Drag 302: Lessons from a Drag Queen

By Broadside Staff Reporter Emily Sharrer
Photo by Broadside Assistant Photography Editor Laura Foltz

“Drag Queen” is truly a loaded phrase. Hair, stiletto pumps, fun music, high energy and the Spice Girls were only a few of the things students came up with at last Tuesday night’s Pride Alliance Meeting when asked to play a word association game.

Queen Reann Sassie D'Loceanono Devereaux Ballslee was outfitted in full drag, from an Amy Winehouse-inspired wig all the way down to her black heels with ankle straps, as she asked the crowd to shout out whatever came to mind when thinking of drag queens.

Ballslee, better known around campus as Ryan Allen, a junior communication major, covered all the essentials: make-up application, nails, how to create hips, hair, and perhaps most importantly, how to fold a dollar to give to a drag queen.

The class was the third in a series that began in 2005 as Drag 100, an introductory class taught by Allen in his first year doing drag. The classes, as well as other drag events put on by Pride Alliance, always yield large turnouts according to Allen, due mostly in part to students’ fascination with all things drag.

“It is always a big fascination, people wondering what all it takes to become a drag queen or a drag king,” said Claire Gault, a 2007 Mason Alum and local drag king. “It doesn’t just happen in five minutes to become a full-blown male or female performer; it takes a lot of time and effort,” Gault said.

For Tuesday night’s performance, Allen said he spent about 45 minutes applying all the make-up involved in looking like an authentic member of the opposite gender. Allen, who is trying to stay within a normal college student budget, shops at Wal-Mart and Target for make-up.

“Today I did my make-up a little differently,” Allen said. “It took me about 45 minutes to get ready. If I were to get rid of my eyebrows with a glue stick and use make-up to cover them up and draw my eyebrows higher, that can take up to two hours.” While putting make-up on may take two hours, removing all traces of it may take up to two days and involves lots of dish soap, according to Allen.

For a female like Gault to get into male costume, she said it takes on average one to two hours. Drag kings have to apply facial hair either using a drawing utensil or their own hair that they save after getting a haircut. Both Allen and Gault also have to add and subtract body parts before they can truly look like the male or female they are trying to portray. Gault and Allen revealed painful stories involving taping down body parts with duct tape applied directly to the skin.

In the class, Allen demonstrated to audience members what exactly he has to do by lifting his dress and baring all to the crowd. Allen was wearing seven pairs of pantyhose Tuesday night, as well as control top biker shorts to hold everything in place.

Padding helps Allen create the illusion of feminine curves.

“There’s a lot of tucking, there’s a lot of taping, there’s a lot of sucking in,” Allen said.

To top off their looks, Gault and Allen wear clothes of the opposite gender. In Allen’s case, this means dresses from Forever 21 or H&M.

It’s not all about the look, though. A large part of being a great drag queen or king is having a fabulous name to go along with all the hair, nails, clothes and performance. At first, Reann Sassie D’Loceanono Devereaux Ballslee sounds difficult, but when breaking it down the way each name was acquired, is really quite simple.

The first name, Reann, is like a female version of Allen’s real first name, Ryan. Sassie became part of the drag name when somebody called Allen sassy and it just seemed to fit.

“D’Loceanono came from a play that my friends and I went and saw. We could not remember a character’s name and we were like ‘oh, it’s D’Loceanono.’ We kept saying it for like a week and I said ‘I think I’m going to add that to my name’ and they were like, ‘You probably should,’” said Allen.

Devereaux is the last name handed down by Allen's drag mom, Tiffany Devereaux, another drag queen who took Allen under her wing, and finally, Ballslee, started with just the letter “b,” the letter that comes after “a” (for Allen) in the alphabet.

Gault’s name, Oliver Clothesoff, was taken from a T-shirt Gault wore her first time performing, and people loved it so much that she took it as her drag name.

To show off all this hardwork and prepping, drag kings and queens perform at clubs in D.C. like APEX, Town, Freddy’s and Cobalt. The major event that Allen and Gault look forward to every year is the drag show here at Mason put on by Pride Alliance, which this year was organized by Allen and will be held March 28 at 8 p.m. in the Johnson Center.

“Here at Mason, it's really cool because everyone looks forward to the drag show so they have that point of reference,” Allen said, “so they know that there is a drag queen on campus and that he or she, whichever they want to call me, is doing something and they can say ‘let’s go do it.’ I think that's really awesome,” Allen said.