Sundays will be a drag once more this summer.

Beloved San Francisco drag queenDonna Sachetplans to bring back her signature cabaret show, “Sunday’s a Drag,” to Club Fugazi in North Beach starting Aug, 6 for the first time since 2020, she told The Chronicle in an exclusive interview.

Previously, the show had a 15-year brunch-time run at Harry Denton’s Starlight Room at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. Sachet’s last performance of the show was in March 2020, before the coronavirus pandemic shutdown.

The Starlight Room has yet to reopen after a planned renovation.

“This is a fresh start,” Sachet said. “We’re excited to show people what we can do in a bigger space than our previous home, the Starlight Room. When this opportunity came up, I thought, what a great way to revive a successful formula at a legendary place.”

Club Fugazi, at 678 Green St., is currently home to “Dear San Francisco” and was the venue of Steve Silver’s “Beach Blanket Babylon” review for 45 years. “Sunday’s a Drag” will use the club during hours it is not utilized by “Dear San Francisco,” and will include Italian-style brunch from chef Tony Gemignani of Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in North Beach.

The show will be co-produced by Patrick Rylee with Club Fugazi Executive Producer David Dower.

“阻力的回归space is really wonderful,” said Dower. “People come up to me with their memories of this place, seeing everything here from jazz to stand-up, social dances and, yes, drag shows.

“To offer Donna a chance to bring her signature show back to the city was a superb opportunity for us and my desire to knit the history of the room all back together.”

Sachet has long been associated with glamorous, traditionally pretty drag in San Francisco. She gained recognition as Miss Gay San Francisco in 1993 and has performed in venues across the Bay Area, including Feinstein’s at the Nikko, the Castro Theatre, Davies Symphony Hall and Great American Music Hall. Sachet has also co-anchored live television coverage of the San Francisco Pride Parade as well as co-organizing “Gary Virginia & Donna Sachet’s Pride Brunch,” which supports the Positive Resource Center, a nonprofit helping those affected by HIV/AIDS, substance use or mental health issues.

A prolific fundraiser for the LGBTQ community, she’s also known for her annual “Songs of the Season” performance benefiting the AIDS Emergency Fund and was dubbed “the first lady of the Castro” by former San Francisco Supervisor Mark Leno.

Sachet joked that although she is not old enough to have invented brunch, hers was among the first drag brunches to gain wide popularity in the city.

“I think they did brunch even before me in caveman times,” she quipped.

“I loved having it downtown at a hotel before because it attracted all kinds of people: gay, straight, young, old, local, out of town,” Sachet continued, adding that she believes North Beach will offer her a similar cross-section, given its longtime reputation as both an artistic and tourist center in the city.

“I walked around the neighborhood the other day, and it’s just bubbling up,” said Sachet. “They have far fewer empty storefronts than the Castro.”

Sachet’s new version of the show will include her and three other drag queens performing songs in a revue structure. The dramatic through line of the show will be the story of San Francisco’s drag history. That will include tributes to performers likeJose Sarria, the founder and first empress of San Francisco’s Imperial Court drag organization, who was also the first openly gay candidate for San Francisco supervisor.

Sachet said the emphasis on the history of drag in the city is especially important in a moment where attempts to ban and restrict performances are rampant in the United States. To that end, groups like the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who wererecently in the newswhen they were disinvited, then reinvited, to participate in a Pride Night with the Los Angeles Dodgers, will be celebrated, among others.

Holotta Tymes, who performed in “Sunday’s a Drag” for 13 years and was a performer at the legendary North Beach drag venue Finocchio’s before it closed in 1999 after 63 years, will again join the cast.

“我喜欢周日的拖佤邦s that if your family was visiting, it was a place that you could take them to see drag that was not going to be offensive. It was classic illusion drag,” Tymes said. “Finocchio’s was very much that way, too; this is bringing that back to the neighborhood.”

Sachet said the August shows would be a test run for a possible year-round launch in January. She said she is not buying into the“doom loop”narrative about the death of the city.

“I’m a cheerleader for San Francisco,” said Sachet. “If we could survive two major earthquakes, the decimation of AIDS, we can survive this. Contrary to the phrase ‘doom loop,’ I’d like to think of this as hopeful loop, and I want this show to play into that possibility.”

Reach Tony Bravo: tbravo@sfchronicle.com