Drag kings have historically been mostly female performance artists who dress in masculine drag and personify male gender stereotypes as part of an individual or group routine. As documented in the 2003 Journal of Homosexuality, in more recent years the world of drag kings has broadened to include performers of all gender expressions. A typical drag show may incorporate dancing, acting, stand-up comedy and singing, either live or lip-synching to pre-recorded tracks. Drag kings often perform as exaggeratedly macho male characters, portray characters such as construction workers and rappers, or impersonate male celebrities like Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Tim McGraw. Drag kings may also perform as personas that do not clearly align with the gender binary. Drag personas that combine both stereotypically masculine and feminine traits are common in modern drag king shows.
Guys and Dolls is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It is based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" (1933) and "Blood Pressure", which are two short stories by Damon Runyon, and also borrows characters and plot elements from other Runyon stories, such as "Pick the Winner".
Ethyl Eichelberger was an Obie award-winning American drag performer, playwright, and actor. He became an influential figure in experimental theater and writing, and wrote nearly forty plays portraying women such as Jocasta, Medea, Nefertiti, Clytemnestra, and Lucrezia Borgia. He became more widely known as a commercial actor in the 1980s.
Legends! is a comedic play written by James Kirkwood, Jr. It toured the United States with Mary Martin and Carol Channing in 1986, but never had a production on Broadway. The play concerns two aging rival film stars. Kirkwood wrote about the tour's adventures in his memoir Diary of a Mad Playwright.
Drag is a performance of exaggerated femininity, masculinity, or other forms of gender expression, usually for entertainment purposes. Drag usually involves cross-dressing. A drag queen is someone who performs femininely and a drag king is someone who performs masculinely. Performances often involve comedy, social satire, and at times political commentary. The term may be used as a noun as in the expression in drag or as an adjective as in drag show.
Charles Louis Busch is an American actor, screenwriter, playwright and drag queen, known for his appearances on stage in his own camp style plays and in film and television. He wrote and starred in his early plays off-off-Broadway beginning in 1978, generally in drag roles, and also acted in the works of other playwrights. He also wrote for television and began to act in films and on television in the late 1990s. His best known play is The Tale of the Allergist's Wife (2000), which was a success on Broadway.
Sam Levene was an American Broadway, films, radio, and television actor and director. In a career spanning over five decades, he appeared in over 50 comedy and drama theatrical stage productions. He also acted in over 50 films across the United States and abroad.
The Pyramid Club was a nightclub in the East Village of Manhattan, New York City. After opening in 1979, the Pyramid helped define the East Village drag queen, gay, post-punk and no wave art and music scenes of the 1980s. The club was located at 101 Avenue A in Manhattan.
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo is an all-male drag ballet troupe that parodies the conventions of romantic and classical ballet. The company's current artistic director is Tory Dobrin.
Outrageous! is a 1977 Canadian comedy-drama film written and directed by Richard Benner. The film stars Craig Russell as female impersonator Robin Turner, and Hollis McLaren as Turner's schizophrenic roommate Liza Conners. The plot begins in Toronto, with later scenes in New York City.
A drag show is a form of entertainment performed by drag artists impersonating men or women, typically in a bar or nightclub. Shows can range from burlesque-style, adult themed nightclub acts to all-ages events with sing-alongs and story times.
Jack Cole was an American dancer, choreographer, and theatre director known as "the Father of Theatrical Jazz Dance" for his role in codifying African-American jazz dance styles, as influenced by the dance traditions of other cultures, for Broadway and Hollywood. Asked to describe his style he described it as "urban folk dance".
Alison Fraser is an American actress, voice actress and singer who has appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in television and film. In concert, she has performed at such venues as Carnegie Hall, The White House, Town Hall, The Brooklyn Botanic Garden, The Tisch Center for the Arts, The Folger Shakespeare Library, The Wilma, The Emelin, Joe's Pub, 54 Below, and Symphony Space.
Julie Halston is an American actress and comedian who appeared on television, film, and theatre. She received four Drama Desk Award nominations for her Broadway performances, and in 2020 was awarded Isabelle Stevenson Award at the 74th Tony Awards. On television, Halston best-known for playing socialite Bitsy von Muffling in the HBO comedy series, Sex and The City, its film continuation, and the sequel series, And Just Like That....
Paul Kreppel is an American actor and director. On television, he was best known as pianist Sonny Mann on the show It's a Living. In his work as theater director-producer-creator, he received the 2007 Tony Award for Jay Johnson: The Two and Only.
Christine Jorgensen Reveals is a 2005 American theatrical show that depicts the 1957 one-hour interview of Christine Jorgensen by Nipsey Russell. This was billed as her "only recorded interview", though she had actually participated in recorded interviews with Tom Snyder, Dick Cavett, Joe Pyne, and others. The show begins with a brief documentary. Then, Jorgensen's entire interview is lip synched by the two actors. The show received a generally positive critical response and earned the 2006 Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience. It has been mounted several times since its 2005 Off-Broadway production.
Mimi Imfurst, the stage name of Braden Stewart Chapman, is an American drag performer. She appeared on the third season of RuPaul's Drag Race and RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars and was a founding member of the girl group Xelle. In 2017, he became the first U.S. drag queen to perform in Cuba, lip-syncing to Madonna's "Express Yourself" with a group of local dancers.
Justin Peck is an American choreographer, director, and dancer associated with New York City Ballet, of which he was appointed Resident Choreographer in July 2014, being the second person in the history of the institution to hold this title. A two-time Tony Award for Best Choreography recipient, he won in 2018 for the revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel and in 2024 for the Sufjan Stevens original dance musical, Illinoise. On film, Peck choreographed the dance sequences for Steven Spielberg musical adaptation West Side Story (2021) and Bradley Cooper's biographical drama Maestro (2023).
TweedTheaterworks, also known as TWEED, Tweed Ensemble, and theatretweed, is an experimental theatre company founded in 1983. It is known for its Fractured Classicks series, satirical interpretations of classic American plays and films that employ unique casting choices; and its critically acclaimed productions featuring performance artist John Kelly, playwrights Bill Russell and Adrienne Kennedy, and drag icons Varla Jean Merman and Lypsinka.
Dwayne Cooper, also known by the drag persona Milan and as Dwayne Milan, is an American actor and entertainer who competed on the fourth season of RuPaul's Drag Race. On stage, Cooper has had roles in multiple national tours, and he performed in Broadway productions of Hairspray and Motown: The Musical. Raised in Florence, South Carolina, Cooper relocated to New York City.
