Drag Me to Hell

The days shorten and shadows lengthen. A chill has crept into the air. Pumpkins appear on stoops and candy on store shelves. Yep, it’s officially Halloween in Chicago!

For most folks, that means bingeing on scary movies and candy until you can’t sleep thanks to all the adrenaline and sugar coursing through your veins. Here at Stage Left HQ, we’re also busy with our upcoming show, Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend’s Come Again. Rehearsals are proceeding as we speak, and we’re really excited to share it with you next month. You can find some more info in the image at the top of this email or over at the Stage Left Instagram page.

This month, we’re pleased to present a spooky essay from ensemble member Mary Moore about horror-themed drag in Chicago. In this newsletter, you’ll also find a roundup of some news about the goings-on of our ensemble members.

A niche and fairly novel version of drag has popped up in Chicago each autumn for the past several years: horror-themed drag. As someone who has loved horror since childhood and who was hooked on drag from my first show in 2010, this style is a perfect blend of two things I love.

The performers love it too, as it pushes them to explore new sides of their drag aesthetic. They’ve spoken about how stepping into these darker characters changed their views of their own drag personas. Horror-drag is more than just a costume or a theme; it’s a chance to experiment and tell unexpected stories through performance.

Halloween itself has always been big in the drag community thanks to the holiday’s glamorous wigs, make-up, and costumes. Since Hocus Pocus came out more than 30 years ago, drag venues have featured performances of Bette Midler’s version of “I Put A Spell On You” throughout October. Likewise, the Ghostbusters theme and “Monster Mash” are staples everywhere, and you’re likely to see at least one Elvira lip-syncing on stage. Plenty of 80s and 90s B-movies, horror or otherwise, can easily be turned into a fun and campy Halloween number. 

Early Halloween drag was fun and festive, but it didn’t quite fully embody the season. Instead of focusing on the creepy, it tended to highlight glam, humor, and over-the-top performances or costumes. The true, spooky spirit of Halloween was missing.

Boystown celebrates Halloween each year with a neighborhood parade down Halsted ending with a costume contest. These contests all had a pageant-like look to them; contestants wore beautiful gowns as glammed-up horror icons, mostly regular drag with a small twist. Muffy Fishbasket, a hostess of drag bingos across Chicago and Evanston, used to dress as Barbra Streisand on roller skates or Baby Jessica or Blanche from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and go to the contests to fundraise for her theatre company.

The Night of 100 Drag Queens pageant in Boystown was very glam but had nothing too extreme, despite being Halloween-themed. Queens who wanted to do a scarier look had to negotiate with the producers and were often required to tone down some of their more outlandish costumes. But after years of similar shows hampered by limited creativity at Halloween, horror-loving queens and performers wanted something different.

In 2012, Gender Bent created Whores of Horror with drag queen Coco Sho-Nell, which blended the expected Halloween numbers with a little bit of darkness. The show was first produced at the Call Bar in Andersonville and featured queens dressed as horror icons like Pinhead from Hellraiser and Freddy Krueger or wearing straitjackets while crawling out from under the stage. Audience members were surprised and creeped out by some of the numbers, and the show was a smash success. Gender Bent and Coco worked on the show together for two more years until the company disbanded. After that, Coco took over producing Whores of Horror on her own until 2021.

The truly dark era of horror drag began in 2015, however, with the Whores of Horror show SlasHer. It featured a killer who stalked the performers through the audience during their numbers before slaughtering them onstage in the finale. The producer specifically wanted a female killer, which defies the conventions of both horror movies and real life. This was Whores of Horror performer Vivian Dejour’s favorite show both because it was novel in telling a cohesive story and because there were no conceptual horror shows before this. 

2016’s circus-themed Freakshow was mentioned in both RedEye's “13 Things To Do in October” and Chicago Reader’s “Best Halloween Events.” Performers dressed as circus-themed characters: Pennywise the Clown, a lion-human hybrid, and a living voodoo doll. Ringmaster Coco joined the menagerie onstage for the final number, “Freak Like Me” by Halestorm. The recognition from local publications pushed Coco and the performers to lean into the horror tropes even more.

Whores of Horror moved to different venues, like Uptown Underground and Red Tape Theatre. The show even toured to Campit Resort in Wisconsin for a couple of years. These shows weren’t just limited to queens, either: drag kings, burlesque performers, and dancers joined the casts as well. This inclusion gave visibility to other types of performance and showed that horror performances, and drag in general, is not exclusively for queens. It also helped the shows reach a broader audience of horror-lovers.

As the horror elements became more popular, performers began to go all-out with special effects. One tore a mask off her face to show bloody musculature below and another performer pulled a fake heart covered in gore out of their chest. In a memorable two-song bit, a victim had pieces cut off of them in one number that were then sewn onto a queen’s body by her next number. 

The creativity behind the numbers was astounding as well. Muffy Fishbasket dressed as a pregnant nun and birthed a demon baby on stage in a controversial, though beloved, number. Another performer opted for a minimal approach by simply standing onstage, giggling, laughing, and staring at the audience unblinking while distorted electronica played in the background. Vivian Dejour portrayed Samara from The Ring, complete with a well from which she emerged before climbing over audience members for maximum scares. Years later, she reprised this character at a bingo night at Lark Bar by brushing her hair over her face and silently handing out bingo cards to freaked-out customers.

Since 2023, Fantasy Nightclub has held the Creature of the Night pageant, which combines classic glam presentation with the eeriness of Halloween. Though not completely horror-based, it is still wonderfully creepy. Contestants transformed into cryptids, aliens, or mythological monsters, bringing high-concept horror to the stage. One served as a glamorous Creature from the Black Lagoon, complete with matching heels. Likewise, a haunting “Bloody Mary” broke through a mirror prop, and a half-bull, half-human figure commanded the stage in his number.

Performers loved the opportunity to explore aesthetics beyond their usual personal looks. They tapped into levels of fright and fear previously underexplored in drag performance. They had to view these new characters as a fusion between iconic horror characters, their drag personas, and their own personalities. For many performers, doing something so new and innovative reinvigorated their love of the craft. To quote Vivian Dejour, “It was a way to not have to work in a haunted house, but working in a haunted house.”

I was lucky enough to have been a part of some of these horror shows, both as a blood-soaked victim and as an artist who created creepy set pieces; two gnarled papier-mâché trees built for a horror show still live in my dining room today.

As a testament to the influence of horror drag, performers are now exploring their dark sides even outside of the Halloween season. Lillith Towers is a horror drag artist who suffuses her performances and looks with narratives, incorporating everything from haunted house aesthetics to a Cheshire Cat with a disturbingly wide grin. Her work is very nuanced; she knows which crowds need unsettling but restrained looks and which ones can handle the extreme. She dresses as a creepy clown for Boystown and will add blood, gore, or decayed flesh for Circuit. 

Apollo Summers has been part of the Creature of the Night pageants since they began. In 2020 and 2021, they won the title of National Monster Xtreme, a pageant dedicated to alternative and monster drag artists. Around Chicago, they promote themselves as the “Dancing Demon” and perform in horns or white-out contacts throughout the year while channelling woodland spirits from Native American folklore.

The horror subgenre is slowly making its way into the mainstream. More audiences are embracing its mix of theatre, camp, and macabre. What once lived in underground spaces is now taking center stage, admired for its daring creativity and innovation. Performers who embrace weirder looks and characters are beginning to claim their space.

The drag competition show Dragula has brought new eyes to underground drag over the years, bringing wider attention to its weirder corners. While not every contestant leans into horror, they embrace strange or grotesque looks in their performances. Contestants showcase everything from sea monsters and Wicked Witches to “hospital of horrors” nightmares and black-and-white silent film creatures alongside blood-soaked scream queens and gothic brides. With its principles of “drag, glamour, filth, and horror,” the show proves that drag can be perverse and still undeniably beautiful. It celebrates the full spectrum art form of drag; not just the polished and pretty, but the raw and boundary-pushing.

Although there don’t seem to be any full-out horror drag shows in Chicago this year, queens and performers are putting a little more spookiness into their looks. You’ll probably see a Carrie covered in sparkly rhinestone blood, and you never know when a performer will surprise you with something good and gory.

Mary Aurora Moore, Stage Left Ensemble Member

If you’re in the market for more spooky fun, our ensemble member Seth Wilson recently reviewed Rough House Theatre’s fifth annual horror-themed puppet show. Tickets are available here.

Speaking of reviews, ensemble member Kyle A. Thomas recently saw Four Places by Four Chairs Theatre. You can read his review here and get tickets at the company site.

Getting off the page and onto the stage, we’re excited to let you know that ensemble member Audrey Bixby will appear in Theatre Momentum’s next show, The Anthology! It’s an hour-long dramatic improv show consisting of a series of scenes focusing on a central theme. It runs November 14th through December 13th. Keep an eye on Theatre Momentum’s website for more info.

Did you know that Stage Left Theatre is the second-oldest ensemble-based theatre in Chicago? And did you also know that we’re currently seeking new board members? If you’re interested in helping to build the venerable company’s next chapter, head over here to learn more and fill out an application!

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