The color of beauty

(Note: This story appears in the March 2021 issue of ED Magazine)

Be it on stage, on social media — or in the pages of Playboy Magazine — Blake Monroe thoroughly understands what it takes to be a successful touring feature entertainer. 

To ignore that Blake Monroe is a woman of color would … well, overlook the obvious. But that’s not what defines Blake as a feature entertainer. She’s also an attractive woman of color. A talented woman of color. A multi-faceted woman of color. An ambitious woman of color.

And yet, despite the fact that Blake embraces who she is, she doesn’t allow skin pigment to singularly define her identity.

“Once I bust out those explosive dance moves, you wouldn’t care if I was the color of a rainbow,” says Blake, with an air of unmistakable confidence. “When I put my costume on and I look in the mirror, I don’t say to myself, ‘Wow, you’re pretty for a black girl.’ I don’t see a color, I see me.” 

Whether she’s stunning audiences with a Black Panther-inspired show, modeling in an international edition of the famed adult titan Playboy, or inspiring the next generation of feature entertainers, Blake Monroe dwells both outside the box and inside the profit margins for feature bookings. 

ED Magazine caught up with Blake to talk about the excitement of becoming a Playmate, how being a feature entertainer blends her two passions of theater and dancing, her newfound TikTok affinity, and much more!  

ED: Is putting on a show what you love most about being a feature entertainer? Or is there something else?
BLAKE: I love traveling and touring and meeting new people, hearing their backgrounds and their stories. To have someone come to my show from a different city or state, it really touches me. I’m like, “Wow, you came this far to see me!?” I’m very humbled. I’ve built a lot of strong relationships with my fans, I keep in touch with them and they support me on my social media and everything that I’m doing. It just feels good to meet them in person and be able to showcase a production that’s been in my head and that I’ve practiced a thousand times. And then I get there and I’ll see someone that has been following me for a couple of years or I met at EXPO or something like that. It’s just really cool. I love it. 

“I really enjoy what I do, and I take a lot of pride putting my shows together. They’re very exciting and memorable moments, very high-energy. I work on my physique and my choreography continuously. I’m also one year into my aerial silks and aerial hoop as well. And I do fire! You just tell me what menu you want me to put together and we can just make that happen. I’m totally customizable!” — Blake Monroe

ED: What are the particulars about your Playboy appearance? How did you get in touch with them?
BLAKE: It is truly an honor to join the Playboy family. I’m featured in an international calendar and I am Miss February, which is my birthday month. MadCreativity actually shot most of my photos, actually, all of them. And he got me in touch with the coordinator. And from there I got published! Some of the photos will also be featured on my website (www.theblakemonroe.com). I’m really excited about that and I’ll be working with Playboy again!

ED: How has your show changed over the years? How have you evolved as an entertainer?
BLAKE: When I first started, I was buying the costumes from Party City, trying to bling them out; I just thought I was A1. I went out to my first industry dance competition and saw the costumes that the girls were wearing and the props and the high energy. It was on a much different level than house dancing. Now I have 11 Jackie costumes and I have custom props from Corey Hart and a few things that I’ve actually put together that are much more “top-level.” 

One of the keys for me is, I’m now looking the part and I have some amazing professional promo. I think that’s a big thing, too — the club needs to be able to promote my appearance as a touring showgirl entertainer, and having great photos allows them to do that much more easily. 

ED: How did you get your start dancing and what was it about it that made you gravitate toward the adult nightclub stage?
BLAKE: I’ve been dancing since I was two years old and I started burlesque in 2016 after competing in my first feature competition in Knoxville, Tennessee, and I placed first in a top division. The rest is pretty much history from there!

ED: When you made the transition from dancing in your youth to ultimately adult entertainment, did you find much of a difference or did it come easy to you because you had been dancing for so long?
BLAKE: I have a background in theater as well and I just thought featuring was both of those combined: dance and theater. And I love putting my shows together — the fire, the costumes, the acrobats — it quickly became my passion.

ED: Switching gears, do you think being an entertainer of color, of which there aren’t necessarily as many, can be used as an advantage? Or is it a constant challenge?
BLAKE: Being a minority in the industry has not been used as an advantage for bookings for me, but as a small business owner and well-trained and established feature entertainer, being black isn’t what makes me one of the greatest. It’s my talent and ambition that get me booked and re-booked.

ED: Do you have any idea why there aren’t more black entertainers?
BLAKE: I think that while times are changing, this is a great question for booking agents and club owners, because there are multiple women of color that are active right now who aren’t headlining despite their raw talent. But I would love to use my platform to encourage all women to just not be discouraged at the first “no” you hear. I believe that many club owners and customers alike want diversity on the stage.

ED: Have you actively thought about using your platform more in the past, say, five years?
BLAKE: Absolutely. That’s great because when I travel I hear that a lot, like, “Oh, I don’t see many women of color that feature, so I don’t know if I can do it.” And I just tell them it’s not a walk in the park; you might hear no, but there are opportunities. I think that as a black feature entertainer, I can definitely open a lot of doors and encourage a lot of women to see me and say, “Hey, if I see her doing this, then I can do it too.” I’ve tried to take some girls under my wing and just show them the ropes, a little bit of what I know and what knowledge I’ve accumulated over the years. 

ED: How have you been spending your quarantine time?
BLAKE: I’ve been training a lot more because I would like to stay ready to feature as soon as those opportunities arise again, but I’ve also been Tik-Toking! I’m also starting a YouTube channel. I’ve been staying busy with film and editing, self-teaching myself how to do all this. It’s been a fun and interesting experience — it’s been keeping me busy! 

“I love traveling and touring and meeting new people, hearing their backgrounds and their stories. To have someone come to my show from a different city or state, it really touches me. I’m like, ‘Wow, you came this far to see me!?’ I’m very humbled.” — Blake Monroe

ED: What do the EDI (Exotic Dancer Invitational) contests do for you as a professional feature entertainer, how have they helped your career, and what’s the most fun thing about competing in them?
BLAKE: The EDI contests are a great way for us to showcase our feature performances to a different audience and also get together with amazing artists that are like-minded and bounce ideas off of each other. I love the energy between the girls. I was disappointed to hear that there would not be EDI this year, but we all understand that the COVID situation has made it impossible for the EDI to take place on the level that it always has. But I can’t wait to compete next year! 

ED: What are club owners signing up for when they’re signing up for the Blake Monroe experience?
BLAKE: They should definitely know this is gonna be a hell of a time. I really enjoy what I do, and I take a lot of pride putting my shows together. They’re very exciting and memorable moments, very high-energy. I work on my physique and my choreography continuously. I’m also one year into my aerial silks and aerial hoop as well. And I do fire! You just tell me what menu you want me to put together and we can just make that happen. I’m totally customizable!

And I love crowd interaction. That’s one of my high points. I love to get in the crowd, I love to do my entrance from the crowd and throw things at them or get them to pour hot wax on me or water or paint or whatever. And they love it. Getting the crowd involved is a huge part of my show.

For more information, visit theblakemonroe.com. To book Blake, contact Frank Bane at the Continental Agency at (727) 363-7100, visit her website at TheBlakeMonroe.com, or follow her socials @TheBlakeMonroe.