Tease, If You Please! : Celebrating Six Years of Strut in DTLA
Ladies and gentlemen, break out your bowties and your feather boas, we’re going out. Well, on November 16th, we are. Since 2013, Tease, If You Please! has stunned the likes of date night attendees, weekend warriors, and many an Average Joe changed forever by a variety of glamazons strutting up and down the stage beneath their kitten heels and marabou robes. Now, now, burlesque is so much more than beautiful women slinking around on stage, taking off expensive outfits before the eyes of an eager crowd to the wahh wahh of a dirty saxophone -- burlesque is about the art of allure. Just ask Donna Hood, the silken goddess behind this major success of a show.
“Burlesque is really about trying to draw people in,” says Donna. “You should probably be able to stand up on that stage, literally just stand there, and hold my attention and keep me interested. That is hard to do.”
A Houston native who’s been dancing just about as long as she’s been walking, Donna Hood is the instrumental mastermind behind Tease If You Please. Dancing all through high school and college, after school, Donna became an office manager at a dance studio she frequented which was popular for their hip hop classes. Upon receiving a phone call from Randy Jackson’s management to inquire about holding America’s Best Dance Crew auditions in the studio, Donna quickly assembled a dance crew and made it all the way to LA. This is when it hit her: Maybe it’s time to take a leap. When she was done with the show, she went back home and put her all into saving enough money to make the move. Soon after meeting her goal, she found a roomie, packed her things, and drove straight back to The Golden State.
About a month into living and working in LA, Donna got a call from her agent at the time who then asked her if she’d ever heard of Dita Von Teese. She thought of it being a funny coincidence because just before leaving her hometown of Houston, Texas, Donna found herself flipping through a big, colorful picture book at a coffee shop as she waited for her order. Enamored by the overall glamour and flashy costumes, Donna was inspired and took the book home with her. This very picture book happened to be authored by none other than the queen of burlesque herself, Miss Dita Von Teese. After submitting to a role as a touring dancer/stage kitten to perform nightly alongside Dita, the two met in person and Donna landed a spot on tour with her as one of her Vontourage.
“I’ll never forget it, when I walked in, she had this pink mechanical bull and this full cowgirl outfit -- this big, pink, rhinestoned mechanical bull after my Texas heart, and I was like, oh my god, this is amazing. I feel very lucky to have been brought straight into the top tier of burlesque at the time.”
After sharpening her stilettos with the best of the best, in 2012, Donna opted to have her first real custom burlesque costume made, and by real, we mean absolutely enchanting, and probably downright expensive -- rhinestones aren’t cheap. It was a domino effect from there. “I still have it and I add more and more to it each year,” says Donna, “just making it a little better each time. It’s a red and black corset with black French lace and beading with this huge floor-length floral bustle and a silk collapsible tophat.” Donna decided that she was going to take that one burlesque costume she had and the few that she was able to throw together, and go back home, because there was a bar in Houston called Prohibition where she could perform a proper solo gig. Donna’s friend David shot a video of the show, and she sent it off to anyone who may be interested.
A gentleman who owned a local venue by Disney Concert Hall First & Hope reached out to Donna upon viewing the video and invited her to come by and look at the space. Upon entering, they walked though a curtain in the venue to a small theatre that could seat maybe 90 people max. This is where the idea of a full show was proposed to Donna, since the owner had yearned to host a classic burlesque show for quite some time. She was offered a space in a theatre for a show, and the rest is history. Donna just needed a name. While brainstorming with her girlfriends, the word “tease” was thrown into the mix, and while flipping through the channels on the TV, she landed on Disney’s Lady and the Tramp, and more importantly, the tune that goes “We are Siamese if you please!” The lightbulb went off in Donna’s mind. Showtime. She pulled together a team of the best of the best and got down to brass tacks.
After outgoing a number of theatres around DTLA such as The Globe and Exchange, the show is bigger and better than ever. On Saturday, November 16th, the future of Tease If You Please is to be unveiled before the public eye at the historic, 1000-seat Palace Theater, a place where Houdini himself once graced the stage in infamy. With an entirely new program of dazzling acts by familiar faces such as Miss Miranda and Jessabelle Thunder, 24 other performers are to strut the stage, including back-up dancers, and the ringmaster herself -- Donna Hood. How did she assemble the perfect team, you may ask?
“Some people just have star quality,” exclaims Donna. “You can feel them the second they enter a room. You know when you know. Right now is the strongest the cast there’s ever been. Everybody’s different in their own way -- different races, sizes, styles. There’s so much diversity involved, and burlesque is really just like a celebration of humanity.”
Since this is their biggest show of the year, not a single solo performance is to be seen at the TIYP 6th year anniversary show, so expect all of the showmanship and then some -- unveiling fun new props and new performers. Seats are going FAST, but luckily, all there is left for you to do is put on a sexy little number, grab your honey by the hand, and head to the box office -- or to their website for tickets, since it’s 2019 and we can do that -- and tease if you please!
teaseifyouplease.com | Palace Theatre
Written by Dakota Nate | Photography by Robiee Ziegler & Meredith Carlson
