am suspicious.

So, what inspires you as Martha? Or … Dito? How much of Martha is Dito?
She’s more of a peacock than I am. Always flirtatious. I’m inspired by songs that allow her to emote — it’s a good moment in any show when Martha gets to be really heartbroken. It’s almost like she’s my id, my emotions writ large. She’s been given permission to exist without the Dito modesty. Martha is like, “Of course everyone wants to hear about my love life, and how I’m so angry, and now, how I’m really sad, but now, I’ve found this other person!” She’s quicksilver. Kind of like how dogs behave. Very pure, clear emotions. Not subtle.

You’re 52 now. Is Martha 52?
Oh, no. She’s older. And younger. She’s 75 and 25.

On Martha’s 10th anniversary, you told a reporter for this magazine that you’d keep going “until I break a leg or maim an audience member.” Still true? Will we be talking again in 10 years?
My God. I’ll be 62 if we get to 30 — pretty old for a drag queen. But not impossible. Roll me out in the chair. Certainly this is something that keeps me feeling young. So maybe that’s the answer. Maybe I’ll keep doing the exact same thing.

Barring any maiming of audience members.
Yes, please, Lord. There are columns at Joe’s Pub that I like to climb in my high-heeled platform shoes. It’s very stupid of me; I’m barely gripping on. One false move, and I could definitely fall on someone. My husband’s like, “Can we make a deal that you don’t do this anymore?” I said, “I’ll think about it.” Maybe it’s a footwear change. If I’m wearing a sensible boot, I might still have to climb.

Martha Graham Cracker’s Performance Review

Dito van Reigersberg a.k.a. Martha Graham Cracker on the three most pivotal concerts he’s ever attended

Lionel Richie

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My first concert was Lionel Richie, which was, like, ’84? But guess what? Guess who opened for him? It was Tina Turner! Isn’t that weird!? It was the moment when he was king of the world, and she was just building back after splitting with Ike. I think she’d just put out Private Dancer. I was with my mom, and was like, “Who is this?”

Aretha Franklin

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I’ve seen Aretha three times. One of these was a more gospel-type show, and that’s the one I’ll never forget. I was moved by the intensity of feeling in the music. At one point, she was really getting into it, and the music really started cooking, so she kicked off her shoes and danced in a way that seemed ecstatic, and man! My jaw dropped, and I got the goosebumps.

Cyndi Lauper

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Cyndi Lauper was at Joe’s Pub because she was about to release her ballads album. She was like [does a perfect impression of Lauper’s timbre/accent], “I know my album is so sad, it’s like ‘Girls Just Wanna Cry.’” I actually think it was called At Last. She took off her shoes and walked between and on top of the tables. That must have imprinted on me somewhere. That woman is so gifted, so good. And she’s still doing it.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Published as “Long Live the Queen” in the May 2025 issue of Philadelphia magazine.