Alexis Sakellaris is the definition of main character energy—and their solo show A STAN IS BORN! proves it. Blending fierce vocals, campy comedy, and heartfelt storytelling, Alexis transforms their obsession with pop divas into a hilarious and moving theatrical spectacle. Ahead of their six-show run at Riverside Studios, we caught up with the artist to talk diva fairy godmothers, rural German culture shock, and the power of stanning yourself first.
Your show “A STAN IS BORN!” is part musical, part comedy, part diva worship. What sparked the idea to turn your pop obsession into a full-blown theatrical experience?
So many different influences !! On the one hand, I’ve been obsessed with pop and R&B divas all my life, and paying homage to them has always been a dream of mine. My identity as a “stan”, or a superfan, of these powerful, otherworldly women has gotten me through many tough times, like moving from New York City to middle-of-nowhere, Germany. They made me feel safe, they shaped and raised me, gave me my voice and taught me how to sing. They also helped me cultivate relationships with the actual women in my life. Diva worship is so fascinating to me because it’s the one thing that’s remained the most consistent in my life: I just love women!!
My musical theatre background also plays a HUGE role. Seeing Julie Andrews onscreen for the first time made me go “who is this diva?!” I found my place amongst so many theatre kids who dream of the big stage. But I wasn’t encouraged to create my own work until I came to London for drama school. While I was at Mountview, we had to complete our degree by filling 30 minutes of stage time and writing a thesis on that. We were given total freedom, no rules, no limitations – and I had absolutely no clue what to do.
Luckily, this period in my life coincided with a part-time job as an usher at Soho Theatre, where I basically got paid to watch shows. A whole new world opened up to me – comedy, drama, standup, solo shows, sketch groups, experimental/autobiographical/cutting-edge theatre, the greatest things you’ll ever see, the worst things you’ll ever see – the beauty is the variety. So often, especially as a politically-minded queer person, traditional musical theatre can feel so restrictive. Fringe theatre is an exciting and vital breath of fresh air that consistently brings the entertainment industry to a more progressive place. This discovery deeply inspired me to try my own hand at writing, and the first 30 minutes of A STAN IS BORN! were (sorry) born! Mountview responded super well to my musical theatre/musical comedy/singer-songwriter/fringe-solo-show vibe and encouraged me to develop it further.
I had to park it, though, because the week of graduation, I was discovered by comedian Matt Rogers! He heard me singing in the Soho Theatre office and invited me to sing a duet with him in his show Have You Heard of Christmas? This resulted in a week of shows together in the Main House and then a full US tour! I am, of course, a huge fan of his podcast Las Culturistas, which he co-hosts with Bowen Yang, so getting to work with someone I am literally a stan of felt like some kind of gay Cinderella story. The generosity, the lack of gatekeeping, that was what really got me. I had a sense that Matt genuinely wanted to pay it forward and was gladly sharing his spotlight with me. Not to mention, he’s a brilliant musical comedian with an incredible voice, so I was given a front-row seat into what putting on your own show is like. I couldn’t have asked for a more exciting or fitting first professional gig!
Getting back to London afterwards, I was buzzing with creative energy and needed somewhere to put it, so I locked myself in my room and banged out the rest of my show in about 2 weeks. I quickly noticed that there wasn’t a huge pool of musical comedians to draw from, especially queer ones, but I absorbed everything I could find: Bo Burnham, Rachel Bloom, Cat Cohen, John Early, they’re all just masters of the form. As a singer first and foremost, I gravitate heavily to trained vocals and seek to bring comedy together with good musicianship. Often in musical comedy, vocals are the butt of the joke: comics sing badly on purpose to generate laughs (which I sadly don’t think is very funny or creative… sorry no shade lol). Instead, I think there’s nothing funnier than a trained singer taking themselves so seriously, going off the rails with a complex and ridiculous riff. There’s so much comedy in that! I also just want the songs to be catchy and be able to stand out on their own, out of the show’s context. So I wrote around 12 songs, impatiently applied for the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024, and the rest is history!
PHEW that was a doozy, but the combination of all these influences, plus a general love of pop culture, helped me create A STAN IS BORN! (a HEAVY dose of Glee in there as well of course, no way around that <3)
Moving from New York to rural Germany sounds like a cultural plot twist. How did that shift shape the story—or the humour—in your show?
Oh, it absolutely was… still haven’t recovered, to be honest !! Growing up on New York’s doorstep, we would often go into the city to see Broadway shows, Met operas, ballets, as a child I was honestly fatigued! Like, “UGH, the Nutcracker? Again?? I just wanna watch cartoons!”
But then my parents decided to move us to rural Germany (for reasons I have yet to understand…) and suddenly we were stripped of that. Now it was cows, fields, woods, vineyards, delicious bread… in short, nothing a New York City child would care for. And then the language barrier on top of that! German is a notoriously difficult language to learn, and I was 8 years old, thrust into a German school with no one speaking fluent English around me.
The culture shock definitely informs the show’s comedy, because it resulted in some hilarious misunderstandings that I think are important to represent. When you grow up cross-culturally, there often is an absence of a clear sense of humor: you’re exposed to so many different types of comedy, so many references you don’t understand, subtleties you can’t detect, you end up disconnecting and finding nothing funny – that was my experience, at least. What I’m always able to connect to, though, is comedy that stems from cultural differences. My family lives it every day: the culture clash between my parents alone (Italy vs Greece/Austria) is lived out in day-to-day life and leads to hilarious comedy that they don’t even recognize. I’ve always wanted to put that onstage and present a cultural mixture that I haven’t seen many times before.
I also wanted to give a voice to my younger self who was struggling, who was feeling out of place and didn’t know where home was anymore. It took years to learn how to code-switch and feel comfortable in multiple cultures, I had some real difficulties fitting in. There’s something so healing in acting out that confusion, but having the benefit of hindsight to now laugh about those situations.
In the end, I am grateful for the move because it gave me a more global, holistic perspective and exposed me to so many different life experiences. It also made me more adaptable and educated me culturally than if I had stayed in one place (especially in the US right now, things are oh so dire…) So you can expect culture clashes, immigration humor, multilingual elements and LOADS of accents (only the ones I’m allowed to do, of course)!
Pop divas play a huge role in the show. Who was your first ever stan-worthy icon, and what did they mean to you at the time?
2 words… *Quebecois accent* Céline. DION. My French Canadian queen. The show opens with my hilarious discovery of her: on my first day of German school, we were forced to sing “My Heart Will Go On” in music class so our flamboyant choir director could suss out who could sing. I had heard the song on the radio, so I panicked and did a wild impression of her. The choir director was so impressed, he decided to make me the principal soloist. That all happened because of Céline (and not at all because no other boy wanted to sing the choir solos) so I went down my first internet rabbit hole, absorbing every single fact and clip I could of her.
The reason it meant so much to me was because through Céline, I experienced my first sense of belonging. She came to me like a fairy godmother and led the way to that choir, my first safe space. My way of giving back to her was through becoming a stan, an absolute expert on her life and her body of work, and trying to spread that worship to others. From Céline, the diva worship just cascaded on and on (a diva never exists in a vacuum!) so I now have this incredible arsenal of women who helped me get through difficult times and kept teaching me new things.
My biggest dream for the show is to actually turn it into an animated series that follows exactly that, a young queer kid feels out of place in his new home and different divas come to him like fairy godmothers to help him overcome daily struggles. Kind of a Fairly OddParents meets Powerpuff Girls meets Winx Club. That’s the vibe I’m trying to create in the live show as well!
You blend original music, storytelling, and comedy in your performance. What’s your process like when writing a song that’s both hilarious and heartfelt?
Ooh that’s a good question! There’s so many ways, and I’ve tried out a couple methods, but what works best for me is just sitting down at my keyboard and improving my little heart out. The very first song I wrote for the show, for example (Stand Up For Your Stan, my opening number), I started writing that song by just rhyming the divas’ names together (Mariah, Shania, Céline or Beyoncé? Gaga, Ariana or maybe Solangé?) That just flowed out of me because of how simple it was, but it’s pretty much the best part of the song! I often have some funny lyrics ready, or a funny concept that I want to work on, and I just combine those with really simple chords to create a bare structure. My biggest rule is keep things simple at the start – there’s always time to make things more complex later on! Sometimes I have a melody I think is pretty and I just repeat that over and over until the lyrics come. Sometimes I just think of funny lines or rhymes when I’m away from the piano and I have to record myself on my phone or hit the Notes app. Oh yeah, a big thing for me is recording myself at all times once I sit down at the piano. There’s nothing more frustrating than thinking of a genius idea and having it immediately disappear into the ether, happens to me all the time. So I always record myself and listen back, which then gives me more ideas on what to change and improve on. It’s a real Frankenstein-y process, some songs come together really quickly in, like, 10 mins, others take literal months or even years to complete. It’s all about creating and collecting puzzle pieces that you can then slot in later on. And the comedy is often in the delivery! As I mentioned, I’m really into vocals, so I let the singing shape the song more than anything, letting loose and improvising vocally when I want to. I’m not strict about music theory, the piano is great accompaniment, but my focus is definitely on the vocals and lyrics. That’s the beauty of doing a solo show, you’re in total control and can decide what to place value on!
The show explores both the power and the pitfalls of stan culture. What did you learn about yourself while creating it?
The biggest lesson I learned is ironically also the thesis of the show: before you can stan someone else, you have to stan YOURSELF. That’s really put to the test when you’re performing to an audience of 3 at Edinburgh Fringe… but it’s such a valuable lesson, and one I keep learning and appreciating over and over again! If you have self-love, the love you have for others will be strong and healthy. But if you harbor self-hate, your stanning will be destructive. And we see this reflected in many standoms (don’t come for me, Barbs!!) Often, the toxicity of stanning results in beefing online, tearing each other down, pitting women against one another. I believe that energy is a product of low self-esteem, an attempt to compensate for a lack of validation with a secret hope that your fave will be the one to validate you. I like to go about it in the opposite way: the divas give me strength, inspiration and guidance so that I can find the things I love about myself and develop my own identity, not base my identity solely around them. Yes, I’m a pro at stanning others, but that energy should also be directed inward. That way, I can lead with joy and focus on uplifting the people around me, rather than bringing them down.
As a performer, this is often put to the test, because comedy shows quite literally rely on external validation. But I’ve had to learn that, no matter what size my audience is, I need to love myself and my show and make sure I’m internally validating myself so that my worship of others does not come at the cost of my own self-worth.
You’ve performed everywhere from Soho Theatre to Brooklyn and now Riverside Studios. How do different audiences respond to the show’s mix of camp, comedy, and chaos?
Oh goodness, it’s really varied heavily across the board! I feel like different sectors of the population respond differently to my show: young, queer, Gen Z people very much see themselves reflected when I talk about stan culture, so they’re very interactive and loud and cheerful. I’ve had people my age moved to tears, they’ve given me really sweet feedback like “gay Bo Burnham” or compared me warmly to My Son’s a Queer, which is much too high praise. Older people often don’t know much about stanning, and a lot of the references are harder for them to catch, but they still enjoy the performance and the music, they’re just not as vocal in their reactions. Soho Theatre and London in general have brought in very progressive audiences, or audiences used to queer shows. Edinburgh Fringe, on the other hand, was a real cross-section of the population, so I had older, straight men in as well who probably didn’t have a clue what was going on! My straight older brother, for example: he can recognize that something is good (the singing, the acting, etc), he just doesn’t relate to the material because it’s not his life experience. I actually find that so entertaining, and it makes me better as a performer to receive feedback from people who don’t necessarily relate to the show as much.
What advice would you give to queer creatives looking to turn their personal experiences into powerful—and funny—art?
Honestly? Be shameless. Not only shameless, but shameless in the way a mediocre white man is shameless. If there’s one thing I’ve recently learned from gigging in the London standup scene: the confidence of the straight white man is unparalleled – and unchecked. Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean they’re good (on the contrary lol). They’re just completely uninhibited. We, as marginalized people, need to start living life like that.
The thing is, if you’re part of a marginalized group, you often feel as though you have to be much much better than the norm to be loved and accepted, and that often leads to not trying something at all (that’s how I often feel, at least). Because we have such a high bar for ourselves, we believe the bar is high in the outside world as well. I’m here to say – it’s really not. Once you go out there and see what other people are doing, you will know what I mean. In fact, your marginalization often makes you better than the average person already out there. It’s just society holding us back, skewing our perspectives and setting us up in a world where our confidence is lower and where we need more time to start doing something. Straight white cis-men don’t have that. They spend their lives in the center, being told that everything’s for them, they just go for stuff and consequently don’t realize when they’re not actually good at something. This natural confidence is often misplaced and annoying, but I actually kind of admire it. So in this queer show, I’m ironically trying to channel my inner straight guy (despite being queer as hell obvi) just to give me an extra dose of confidence and quiet those thoughts of self-doubt.
Another piece of advice: exposure therapy. Just go to as many gigs as you can, see as many shows as you can, absorb the things you like and don’t like, support friends who are performers, get to know people your age who are doing shows… For me, getting out there in the scene, going to gigs and performing small sets is the best way for me to meet people and make friends, but also get a sense of what’s out there and what the standard is. Being an expert in something is a surefire way to get involved in it later down the line. Get invited to parties, make friends, foster connections, build a strong network, play the long game !! Nothing happens instantaneously in this industry, even though it may seem like it. Even the biggest overnight success takes at least a decade of work to happen.
Also, if you’re not satisfied with your own artform, find another one! There’s so much out there. I’ve gone from traditional musical theatre to musical comedy to stand up to online political TikToks (lol), and hoping to be in film and TV one day. There’s so much out there to discover, leaving your bubble makes you grow and educates you on different experiences, and also just makes life more exciting. For example, I NEVER considered myself a person who could make people laugh because I was trained to strive for perfection onstage, rather than embracing the messiness. But finally, I got over myself and stepped out of my comfort zone (and leaned on my friends who graciously always have patience with me when I ask them “Is this funny?!” for the nth time) I realized I can actually do anything I want as long as my heart is in the right place and I have the passion and the means. And of course, make sure your morals are in the right place. Don’t be afraid to be outspoken and political!
If you could host a diva karaoke night anywhere in Shoreditch who’s on your dream guest list and what’s the opening number?
OMG I’ve been begging to do this for YEARS, please, if you know anyone who can hook me up, let me know !! I can NOT choose, but my opening number would be Fantasy by Mariah Carey, sung by me and Tori Kelly. We would have the actress playing Céline Dion in Titanique come on and do her thing, of course Cher Lloyd and Cheryl Cole will sing a duet. I feel like actual Cher would be a hoot as well, she’d likely do some Abba. Diana Ross is on tour right now, so she also comes in and sings Listen from Dreamgirls (meta full-circle moment, for those who know). My DREAM dream list though would of course be Whitney and Amy in a room together, me getting to tell them how much they mean to me, and us then singing an angelic rendition of I Know Him So Well. Doesn’t that sound like heaven??
xxx
A STAN IS BORN! by Alexis Sakellaris
Riverside Studios, 101 Queen Caroline Street, London, W6 9BN
Date: 10-29 May
Ticket price: £12/15
Tickets are now on sale via:
https://riversidestudios.co.uk/see-and-do/a-stan-is-born-156003/
