“Kings are the only thing we can get the lesbians out for!”
So says drag king entrepreneur Julie (Jay)
Cabell, who’s been putting together drag shows in Wilmington and
Sarasota, Florida for the last four years. “You say you’re going to
have drag kings at the bar and the lesbians are there,” she says.
 Now
at the 814 Club on Shipley Street in Wilmington, the 21 year old drag king
has been bending her gender onstage since she turned 18. In a switch on
the more traditional male drag queen scene, Julie and her co-stars perform
lipsync routines to recordings by their favorite male performers complete
with all-girl back-up “singers.”
Julie’s last Drag King show in Wilmington
drew an audience of over 80 people to the club and word of mouth should
have the next show—soon to be announced—with a bigger audience still.
A native of New Castle, Julie began doing
drag “when a queen asked me to do a show at 814.” According to Julie,
the minute she turned 18 she took to the stage.
She recently returned from several years in
Sarasota where she performed at D&C’s Playhouse (Where Ladies Come
to Play), a lesbian club nestled amid retail stores near a suburban Mall.
It was there that a bartender friend asked
her to bring drag king shows, contests and award ceremonies to the Florida
club. She performed there for several years, helping to organize a whole
troupe called the Playhouse Kings, and causing quite a stir. Jay’s
“bio” on the D&C’s website reads “Jay is the youngest King,
but don’t let that fool you. He’s a seasoned Pro! Jay is imaginative,
expressive and sweetly seductive on and OFF stage!”
The Kings developed a huge following and
presided over shows and contests every six weeks. “Some of the kings got
pretty wild and would even go shirtless,” Julie says.
Now back in Delaware, Julie/Jay works for a
Wilmington caterer by day, and the nights find her at 814 planning the
next show and contest for local drag kings.
The kings publicize their shows by
advertising online, posting fliers, and of course by word of mouth, much
of it through the University of Delaware in Newark. While Wilmington is
being taken by storm by these drag kings, the whole drag king scene is a
growing phenomenon all over the country. There are huge drag king troupes
and welcoming clubs in New York, Chicago, D.C. and San Diego, with a very
active Drag King scene north in Toronto, and especially down under in
Melbourne, Australia.
Last fall in Columbus, Ohio The 4th Annual
Drag King Conference, nicknamed the Genderbash, drew 320 participants and
ran 17 workshops.
Closer to home, the 814 offers Ladies
Nights on Fridays, where you have to be 18 years old to enter, and 21
years old to drink. In the plans are the next drag king shows and
performances by Julie/Jay Cabell. Julie wants Letters readers to come to
Wilmington and check out the scene.
So where does a drag king find the perfect
wardrobe? “I used to work at a Western store, so I have plenty of
stuff,” Jay says, And I borrow a lot of stuff from my gay men friends.
Actually, my closet is worse than a gay mans!”
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