Alex S.K.B.
Audio By Carbonatix
Fame, stardom, iconicism, whatever you want to call it, seemed to choose Grant Gibbs and Ashley Gill, or as the world (and 600,000 followers on TikTok) knows the duo, A Twink and A Redhead.
The duo — or Adam and Eve, as they humorously call themselves — are embarking on a sexy and salacious national tour this week, and it starts in no better place than the buckle of the Bible Belt: Dallas.
The show, set for the Texas Theatre on March 25, has kept them busy with all-day rehearsals. It’s a scripted Broadway-style musical chronicling their partially fictitious bop to the top. The show uses some of their existing songs, and some that will exclusively premiere for Dallas ears — Gibbs describes it as “Pop c**t.”
Starting with some of their earliest moments of greatness in a bouncy house in sixth grade, during a botched first-kiss attempt, the story captures everything that makes the two social media stars so entertaining. But it’s not all butterflies and pride rainbows, as the story, which panders to the girls and the gays, includes story lines about coming out and religious trauma. Take everything with a grain of salt; some of it is real, some of it isn’t.
“It is a fun show,” Gibbs tells the Observer. “I can’t see our audience coming and hating it, no shade. I guess we’ll find out. If it wasn’t social media, we would put our art somewhere else and our comedy somewhere else. So performing for crowds was always, at least in my vision, the goal. This is very exciting to me.”
Twink and a Redhead: A Musical Comedy brings the twink, the redhead, two background dancers, a drag queen, some acrobatics and surprises they refused to say on or off the record. The night will be boisterous, preposterous, profane and supremely gay. For her part, Gill isn’t too worried about bringing a show like this to the South.
“I haven’t really thought about it in terms of like, the sex of it all, to be honest, because I assume that anyone buying a ticket to a Twink and a Redhead would know what they’re getting into,” says the redhead. “But if they did have any hesitancy, I would hope they see our show and it opens their mind to more sex positivity.”
The two are both from Jersey, where Gibbs says “fuck you” is as much a nicety as “hello.” He has a little more apprehension about how the South will receive the show, but he’s never been to Oak Lawn, either. We’re willing to bet they’re going to love Round Up just as much as Round Up would love them.
“I am most nervous about Texas. It feels the most foreign to me,” Gibbs says of the tour dates. “… If you’re buying a ticket, I hope that it’s the queer people in these red areas, that want to find that community because that’s what the show’s for.”
‘Twink and a Redhead’ Since 2022, Iconic Since Forever
Essentially lifelong best friends, or at least all those years that matter, Gill and Gibbs started posting satirical comedy skits as “A Twink and a Redhead” to TikTok in 2022. Their eponymous single launched them to widespread social media stardom, and since then, they’ve released a myriad of musical delights across a broad spectrum of genres.
Some of their classics are the pop song “Panera,” which is about having sex in the bathroom of the boulangerie chain. It’s never happened (yes, we asked), though they did spend lots of time as hormonal teenagers in a Panera, dreaming of a rendezvous in the stall. The rock-inspired “Don Cheadle” is a charged love letter to Oscar-nominated and not-so-widely accepted sex symbol, Don Cheadle. Some of their songs are in the touring show, but they promise there’s also brand new, never-heard-before material.
They’ve loved the drama of it all since puberty, or when Gill was “busted” and Gibbs was closeted. In high school, they found a love for performing and entertaining.
“There was always like a layer of delusion, because it was a joke and funny, but we made it so extra,” the Twink half of the duo says of their adolescent shenanigans.
During this time, Gibbs got really good at video and audio editing. It led him to a career in journalism, working in production at the national ABC Network headquarters and on TLC’s 1,000-Lb. Sisters. Gill, who also studied writing, worked in Broadway marketing, learning the ropes of musical creation. It was kismet that the two would find their way in front of a camera, fusing all the skills they didn’t know they were building for later greatness.
Being Aware is Hot
Most of their work poignantly balances being hot and horny in a society that attempts to silence both with prudent values. The two aren’t inherently political, says Gill, but ask any gay man and woman how they feel about the state of the Union and tell us if it’s even possible to remain ignorant of the climate.
“I think to do satire successfully, you really have to be tapped into what’s going on in the moment,” Gill says. “You really have to know it in order to make a joke about it and find the other perspective on it to either poke fun at that or comment on it in a way that’s not just talking to the camera and telling someone they’re dumb for thinking a certain way.”
While deeper messages are sprinkled throughout the production, the duo shared their greatest and most potent message in their show.
“[What] we want people to take away from it is that you shouldn’t care what anyone thinks if you love something or if you want to be whoever you want to be,” Gill says. “You shouldn’t care what anyone has to say about that. All the right people will stick around.”
A Twink and A Redhead: A Musical Comedy will run at the Texas Theatre (231 W. Jefferson Blvd.) on March 25 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $48.
