A trio of terrific ladies are set to take the City Hall Stage on Saturday night.

But while Queen of Bermuda Sybil Barrington, Queen of Comedy Harmonica Sun Beam and Tyra Colbaire (aka ?Grace Jones?) may all have talent and diva attitude to spare, they also have a few spare parts compared to other ladies.

The trio are all female impersonators who will be performing in a Blow Pop Production in City Hall Theatre.

Ms Sun Beam, for one, is no stranger to Bermuda and has invited everyone to come out and have a good time.

She describes her work as mainly stand up comedy with plenty of audience participation.

?I do some lip syncing and some dancing,? she said. ?And we will see whatever else comes off ? I kind of go with the flow with the show and the audience as well.?

Ms Sun Beam said she has been performing for several years and being a female illusionist was not a career that she had planned.

?It was something that I kind of basically stumbled onto ? tried it out and it worked,? she said. ?I went out with some friends to a show and I thought, that is something I could do. I went back and forth on whether I could do it and in a short amount of time I had given it a try and it worked out well.

?I kept coming back to it and each time I came back to it I added more to it.?

The work keeps her life exciting, she adds.

?I guess, because there are always different crowds to prepare for, different types of shows, and there is always a different energy with different crowds,? she said. ?So you never get the exact same show because everything changes and you don?t necessarily get bored.?

Ms Sun Beam has a appeared in a few films ? including 1995?s ?To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar? with Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes ? and also performs in a weekly show at club Escuelita, in Manhattan.

?That is every Sunday at 9 p.m. and the rest of the time is wherever people call me to work,? she said.

When asked if she was looking forward to the Bermuda show, she replied with almost Bermudjan aplomb ? ?Umm hmm, yeah.?

She said it has been awhile since she last performed in Bermuda but she has been hanging around the Island.

?Performing in Bermuda was quite sometime, maybe six years ago or so, but I was just here last year hanging out,? she said. ?I have quite a collection of Bermudian friends.?

Like most women, Ms Sun Beam prefers to be pampered.

?I do my own make up if I have to, but I prefer not to,? she said. ?It helps me to relax a lot more if I don?t have to worry that aspect of the show.?

She does not necessarily do people or characters as such.

?I am a personality and I don?t look like anyone necessarily,? she said. ?If I am doing a Diana Ross song then it is Harmonic Sun Beam doing Diana Ross as opposed to me myself being Diana Ross.

?So, more than likely, all that I do has a comedic flair to it. It is just me adding my touch to something.?

Being funny or the class clown was always something she has done.

?So, this is just another manifestation of that whole time from my younger years,? she said.

?Some people try and they realise it is not for them and some people find that they have a knack for it. I knew I could be silly with five or ten people and your friends, but it is a whole ?nother level once you are in front of a group or a whole club of people with a mic in your hand ? your friends may laugh at everything thing that you do, but these other people you have to make them laugh.

?Each audience is a new challenge, some are easy to please and others you have to find out what works for them and what goes over well of your audience and to take it from there.

?As a comedian, sometimes it is better to be prepared for your audience, but you can?t always get that first hand information. But if you can get as much as you can beforehand it helps a lot. Because if I knew it was going to be a younger crowd, as opposed to an older one, musically I can prepare for things that would appeal to them and keep them interested.

?And I prefer the term illusionist because for me that is all it is. I prepare for the show, do the show and punch out. It is like a time clock in a work wise sense.

?These are my work clothes and when I am not working you don?t see that, so it is an illusion for me.

?It is also an illusion for the audience, because 80 percent of what they see on the stage is probably not real, it is all put together to just to make it enjoyable for them.

?I want to let the Bermudian people know that if they come out to the show that night they will be in for a really wonderful evening of entertainment.

?Come with an open mind, enjoy yourself, don?t worry about what is on stage ? just enjoy yourself. I think sometimes we take things too seriously and we lose the meaning of it. It is not a political message, it is not this, it is not that, it is just a night to enjoy yourself.?

She and Ms Barrington have a long history and they worked in clubs all over New York and the United States together.

?Sybil used to work with me on my Monday night show in the Village years ago,? she said. She was my assistant and sidekick in the show.

?One club that we worked in was the Two Potato, which was a small quaint bar in the West Village that no longer exists. That?s where it all started.?

She said that was during the days when the Village was ?the Village?.

?The Village has changed a lot and most of the businesses and gay establishments have moved further up to Chelsea,? she said. ?So The Village is being renovated and gentrified and it is becoming more of a residential neighbourhood than an actual hangout or space for lesbians and gays in New York.?

The final performer who will be hitting the stage on Saturday night is Tyra Colbaire.

?We?ve all worked together before and we were a part of a group called The Illusions, which was a dinner show up in Harlem and we did it every Thursday night,? Ms Sun Beam said.

Queen of Bermuda, Ms Sybil Barrington said a random act of dressing up one Halloween led to her career as a female impersonator.

She and a group of friends dressed up as an entire wedding party.

?It was a good thing that we had done and it was during the days of Disco 40 and they used to have their Halloween contest and stuff,? she said.

?So, that year was the first major thing that we did and everybody that came down and brought more people to see it.?

Their little ?show? was so popular that others naturally followed.

?People were looking for entertainment within the drag world, so we were it,? she said.

?After that I was more interested in it and every year for Halloween we did it.?

Over the years they did Mother?s Day events and beauty pageants as well as private events.

One beauty pageant took place at the Clay House Inn.

?We had all the parishes like the real Miss Bermuda Pageant,? she said. ?But we called it the ?Not Necessarily the Miss Bermuda Pageant? and it was me, as Diana Ross again and I was representing Sandys, we had Miss Devonshire, Miss Smith?s, Miss Pembroke and Miss Warwick and the only parish that was unrepresented, if I am not mistaken, was St. George?s.

After moving to New York and winning great acclaim as a drag queen there, Ms Barrington returned to Bermuda in 1992 for another pageant ? this time with international contestants.

?The hardest part was that we were bringing in transsexuals, some were pre-op and some were post op,? she said.

That created controversy among the contestants. ?Miss Bermuda felt that she could not stand a chance because she was a ?straight up? guy,? Sybil recalled. ?But I must say, she pulled it off and although I can?t remember how she placed, but she was pretty high up. Miss Africa won and she was a raving honey ? gurl.?

While in New York, Ms Barrington performed at a various clubs for various celebrities including Geraldo Rivera, Cher, Diana Ross and Ivana Trump.

She developed quite a following and has been on just about every couch of every television talk show ? with the exception of Oprah.

?I did Jerry Springer before he became wild,? she said. ?But, I had to take it off of my credits because of what it is today.?

Among other career highlights were performing at the closing night of Club 54 and appearing along with Ms Sun Beam, in the ?To Wong Foo? film.

She also appeared on the HBO series ?Oz?.

Sybil had high praise for her costars this Saturday, Harmonica Sun Beam and Tyra Colbaire.

?She is very, very successful and she is just amazing,? she said of Ms Sun Beam. ?The gay and lesbians know who she is and that is why I am bringing her ? she?s really a kiki.

?She is funny, she is witty... I am re-introducing her to Bermuda, because I want them to see drag at its best...

?She likes to be called a drag illusionist, she doesn?t like to be called a drag queen... Harmonica is pretty much doing a one-woman show, and also Tyra is Grace Jones and she is something else.?

While Sybil has led and is leading a highly interesting life, she does admit to one regret.

?I am a proud Bermudian and the only regret is that I had to leave my country that I love and to become successful and famous in someone else?s country,? she said.

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