On a Saturday night, a diverse group of people across Worcester County are all doing their makeup in preparation for the same drag show.
One person might be the night’s host, a drag queen who lives in Worcester and has been performing throughout Massachusetts for years who has seen it all. One might be a lesbian who performs as a drag king, gluing on a trusty fake mustache. One might be a young performer who could play masculine, feminine or in-between, depending on the show.
Among this group is usually Worcester drag queen Robyn Millyonz, who frequently goes out dressed in hyperfeminine fashion, even when not performing. Millyonz said she started doing drag before she knew what a drag show was, trying on wigs at a friend's house and practicing elaborate makeup looks in the mirror as a teenager. She took her first step into the performance scene by entering a Worcester drag lip-sync competition. Tonight, she watches her persona take shape in the mirror with each layer of makeup.
"I admire my transformation, and I'm feeling like a completely different person, but that's OK, because I'm feeling confident and powerful," Millyonz said.
She checks the mirror one more time, and then she's out the door.
Worcester’s drag performers can be found on stages throughout the city, on weekends and weeknights alike. Some of them are traditional queens, gay men who perform in hyperfeminine clothes and makeup, and some are drag kings who take on a hypermasculine persona. Others prefer to defy categorization entirely.
A typical drag show comprises a series of performers taking the stage to music for a few minutes each, but beyond that, it all depends on the setting and the performers themselves. An all-ages drag show, such as the shows that happen at Pride festivals, will feature G-rated dance routines set to safe pop songs. By contrast, a drag show at a bar with a strict 21+ door policy might be peppered with risqué humor to entertain the night's adult audience.
Some drag performers might do a straightforward lip-synch and dance number to a song with powerful vocals, while other performers like to double as their own audio producers, editing multiple songs together or adding dialogue from various pop culture sources that fit the theme of their song. Their costumes and makeup run the full range of gender expression, but every look will be at least a little over the top.
All of these artists get their time in the spotlight over the course of a show, and all of them love to entertain crowds of all sorts. For many of them, getting started was as simple as just showing up.
An evolving scene
“If you want to get involved in the scene, the best way to do that is to show up and meet the drag performers who are doing all the shows. There's probably a show they'll bring you to and get you experienced in how the whole thing works, what it feels like to be onstage,” said Worcester drag performer Harley Queen, who hosts a monthly drag open stage at Ralph’s Rock Diner.
The region's drag scene has gone through many different incarnations over the decades as venues have come and gone, attitudes toward gender and sexuality have changed, and the Internet has connected drag artists in different cities. Now, in 2023, established queens are thriving and new drag performers have abundant opportunities to try their hand at the art form.
Drag queen and Worcester native Bootz Morales, who has been performing in the city since 2008, said they have watched the scene change along with society as a whole. In Morales’ memory, drag in Worcester did not have as much room for gender exploration or cultural diversity 15 years ago.
“It was literally just one club, one set of drag queens, no kings. Twenty-year-old me wouldn't have known what the word nonbinary was, even though I felt those emotions,” Morales said. “I always had someone backing me up, but there were artists back then that didn't have somebody to speak up for them. I remember someone who told the host of a show that they did not want to book me because I was a 'fat, ghetto, Hispanic drag queen,' and nowadays they would never, ever do that.”
In the years since, Worcester drag queen Joslyn Fox rose to national fame as a competitor on the reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race and toured across the country, and multiple local bars and music venues have begun hosting regular weekly or monthly drag shows.
“We have people who started in Worcester hosting and running their own shows, which is fantastic. We have all of these wonderful performers in this city, and it blows my mind to have watched them grow as performers. Some have been doing it for less than a year, and I'm absolutely stunned at what they bring to the table,” said drag performer Mal E. Fishn't.
Mal E. Fishn't has been doing drag under the name Mal E. Fishn’t since 2018 and currently hosts a monthly drag lip-sync competition, Battle Roy-Mal, at Electric Haze. Meanwhile, in the year and a half since it began, Queen’s open stage, Harley’s Funhouse, has already launched a number of drag performers into the local scene, which she says is only part of a larger trend since venues began reopening after COVID-19.
“The drag scene in Worcester is really expanding. It's so nice to see not only drag queens but drag artists in general,” Queen said. “So many other venues have opened up to having LGBTQ nights and now Femme Bar is open. People feel safer going out, and they know where to go to meet people.”
Opening doors, opportunities
Rory Reed landed their first drag show as Cortana Wednesday in summer 2022 after meeting other performers through Queer the Scene’s vogue dance workshop. Reed has been booking shows throughout Worcester County since, and said performing regularly not only helped them as a drag queen, but allowed them to make connections with other drag artists and LGBTQ people in the area.
“My makeup skills are definitely being pushed, which is awesome because I'm doing so much drag that I'm always doing my makeup and learning new techniques. My face looks better each time I go out,” Reed said. “Getting to have friends in the community and getting together is a lot of where my art happens, in group formats.”
Two more young local drag performers, Lana Backwards and Freddie Xowie, got their start on open stages as COVID-19 restrictions lifted. Backwards, who now hosts the “Baked and Backwards” drag show at the Summit Lounge, began in Connecticut. Xowie had their first performance at Harley’s Funhouse in spring 2022.
“Pre-pandemic, I was nervous. There were people saying I couldn't do drag, so I was nervous to start because people who didn't do it told me I couldn't do it. I started drag during the pandemic to spite the people who said I couldn't,” Backwards said.
Xowie’s interest in performance and makeup began with childhood theater experience and grew stronger when they started watching "RuPaul’s Drag Race" as a teenager. They said as a nonbinary person, they use drag to play with gender stereotypes and pay tribute to androgynous pop culture icons such as David Bowie.
“People don't know what I am, and I'm like, 'Good, you're not really supposed to.' I try to pay homage to all of the greats. I'll do historical figures. I stretch it as far as I can, because I'm nerdy as hell, and what is your art if not you?” Xowie said.
The mainstream idea of drag has historically been that of a gay man wearing over-the-top women’s clothing, makeup, and wigs, but many Worcester performers have a more open definition of the term.
“If you think about it, the people who walk around at Disney dressed up as the characters are in drag,” Reed said. “Sure, maybe it's a woman dressing as a female character or a man dressed as a male character, but it's an exaggerated version of masculinity or femininity, and it's a heightened version of any visual concept you want to bring to life.”
In a political, cultural crosshairs
2023 has seen nationwide right-wing sentiment against drag, with several state legislatures debating bills that would ban the art form from public spaces.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed a bill into law that classified “male and female impersonators” as adult entertainers and restricted them to adult-only venues. In Texas, the nation’s second most populous state, legislators have introduced multiple bills that would classify drag as a sexually-oriented performance.
“[Drag] doesn't include sex or being naked or anything of that sort,” Reed said. “There is an abundance of communication between queens and show organizers of what is asked for (at all-ages drag shows). The amount of communication is incredible and it's way in advance, so you know exactly what to do.”
Longtime Worcester drag queen Lady Sabrina first began going out in drag in the 1980s, and in her experience, although drag shows drew a crowd, the performers also drew negative attention from police. Over time, she watched as Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage and struck laws that banned dressing as the “opposite sex,” but she also noticed what she perceived as a new kind of apathy.
“When it seemed like we got to a point where we had a lot more rights, newer generations saw the rights as privileges, not rights that were fought for,” she said. “I think one of the issues is that there hasn't been a direct attack on our freedom in such a length of time that everyone has gotten lazy in regards to advocacy.”
Lady Sabrina said she thought many anti-drag political efforts, which tend to have mostly Republican support, were simply an attempt to create moral outrage.
“This is a bait-and-switch. Republicans don't care about drag queens. They care that there's enough fear in their base to distract from what they are not getting done. We are their Trojan horse,” Lady Sabrina said. “Drag has endured, all the way from when you had to wear three articles of men's clothing and they could strip search you in the parking lot to now.”
The Massachusetts state legislature has not seen any bills attempting to ban or restrict drag performances, but anti-drag sentiment in the state hits close to home for Worcester’s performers. The town of North Brookfield drew statewide attention in April for voting to block a proposed drag show at its upcoming Pride celebration in June.
The North Brookfield select board eventually decided that the Pride event could include a drag show, but that the show would not have an official permit from the town. It was unclear what effect the lack of a permit would have on any potential drag performance.
“I think it's quite silly to have a Pride where you don't allow drag, because what kind of Pride is it if you're repressing and pushing things down inside of you instead of letting them come to the surface?” Reed said. “I think there's a huge misconception where people think that drag is an inherently sexual or blasphemous thing, and that's not the case.”
Morales said in general, they had seen far more support than opposition from Worcester County audiences, including at one recent show in Whitinsville.
“The owner was so excited to bring drag to his venue and he was getting some backlash from people in the community. It was at a bowling alley, which I thought was awesome, very 'Grease' in my mind. The owner was so protective that he hired extra security for us to make sure we were safe, and thankfully, nothing happened,” Morales said. “Drag is for all. RuPaul says it best: 'We're born naked and the rest is drag.'”
“I'm happy with how Worcester is progressing, being more comfortable with giving us spaces to do our thing. It feels better to live in a city like this because I know other places aren't as open,” said Robyn Millyonz.
“I don't think we're really tied to a niche like some of the other, more established places are,” Lady Sabrina said. “Worcester's scene has always been evolving. We had a strong evolution for a number of years, and then it all fell apart, and it started to come back slowly, but there is a presence, and I think Worcester is for everybody.”
