An older gentleman nurses a mid-afternoon drink as he sits at the far end of the Algonquin Hotel’s old-money Blue Bar (its name gives away its appeal). It’s mid-August, in the tourist-clogged heart of midtown, and the dimly lit watering hole is mostly empty, save for a few brave customers nestled in leather booths, fending off makeup-melting heat with cold beers and bar nuts. The sole patron at the bar is dressed to the nines, looking like an extra from the nearby Hello, Dolly! He’s reading a newspaper and chatting up the bartender, gazing around in search of conversation, action, anything really.

In strides Peppermint, tiara perched upon her cascading curls, purpose in her eyes. Her dress ripples as she walks, the result of the glinting and undulating adornments that cover the garment. The gentleman at the bar slowly lowers his drink from his mouth mid-sip, taking the moment in. There’s a pause.

“Are you a movie star?” he asks, eyes glimmering, realizing he’s lucked into a chance encounter with someone important today. Peppermint looks down, crown intact, towering above the seated man in her heels. She purrs: “Absolutely, baby.”

She’s being demure. Last year, Peppermint changed the cultural conversation about drag as the runner-up of the ninth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and as the show’s first trans contestant to be out before the show aired. Drag Race begat touring, lots of it, around the world and back, and then back again, and back a few more times for good measure. Then this spring, Broadway producers came calling for the 38-year-old entertainer, in the form of a role in the new musical Head Over Heels, which is, it must be said, a disappointingly rare occurrence for a trans performer. She nailed the auditions, and now she’s on stage eight times a week as Pythio, the glammed-up non-binary oracle who drives the breakneck plot of the Go-Go’s-soundtracked show.

“I wasn't really looking for this opportunity,” she says hours before her Blue Bar debut, tucked away in a makeshift dressing room off of the Algonquin’s lobby. “I didn't really know much about it. ‘Broadway. Role for you. Audition.’ It could have been anything.”

But it wasn’t just anything. It was an opportunity, one not afforded to many trans actresses. In fact, with Head Over Heels, Peppermint becomes the first openly transgender woman to originate a principal role on Broadway. Maybe that sounds like a mouthful of qualifiers to you, but it’s a deeply significant milestone for the theater world, which is known for welcoming the gay community more so than, say, the L, B, T, Q, I, and A parts of the acronym.

“I mean, look” Peppermint says as her hair stylist teases one of her wigs across the table. “Broadway's the tippy tippy point of theater. It's a very small percentage of what's being performed on stages and what's being produced professionally. I must believe that there are good representations of people like myself in some percentage of that work. But I haven't seen it.”

She’s being diplomatic: Most of us haven’t seen it. To watch Peppermint onstage as Pythio is more than just thrilling entertainment (and trust and believe, it is that). It’s a kick-down-the-doors-at-long-last breakthrough that’s both right on time and far later than it should’ve come. And it’s just another story added to Peppermint’s ever-rising platform, one upon which, she’ll have you know, she has a lot to say about.