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July 8 (UPI) -- The 2022 Werk the World tour, which comes to North America on Friday, features a lineup of RuPaul's Drag Race fan-favorites taking the audience on a journey through time -- and Season 13 finalist Rosé is going all the way back to prehistory. Rosé -- like the wine, not the flower -- wrapped up the European leg of the long-delayed tour with her Drag Race cohorts in early June, and the U.S. leg kicks off Friday night in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
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"Each Werk the World show has its own theme. This theme is 'time travel,'" Rosé, aka Ross Matthew McCorkell, told UPI in a Zoom interview.
The performer said each drag queen's "assignment is to create a number within a different era the planet Earth has been through."
Rosé put a lot of thought into her routine.
"For me, I thought, 'What is something historical that we can really dramatize and make ridiculous?' So I went prehistoric, and my number takes place on the day the asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. So that's something to look forward to: mass extinction," she laughed.
Rosé, an accomplished singer and one-third of the drag group Stephanie's Child, said her performance will feature songs by one of her favorite artists, Victoria Monet -- and, unlike some other drag performers, she will be singing live.
"The fact that I do sing, it sets me apart, and that's something the fans are drawn to, and I love to sing," she said.
European tour ends
Werk the World recently wrapped its initial six-week European tour, which took the performers to venues across the continent. Rosé said her favorite stops were Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin and Paris, which she was visiting for the very first time.
"Paris was actually truly one of the most blindingly romantic places I've ever visited. When I accidentally turned around and saw the Eiffel Tower at night for the first time in my life in person, I started crying. Paris really did one on me," she said.
Rosé said another benefit of the European tour was getting to see her fellow performers in action.
"There's not a day that goes by that I'm not completely jaw-on-the-floor-mouth-agape gagging at how beautiful Plastique Tiara is in the flesh. The things that Yvie Oddly's body can do are absolutely wild. Lady Camden is such a fantastic and beautiful artistically trained dancer. Everybody brings something that is unique to them, all of which I admire," she said.
The audiences thus far have been equally impressed, Rosé said.
"It's just thousands of people so happy to see you on stage. The feeling is generally just overwhelming happiness coming from the audience," she said.
Encounters with fans at the shows sometimes can turn "hilarious and awkward," Rosé shared.
"So many of them are so shaken in their excitement and nervousness to meet us that sometimes they can't verbalize the way they planned to or would like to," Rosé said.
"So a lot of times people are speechless, and I find myself trying to guide them through our conversation and holding both sides of it. That's always a little awkward, but very fun. It's also just something you get used to. It's a pleasure that people are so excited to meet us."
Her own music
Rosé spent some of her downtime in between the European and North American legs of the tour to work on her own music.
"I'm finally working on some new music, which is really exciting. ... I feel like as a songwriter and a singer, I've entered a new space recently, and I'm really excited to share that," she said.
The multi-talented artist said an album is a possibility down the line, but a single is more likely in the short-term.
"I feel like an album is a great idea if you have the time to write all that music, or if it's just pouring out of you. I'm more interested in just writing a great song, releasing it as a single and moving on to the next," she said.
"I'm really inspired by the way Kim Petras writes and releases her music," she said. "I think it's nice to just create something and then immediately release it."
She said more music from Stephanie's Child could also be on the horizon, but likely not until the Werk the World tour ends.
"For the present moment, we're all really focusing on what makes us unique and individual. But I definitely think that, hopefully in the near future, we'll see more Stephanie's Child stuff happening. A tour would be so fun," she said.
Drag Race Season 7 airing
RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars is airing Season 7, featuring a cast of season winners. Rosé said she has been eagerly keeping up with the show.
"I really, really think this season is something else. I think it's been a while since we've had such a gripping and exciting and boastfully talented season. So I'm having a great time watching it," she said.
Rosé had only seen the first four episodes at the time of the interview, but predicted the big winner of the season would be Drag Race Season 5 champion Jinkx Monsoon.
"I think it's really, really cool to see Jinkx come back after so long, after winning Season 5, as such an established, mature and emotionally sound artist. It's really fun to see drag artists age, because we settle into ourselves.
"Right now, we've really only just begun, but I think Jinkx might be a shoe-in. We'll see," she said.
Rosé said she might want to return to the competition series on a future season of Drag Race All Stars.
"I've always said that I would take time before going back. Especially in my situation, I was injured, and I wasn't really up to my best when we filmed the finale. But up to that point, I wouldn't have changed too much about what I served and what I did," she said.
Rosé said she would be interested in showing how she has "evolved and grown" as a performer since her time on Drag Race.
"I definitely think in the last year since my season stopped airing, I've grown and evolved a lot. But there's more to uncover, more to become, and I definitely would love to go back and tell a new story. So, we'll see," she said.
The Werk the World tour's North American leg kicks off Friday evening at the Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
