Hart said of this disparity: “Pay opportunities are so few and far between if I’m not making them myself. However, outside of shows cast by fellow performers, Woody said self-advocacy becomes challenging when organisers consistently book drag queens for higher paying gigs and other drag performers rarely or at all, generating an income disparity. “For me, my approach has always been around creating opportunities,” Hart said. Recently, Hart received the 2022 Honour Award for Arts and Entertainment for their work in nurturing the revitalisation of the community. The Drag Kings is a production company that provides booking services for clients and hosts The Kings, a monthly show featuring a rotating roster of performers.įounded in 2020 by Laura Hart, aka Big Rod, hosting The Kings allows Hart to afford local kings and other drag artists opportunities for stage time and transparent rates of pay based on factors such as a performer’s experience and travel. The art of gender play has continued to evolve since the days of Dietrich and Morris, beyond performances of strictly masculinity. Their makeup and outfits emulate the likes of Marlene Dietrich, world-famous for donning a top hat and tails for her role in Morocco (1930), or Australian Elsie Morris, who toured Sydney’s theatre circuits of the 1910s as a male impersonator.Įarly 20th century male impersonator Elsie Morris. Indeed, in watching a king today, one sees flashes of their performance ancestors within them. In fact, there’s some really high-profile male impersonators that existed historically,” she said. “Women impersonating men has always existed since Shakespearean days. However, the conceptual roots of today’s kings date back centuries, Drysdale said. Commercial infrastructure dedicated to queer women was markedly sparse, so venues catering to gay male patronage turned their stages over to lesbians and kings for one night a week. “There was a real DIY effort around the emergence and sustainability of drag king culture that drag queens haven’t had to contend with,” Drysdale said.ĭrysdale recalled how the scene began to emerge in the 1990s through the informal establishment of Wednesdays as ‘lesbian night out’ along the bars of King Street in Newtown and Oxford Street in Darlinghurst. Performers may also claim gender neutral terms, such as ‘dragthing’ or ‘drag cryptid’.ĭr Kerryn Drysdale is a research fellow at UNSW’s Centre for Social Research in Health who has studied the history of Sydney’s kings extensively. Kings are often queer women, however people of all genders and sexualities partake in the artform. Kinging is a type of drag performance that combines comedy and music, usually expressed through elements of masculinity or androgyny. Woody and his fellow performers belong to an emerging community of Sydney drag kings and artists experiencing a post-pandemic resurgence. Woody prepares to go on stage at the Lord Gladstone for Kings & Things.
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