When comedian Tim Murray first saw the musical Wicked on Broadway, he had no choice but to make Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, his entire personality.
Years later, he’s touring the country with his hilarious one-man show, Tim Murray Is Witches—just in time for the Halloween season—which is all about the impact Elphaba, Sabrina, and other cackling, broom-handling, and frequently green women had on his life as a young gay man trying to make sense of his identity.
In other words, Murray is well aware of the ways pop culture can shape and define who we are, which is precisely why we invited him to make his picks for The Queer Time Capsule, our ongoing project where our favorite LGBTQ+ stars select five items from the culture that they feel are worthy of being preserved for future generations.
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Now in the middle of his second national tour for Tim Murray Is Witches, the seasoned comic is more comfortable than ever on the stage—and in the green face-paint—and it shows, because this show sings. Literally. It’s the perfect blend of original music, stand-up and a heaping dose of crowdwork.
To Murray’s delight, all kinds of audiences are howling along at Witches, from the queers and the witchy girlies, to the notoriously hard to please gay guys, and even the straights!
“The show is about me growing up queer in a small town in Ohio and feeling like a witch because of it,” Murray shares. “But it’s also about making the audience feel good—we’re welcoming you in, making you comfortable, and just letting everyone have a little fun.”
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In Murray’s view, the fact that he’s been able to throw himself into a show that’s so specific to him, yet one that allows for anyone to see themselves in his story, is a sign that the culture is moving in the right direction.
“It’s getting so much better,” he adds. “The fact that there are so many other queer people doing stand-up and comedy right now really opened the door for our community to be seen more, to be respected more, and importantly to want to support each other more. Not everything ‘queer’ has to represent our specific experience, but it can open us up to different perspectives. If we want more gay media, we have to keep supporting all of it.”
And speaking of gay media: Murray made a pit stop in the middle of his Witches tour to chat with Queerty about some of the pop culture—you know, aside from Elphaba—that he feels helped shape the queer community of today, from one very specific scary movie wig to the underwear responsible for many an awakening.
What else deserves a place in our Queer Time Capsule? Tim Murray makes the case for 5 (plus 1 bonus!) timeless emblems of queer culture below.
1. Drew Barrymore’s Scream wig
I had to look it up, because I was like, “that’s definitely a wig, right?” That was not her real hair—of course, there’s a wig; she had jet-black hair at the time. But, I mean, if you look at the poster of Scream, that wig is the most prominent thing—it’s, like, in the foreground of the photo. It’s all wig, and then Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox are kind of in the background. [Laughs.] That’s one of the greatest scenes in film history. And whatever it is about Scream—queer people love horror, and that’s a whole other conversation, but we love Scream. And now there’s even p*rn where, like, people are wearing that Ghostface mask. It’s a popular subset of the internet now! That’s how iconic the movie is.
2. One of Rue McClanahan’s jackets from The Golden Girls
Specifically a sparkly sequined jacket—just one of Rue McClanahan’s piece from The Golden Girls… with the shoulder pads, of course. I’m obviously a ’90s baby, so ’90s culture is so huge to me, and a lot of these are ’90s references. But I also think that—not to go there—the ’80s were what they were for the gay community and it was definitely still happening in the ’90s, but there was sort of this feeling that we were figuring it out a little bit at that time and finding ourselves in these things from the recent past. I think the ’90s is so huge for queer people.
2. Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time” outfit
At the same time, we were also going backwards in a lot of ways as far as representation in the ’90s goes. So, I don’t know, that’s maybe why my next thing is Britney’s whole “Baby One More Time” outfit. We literally all were obsessed—we just agreed we love this person. It’s kind of this inexplicable “je ne sais quoi” that we are all obsessed with as queer people.
3. A Calvin Klein underwear box
You know, you’d just go to Target or whatever with your mom, and you’d be like, “Okay, I’m gonna go to this section over here for a second and just… stare at these hot men on the cover of these boxes. It’s like all we had before the internet! That literally was our p*rn. “Honey, back in our day…” [Laughs.]
5. Nancy Kerrigan’s silver medal
And finally Nancy Kerigan’s silver medal from the 1994 Winter Olympics. But I would argue both [her and Tonya Harding] were “for us.” The whole thing was. We just love woman, and these two incredible athletes—one was blonde, one was brunette. It was the battle of fire and ice.
6. Idina Menzel’s red tracksuit
And I know I’m not supposed to have another one, but if I could just sneak in: Idina Menzel’s red tracksuit from when she fell through the trap door at Wicked and, when she did her final performance, she only did the last 30 seconds of the show, and popped up in a red tracksuit. Iconic. Legendary.
Tim Murray Is Witches next heads to Chicago’s The Den Theater on Oct. 8 & 9, Louisville on the 11th, and LA on the 15th, with plenty more dates across the country in the week’s ahead. You can find more info and purchase tickets at the link here.
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