Today we’d like to introduce you to Blake Fountain.
Blake, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I grew up in a house where humor was both survival and escape. I was raised primarily by my grandparents, who gave me stability, warmth, and a deep love for storytelling. Theatre became the place where I felt safest and most understood, so I chased it hard. I earned degrees in musical theatre and entertainment business, worked my way into arts administration, and built a career supporting the arts while still being an active performer and creator.
Drag has been part of my life for over a decade. Tugboat began as a creative outlet and grew alongside me, evolving from scrappy performance experiments into a fully realized persona rooted in camp, live singing, and joyful chaos. Rather than pulling me away from theatre, drag became an extension of it. My training, my admin brain, my love of old Hollywood, and my need to make people laugh all found a shared language through Tugboat.
Today, I wear a few hats. I work full-time in arts education administration, perform regularly as Tugboat, act professionally onstage, and serve on the Board of Directors at Out Front Theatre Company, where I help support queer storytelling. I also write original pieces that blend humor with healing. At the core of it all is a belief in chosen family, access to the arts, and using laughter as a way to tell the truth and bring people together.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No, it hasn’t been a smooth road. My mother was not a consistent presence in my childhood so much as an abusive houseguest who moved in and out, always leaving chaos in her wake. Because of that instability, humor became a defense mechanism early on, a way to diffuse tension and protect myself. I was raised primarily by my grandparents, who provided the steadiness, care, and sense of safety that allowed me to grow.
Professionally, the challenges have been about balance and belonging. I’ve spent years juggling full-time work with performing, writing, and creating at night, and I didn’t always fit neatly into a single category. For a long time, that felt like a liability rather than an asset.
Over time, I learned to see those experiences as formative rather than limiting. They shaped how I build chosen family, how I collaborate, and how I use humor not just to entertain, but to tell the truth. If nothing else, I’m confident I’ll have the most interesting obituary.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My work lives at the intersection of theatre, drag, and comedy. As Tugboat, I’m known for live singing, high camp, and performances that are chaotic in the best way but still rooted in craft. There’s always a point of view behind the joke. I love taking something classic or familiar and twisting it just enough to make it feel fresh, queer, and a little dangerous.
As a writer, I’m most known for Mamma Dearest: Here We Joan Again, which let me bring together everything I care about—old Hollywood, musical theatre, parody, and deeply personal storytelling. That piece, like a lot of my work, uses humor as a way to process hard truths and build community, especially around themes of chosen family and survival.
What I’m most proud of is longevity. I’m still a working performer more than a decade after finishing my undergraduate degree, and I’ve managed to grow without burning out or losing my voice. I’ve built a career that allows me to act, perform drag, write original work, and stay connected to the theatre community in meaningful ways.
What sets me apart is that I don’t separate the “serious” work from the silly work. The camp, the comedy, and the craft all matter equally to me. I take the joke seriously, and I take the heart underneath it just as seriously.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
Chaos. I’m comfortable when things are a little unhinged, and I know how to turn that into something fun instead of stressful. I trust my instincts, I prepare enough to be flexible, and I’m not afraid of things going sideways.
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Image Credits
Trick Promo: Sydney Lee
