When I debuted as my drag persona Vicious Mockery in the variety show Glamorama at My Buddy’s earlier this year, I was lucky to be on a bill of mostly other drag kings. Celebrated kings Switch the Boi Wonder and Bubba Boom made up the bill, as well as my drag brother Jest Kidding. Partially due to my brother and I debuting, my drag mother, Zenon TeaVee, wanted to bring together some of the best kings in the city for us to learn from. Of course, that wasn’t the only reason she booked them; she also knew they were great performers and would make for an awesome show. It was a wonderful experience being backstage with mostly kings.
I say I was lucky because, unfortunately, a show of mostly kings isn’t really the norm. But that is starting to change, thanks to several kings working to increase our visibility locally and internationally.
Drag kings are often token performers on a bill, something that gets real lonely, real fast. If we’re in a show at all (and we struggle to get booked compared to queens), we’re usually the only performers of our kind, and audiences don’t always know what to do with us. When it comes to drag, the general public thinks of RuPaul’s glitzy, pageant-ready queens strutting down the runway. They don’t usually think of masculinity, and that’s partially because, in 16 seasons, RuPaul’s Drag Race has never featured a drag king. To many viewers, drag means cis men dressed as women because that’s primarily what’s on television, though the show has showcased openly trans performers in recent years (but not without a fight from RuPaul).
It’s not all RuPaul’s fault drag kings aren’t booked as often as queens, though. There are a lot of factors that go into the pay disparity and lack of opportunities for drag kings. Every king I spoke to for this article had different ideas about why that is. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of research on the economics of drag (the one paper I did find on the subject likened drag to blackface, so I wasn’t inclined to believe the researcher understood our community), so you’ll have to take kings at our word that our bag is less full.
“I think there’s a disparity in booking fees in nightlife in general, but when it comes to kings, I just assume that most likely the payment is going to be less based on what people ask me to perform for,” says Po’Chop, drag king, performance artist, and cofounder of Black feminist art space House of the Lorde. “I think it’s also hard to gauge because there’s not a lot of transparency about the overall budget producers have and how it’s being broken up.”
Other drag kings I spoke to said they felt they were paid the same booking fee but that when it came to tips, queens definitely made more.
“I just had this experience recently at one of the bigger venues I’ve performed at. The lineup was mostly femme presenting, and when I got onstage, people were like, ‘Huh?’” Chicago king Monsieur Bombastic says. “There was this one woman in a red dress who was just tossing away money [for the other performers], and when it came to me she literally flashed her cash at me and then tucked it away. I get that treatment quite a lot as the weirdo alternative drag king and it’s something I’ve learned to swallow over time.”
Switch, who has been a drag performer for 20 years and coproduces and cohosts the king-centric show Notes on Masculinity at the California Clipper, says sometimes show hosts fail to get crowds excited about kings
“If you’re not gassing [kings] up on the mike, if you’re not telling audiences what to expect and getting them excited, like, ‘Get those dollars ready! This is gonna be a hot one!’ you’re not setting those kings up for success,” Switch says. “You’re basically just checking a box like, ‘Well, I put them on a stage. I did my part.’ That’s just not good producing.”
Making audiences more excited about drag kings is just one part of the puzzle of fixing the disparity between kings and queens. Greater visibility is needed to get more kings onstage and paid better.
“Drag kings help start conversations and create a well-rounded evening.”
Po’Chop
“I still get people coming up to me being like, ‘Oh my god! You’re the first drag king I’ve ever seen!’ and it’s like, ‘Yeah, thanks . . . been doing it a while,’” SKIM, Vancouver drag king and creator of the original Book Drag Kings project, tells me. Experiences like that are part of why he created the photo and video project, which aims to bring more visibility to the drag king community.
The Book Drag Kings project started, as art often does, out of grief. SKIM had just performed at Burnaby Pride with prominent drag artist King Fisher. Not long after, Fisher passed away at the age of 25.
“I realized that we had only ever done that one performance together because kings just never get booked together,” SKIM says. “After he passed, I just felt such despair and loneliness, and I realized that in our community we weren’t really talking to each other.”
SKIM was moved to change that. He organized community social gatherings as well as skills workshops on subjects like contouring. Later, with the help of the Long Live Kings collective, Tinydog Studio and Gallery, photographers Ray McEachern and Dayna Finkelstein, and videographer Chris Reed of Queer Based Media, SKIM organized photo and video shoots, and the Book Drag Kings project was born.
Back in Chicago, SKIM’s collage of photos from the project came across Switch’s Instagram feed and inspired them to bring the project to our city. They immediately messaged SKIM to ask for permission and, once granted, started pulling the project together with Po’Chop, their collaborator and cohost of Notes on Masculinity. They decided that the photo shoot would take place at the California Clipper–hosted show, and kings across the city were encouraged to show up to have their photo taken with a sign bearing the simple instruction: “Book Drag Kings.”
The Chicago project, which has now had two shoots at Notes on Masculinity, was photographed by Greg Inda, who is also the cabaret’s resident photographer. Normally, he takes photos of performers both on- and backstage, something Switch and Po’Chop organize because kings often struggle to get professional photos taken.
“It’s amazing that kings are deciding not to wait to get booked but creating shows and spaces themselves.”
Switch the Boi Wonder
“I don’t know that it’s necessarily that photographers don’t want to photograph kings, but there’s definitely some kind of barrier there that kings don’t get asked to do photo shoots as much as queens do,” Inda says.
That’s just one part of what makes Notes on Masculinity, which next month celebrates its third anniversary, such a special show. Every detail Switch and Po’Chop put into the cabaret creates a space where kings and other artists exploring masculinity (the show features all kinds of performance, not just drag) can thrive.
“It’s amazing that kings are deciding not to wait to get booked but creating shows and spaces themselves,” Switch says. “That’s what Po and I have done with Notes—create a space we would want to perform in.”
Most of the kings I spoke to said that the number of bookings they received has gone up since being part of the project. Producers across the city are starting to take notice of the many kings here and put them in shows.
“I’ve actually had to turn down opportunities. I’m not able to take all the gigs that are offered to me, and that’s a nice place to be in,” Bubba tells me. He’s been seriously busy lately, with a ton of bookings this month. He’s actually taking a break in April, going on vacation with his spouse, Ms. Jeff, to relax after a busy first few months of the year. “I think a lot of producers woke up and were like, ‘Oh yeah, we need to start booking drag kings and we need to book more than one and do it consistently and not just as an all-kings show.’”
That doesn’t mean there isn’t still a long way to go for equality in drag. I still often see tokenism and lack of diversity at drag shows, and not just in terms of kings versus queens. It’s not uncommon to see a show with either all-white performers or a singular cast member of color. It’s also rare to see disability represented in drag shows, though there are plenty of disabled performers out there: Bubba, Marí Nero, Collin Advance, and myself come to mind. Some producers may think drag kings or other diverse performers don’t fit their “aesthetic,” but that feels like a cop-out to me.
“I wish producers knew or considered that drag kings come in a wide range of aesthetics. Whatever vibe they’re trying to curate, there’s absolutely a drag king to fit that. Not only is there one, there’s probably multiple,” Po’Chop says. “Just consider the audience’s experience and that audiences want to be challenged . . . they’ll ride discomfort, they want to be pushed or surprised by something that perhaps they didn’t consider. Drag kings help do that. Drag kings help start conversations and create a well-rounded evening.”
While RuPaul might not decide to book a king on Drag Race any time soon, there is a new drag competition show coming to airwaves this year that could help king visibility nationally. King of Drag—hosted by comedian Murray Hill, who performs as drag persona Busby Murray Gallagher and costarred in HBO’s Peabody Award–winning Somebody Somewhere—is set to debut on Revry sometime this spring.
The kings I spoke to ranged from excited to cautiously optimistic about the show. While most kings look forward to the visibility the show will bring, they are also concerned about how Hollywood might exploit their community for views, something not at all uncommon in reality television.
“I thought about applying but I decided to wait it out and see how the show treats people first,” Bubba says, especially considering his place as a fat and disabled performer.
“I can’t wait!” Switch says. “I hope it gets as much national attention as RuPaul’s show and that it’s curated a little differently. . . . I know Murray and he’s really great. I also know a couple of the folks who are going to be judges too, and I think it’s going to be pretty cool.”
King-centric Shows in Chicago
Note: Not every show is kings-only, but each heavily features drag kings. This is also not an exhaustive list.
Notes on Masculinity: Second Tuesday of every other month at the California Clipper, hosted by Po’Chop and Switch the Boi Wonder
Brewz with the Boyz: Second Saturday of every month at Uptown Taproom, hosted by Annx
Hunks: A King Show: Periodically at the Newport Theater, hosted by Harley Go’Lightly and Harry Ola
Open Cabaret: Kings-Only Edition: Usually during the summer at the Newport Theater, this year’s host TBA
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