Michelladonna on New York City, Immigrant Communities and Shop Cats
Words: Rob Corsini | Photographer: Alexis Kleshik | Styling: Rachel Stillman | Makeup: Kyle Sheehan | Hair: Mari Carreno | Shoot Assist: Paulina Subia | Cat provided by: Colette Steele | All vintage from Ornate Vintage Co.
On a street in Bushwick, wearing wide cut jorts, an oversized pinstripe blazer, and a mink stole (fake, of course) is Michelladonna. They’re mid-photoshoot, and around them stands an entourage: photographer, stylist, make-up artist, the works. Having just finished a round of images, they’re ready to change into their next look – but before they get there, someone rushes over to stop them: “Do you host Shop Cats?” they ask, wide-eyed.
When Michelladonna replies in the affirmative, the person on the street bursts into tears of joy. “That has never happened to me,” Michelladonna laughs, remembering the encounter. “I was like ‘Oh, my God! Did I do something? I'm so sorry!’ But it was super sweet.” If the runaway success of Shop Cats has taught the world anything – it’s that people really love cats, and people really love Michelladonna.
For the past year, Michelladonna has been trawling New York’s five boroughs, scouring bodegas to find and interview their cats – in a format they describe as “MTV Cribs meets Steve Irwin”. But even though Shop Cats is what gave them their break, they’re here to remind everyone that they’re not just a host – they’re a consummate multi-hyphenate. “Actor, writer, comedian, director, community organiser, producer, model, DJ. I does it all.” Michelladonna was born and raised in Ridgewood, Queens. They were an only child, but their mum had eleven siblings, many of whom lived in Colombia, and they would spend summers there. As a child, they not only knew that they wanted to perform, but that they wanted to be centre stage. “My mom showed me a video of one of my first dance classes - I was not paying attention, I was doing my own thing,” they explain. “That's so me.”
As other people their age began to think about college, Michelladonna told their mum that they wanted to be a star. “She said to me: ‘You're gonna go to school for either law or business or doctor’”, they say, grinning. Between the three the choice was simple – Michelladonna likes money and so she followed the road to business. And even though the professional life wasn’t the dream, they don’t see it as wasted time. “I feel so grateful for the education I had, because yes, I have all these ideas but now I know how to do my numbers and back up proof of concepts,” they explain.
“Here we are in a tiny space. We know that we're here, and we're choosing to be here and that's what’s so magical about New York. It’s culture that's here.”
After they left college, they began to perform in New York’s stand-up scene – and quickly made a name for themselves as one the cities only Gen Z, Latine comedians. They soon caught the attention of Drew Rosenthal – the Head of Production at Mad Realities – who was looking for someone to host a TikTok series that was soon to become Shop Cats. “I believe that they really needed an authentic New Yorker to get in there and do it because it'd be a completely different show if it was, no shade, a gentrifier from Ohio,” Michelladonna says.
As they began to plan out what the show could look like, Michelladonna was clear about one thing – the show’s perspective. “I was very adamant about highlighting community and culture. Whatever I do, I want to highlight my community,” they recall. Ridgewood, where they grew up, had large Polish and Italian populations and they spent a lot of time in Jackson Heights, which is predominantly Latine. From birth, they knew and felt that New York was made up of immigrants who had come to the city, to find a way of working together. “Here we are in a tiny space. We know that we're here, and we're choosing to be here and that's what’s so magical about this space. It’s culture that's here.”
When Michelladonna and Drew filmed the show’s pilot, with a cat named Kiki who lived in Drew’s local bodega, Michelladonna showed the episode to their mum, who said “The only thing is that I wish it was in Spanish, so I could show my friends.” They immediately went back to their production team who said yes to Spanish subtitles, but they weren’t able to find someone overnight, and so Michelladonna began translating the first episodes themself. “If the only hurdle is doing it, then I'll just do it, because I know it’ll be more accessible to people and that's the whole point. We're trying to share this with everyone,” they say.
Now, one year into Shop Cats, the process for each episode is clear. Over 1,000 New Yorkers have tipped the team off to local Bodega cats, and so each day of filming focuses on a neighbourhood. The team will pick a location, pick three shops to hit up, and then go hunting. When they’ve found a location, Michelladonna will go in alone to speak to the people running the bodega. “It's important for me to make sure that they know that someone is like, taking care of this. They could come to me if they have any questions, they can tell me if they want to stop. I just want to make sure that they don't feel like they're being taken advantage of.”
If the workers feel comfortable, the next step is the cat. “I’ll see what the cat's vibe is, and I'm like: ‘Are you ready? Are you ready for the next level?’” While most are primed to become celebs, there are a few that prefer the anonymous life. “We’re all cat people – we wanna have fun with the cat, so if the cat's not having fun, then we won’t do it.” After everything is set, the last thing to do is film – which can take anywhere from 45-90 minutes for a single episode “I’m good at comedy. I'll talk for hours. In a threatening way, like I will speak for an hour,” they laugh.
Outside of traditional standup, Michelladonna uses their comedy prowess to create other shows. As a child, their Saturday nights were reserved for one thing – Sábado Gigante, a Spanish language variety show hosted by Don Francisco. Every week, the show would take people on a three-hour journey where everything was a possibility. “Someone could win a car. There was a singing competition, a dance competition. There were beautiful, gorgeous, amazing models. Someone would do a lie detector test. A mother and child would reunite. It was jam packed with craziness,” they say.
As Michelladonna began to think about the kinds of shows that they wanted to create, they realised that traditional comedy might not be the answer – “It was so hard to get my friends in my communities to go and watch stand up” – and so they decided to reinvent Don Francisco’s show through a Gen Z lens and create Lil Sábado. With sketches, audience interaction, and many costume changes – the show recreates the madcap energy of the original, while also teaching the audience about the original. “I'm very big on sneaking in education,” they say. “So for me it felt almost like a cultural lesson.”
Michelladonna doesn’t only sneak education in though – they explicitly teach through a series of workshops for called I’m Finna Talk for QTPOC creatives. After they left college, they tried to find spaces to connect with these folks, but couldn’t find something that wasn’t either expensive or centred around alcohol. Now in its fourth year, they’ve put on workshops, get-togethers, and parties – all of which have a wide variety of freebies. “I want people to leave feeling how you do when you leave a birthday party when you're a kid, right? You have your goodie bag,” they joke.
Between Shop Cats, Lil Sábado and I’m Finna Talk, Michelladonna might be the busiest comedian in New York – but they still think they have room for more.
“I want to eventually have a bunch of community centres throughout the world, definitely New York, definitely Colombia.” One thing’s for sure, though – while the world’s just been introduce to Michelladonna, this is only the beginning. “Y’all might not even know, but I'm I'm trying to get to Beyoncé level. I’m gonna be a household name in the near future.”
