Mado Lamotte is the stage name of Luc Provost, a Canadian drag queen, author, singer and gay community personality, most noted as the owner of the Cabaret Mado drag club in Montreal, Quebec.
Career Provost, who studied theatre at the Université du Québec à Montréal, began his drag performance career in 1987."Mado Lamotte welcomes constellation of drag stars to Mascara, biggest drag show on earth". Montreal Gazette, August 3, 2012. As Mado Lamotte she was MC and DJ of Ciel Mon Mardi at Sky in the 1990s,Luc boulanger, "Notes : Quelques humains". Voir, February 25, 1999. before opening her own drag cabaret, Cabaret Mado, in Montreal's Gay Village in 2002. She was also for many years the organizer and host of Mascara, the annual drag stage show at Divers/Cité."Drag star Mado Lamotte quits Divers/Cité, pulls plug on Mascara to launch stand-up comedy show". Montreal Gazette, May 6, 2014.
Lamotte is also an author, who has written a weekly column for the defunct Ici weekly newspaper and a monthly article for the Fugues gay and lesbian newsmagazine. In 2000, she published a collection of her columns entitled Tu vois ben qu'est folle ("She's obviously crazy").
She released a single, "Le Rap à Minifée", in 1996, and a full-length album, Full Mado - Le Remix Album, in 2010.Marie-Christine Blais, "Mado Lamotte: la matante du bonheur". La Presse, May 22, 2010. She has made cameo appearances in the films Saved by the Belles and Cadavre Exquis premiere edition, and starred in the 2007 play Saving Céline, in which she (credited as Mado Lamotte, not Luc Provost) portrayed a drag queen obsessed by Céline Dion who becomes embroiled in a murder plot against the singer.Matt Radz, "Mado Lamotte's art will go on as she embodies Queen Céline". Montreal Gazette, September 6, 2007.
On August 12, 2017, as a part of Fierté Montréal Canada, Mado celebrated her 30th anniversary as a performer with a free show at the Parc des faubourgs in Montréal."Entrevue avec Luc Provost, l'homme derrière la drag queen Mado Lamotte". Ici Radio-Canada, August 4, 2017. In the same year she was the host of Ils de jour, elles de nuit, an Ici ARTV television documentary series about drag queens which profiled Rita Baga, Barbada de Barbades, Gaby, Lady Boom Boom, Lady Pounana and Tracy Trash."« Ils de jour, elles de nuit », Radio-Canada et Zone3 dévoilent l’univers des drag queens". Lien Multimédia, April 6, 2017.
In 2018, Provost opened La Dinette chez Mado, a diner-style restaurant adjacent to Cabaret Mado.
In 2023 Provost published the memoir Une Madographie,"Luc Provost, alias Mado Lamotte publie Une madographie". Ici Radio-Canada, October 14, 2023. and played the title character in Hosanna, Michel Tremblay's 1973 play about a drag queen, in a stage production directed by Maxime Robin for Théàtre Le Trident."« C’était un rêve » : après Mado Lamotte, Luc Provost se glisse dans la peau de Hosanna". Ici Radio-Canada, July 26, 2023.
In 2024 she announced a stand-up comedy tour, consisting of 20 shows between December 2024 and June 2025.André-Constantin Passiour, "Mado, la bitch joyeuse, en tournée près de chez vous". Fugues, November 27, 2024.
In popular culture
In August 2022, Lady Boom Boom selected Mado as her Snatch Game character impersonation in the third season of Canada's Drag Race.Frankie Harrison, "Canada’s Drag Race Season 3 Episode 5 Recap: Snatch Game". In Magazine, August 12, 2022. She ended up in the bottom two, and was eliminated after a lip sync against fellow contestant Kimmy Couture. Fellow contestant and Montreal-based drag colleague Gisèle Lullaby had also intended to play Mado, but later ceded the character to Boom Boom on the grounds that she had a backup character, Marie Curie, while Boom Boom did not; Gisèle Lullaby, notably, won the challenge.
Discography 1996: Le Rap à Minifée (CD single) 2010: Full Mado: Le Remix Album
Filmography 2003: Saved by the Belles 2006: Cadavre Exquis premiere edition 2007: La Reine Mado
Awards Officer, Order of Montreal, 2024
References
External links Le Monde de Mado (Official website)