A member of the long-running local drag parody of Golden Girls fell into a coma Thursday while the troupe behind the popular show was visiting Puerta Vallarta, Mexico, where the act was to make its international debut.
Cookie Dough, who plays Sophia in the show and is a fixture in the San Francisco drag community, was hospitalized for an unknown illness the day before the group’s show Thursday night at local venue Stages II. According to performer Pollo Del Mar, the troupe performed Golden Girls: Live with a substitute in her role. Dough, diagnosed with a brain edema (swelling of the brain), fell into a coma overnight.
“Respirators are keeping her stable and breathing, but we do not know what the long-term prognosis is,” wrote Del Mar in a Facebook post.
Dough is credited with starting one of the longest-running weekly drag shows in the Castro, The Monster Show at the Edge. On Thursday, the show, with subsitute host Sugah Betes, became a fundraiser for Dough, with donations and bar receipts going toward her hospital fund, according to local blog antitwink.com.
Friends of Dough are receiving updates on her condition from her husband Michael Chu, who flew down to be by her side in the hospital upon hearing the news.
