If “Ru Paul’s Drag Race” was the only metric by which the local drag scene was measured, Pittsburgh would probably be considered a curious oddity. In the show’s nearly 15 years, three queens from the Steel City have been featured.
But Pittsburgh’s drag scene is much broader — and younger — than you might think. With so many colleges and universities nearby, the city’s many bars and stages serve as both entry points and proving grounds. Some stick around long after their college-aged start. Others are simply addicted to Pittsburgh’s unique drag community.
Here are five local drag queens and kings who aren’t quite “Drag Race” famous, yet.
Envy Sinn
“Drag is just WWE for gay people,” Sinn says.
“Really, just step back for a second and think about WWE. That is drag — you create a character, you wear sexy little outfits. That’s drag.”
The Greensburg native has been performing and hosting shows throughout Pittsburgh for the past two years.
While Sinn has performed some traditional drag acts — lip sync numbers, for example — most of her time is spent serving as a host for a number of other shows and events around town, including monthly drag trivia events at Love, Katie Distilling; biweekly variety shows at P-Town Bar and a weekly stand-up open mic night also at P-Town. Hosting and production is, admittedly, her favorite part of performing.
A stand-up comic herself, Sinn created the shows to offer an inclusive alternative to Pittsburgh’s open mic scene.
“There are a lot of spaces that are not as welcoming for, specifically, any type of marginalized person,” Sinn says. “Queer people, trans people, people of color — it’s harder for them to find spaces within the stand-up scene, so I wanted to make the P-Town something where anybody can go.”
To Sinn, performing in drag is also about practicing self love and being comfortable in her own body. That’s part of the reason she doesn’t wear corsets or pad parts of her body to accentuate her figure — something common among many queens who strive for a similar, curated body shape.
While shirking that archetype can be considered a faux pas by some — or cost you a competition — Sinn says that no one in the Pittsburgh scene has made a big deal of it.
“Honestly, that’s the thing I do love about Pittsburgh,” she says. “I have not really been questioned on anything. People love weird shit in Pittsburgh; that’s not weird, but it’s not traditional, and they’re not expecting [traditional things] either.”
Kaydence McQueen
Kaydence McQueen, “Pittsburgh’s Trans Goddess,” attributes the city’s wide breadth of performers and performances to the community’s support of one another.
“In New York City or LA, only one or two types of drag get seen or get bookings or get appreciated in that type of way,” McQueen says. “In Pittsburgh, we have alternative queens, we have nonbinary performers, we have so many drag kings — a lot of cities don’t even have drag kings in their shows at all.
“The fact that it’s just so open and welcoming to everyone who wants to be a participant is what makes Pittsburgh drag so special.”
McQueen’s drag career started after her first year at Point Park University wrapped up in 2017. She left Pittsburgh to study at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.
Getting into drag was a way to experience the city’s nightlife and meet new people. It was simultaneously a coalescence of her fashion studies and background in theater.
McQueen returned to Pittsburgh in 2022 and has been performing regularly since.
“I love doing high-energy numbers. I’m a dancer, so I have a few stunts that I pull out every once in a while,” she says. Amid sliding splits, cartwheels and dips, a front walkover has “kind of become one of my signatures.”
During the pandemic, McQueen picked up DJing as a hobby, and it’s quickly grown to be a part of her repertoire. Find her spinning discs at P-Town every third Thursday of the month.
Warren Munroe
If it’s a musical performance you’re after, you’ll want to seek out Warren Munroe.
The Brooklyn native moved to Pittsburgh in 2021 and has been singing her way through town ever since. She calls her shows “a production, through and through.”
“I am a musician before anything,” Munroe says. “I’ve been doing music for 16 years. My mother was an opera singer, and she trained me classically starting at the age of 6. I’ve always had the drive to want to perform and do music or drag. I’ve just always wanted to be on a stage.”
The queen scripts out parts of her shows and curates a performance concept for the songs and albums on her set list. Most of the time, that includes dancers.
But starting her Pittsburgh drag career as a vocalist in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic proved challenging.
“Anytime I would ask for a mic, the host would look at me like I was crazy,” she says.
That initial shock was paired with the fear of leaving behind New York’s vibrant culture.
“But when I got here, I was shocked at how much culture and how much artistry is here in Pittsburgh. It’s very, very colorful, and I love that because it reminds me of home so much. I feel like everybody here supports one another and is always here to help a sister out when they need it.
“I’m a Pittsburgh girl now, and that feels so surreal because I never thought I would be.”
You can find her performing at P-Town, Blue Moon and 5801.
Jeri Mia Monroe
Jeri Mia Monroe, on the other hand, wants to flash you back to a 1960s nighttime cabaret. Smoke in the air, Manhattan in hand, she brings the performance right to your dimly lit table.
“When I come up to you, I’m making my presence known — you’re engaged with me. And right when you want more, I’m going to walk over to another table and get their tips,” Monroe says.
Though her chosen last name is nearly identical to Warren Munroe’s, Jeri Mia’s is more closely related to Marilyn.
“I call myself the Old-Hollywood-Broadway-Baby-Honky-Tonk-Cowgirl,” Monroe says. “Pretty much, my inspirations are Marilyn Monroe, Dolly Parton and Sabrina Carpenter, so like, ditsy blonde, in-on-the-joke-but-also-can-be-the-joke personas.”
While this iteration of the queen’s Pittsburgh career just started in March, her local drag performances date back to 2017, when she was a student at Point Park University.
In the ensuing eight years, she’s done stints in Los Angeles and New York, but always lands back in Pittsburgh.
“I want to tour my drag everywhere that will accept it, but right now, I see myself staying in Pittsburgh,” she says. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to grow roots and turn into Bloomfield — I plan to still go out and see other cities as well.”
Part of her motivation stems from the fact that the smaller number of queens in Pittsburgh compared to other population centers means there’s more space to schedule shows and try unique acts.
But Monroe says she’s also in love with the queer scene in Appalachia.
“Pittsburgh is so slept on, and I want to share it, but I also want to be a gatekeeper of it, because there’s just something really beautiful and really special about this specific time in queer Pittsburgh life.”
Silly Billy
Silly Billy moved to Pittsburgh this spring for a day job and simultaneously kicked off a drag career.
The Chicago native went to college in New York City. Even after getting a taste of bigger drag scenes, he says Pittsburgh is underrated. And with Lydia B. Kollins’ run on the most recent season of “Drag Race,” the city’s queer entertainment and nightlife scenes are booming.
“There is a crazy amount of diversity in what you’re going to see at a club on a normal night,” Billy says. “Everyone’s been so welcoming and really encouraging, so I feel like I’ve picked the right place to start out.”
But even though he’s tied into the scene, the Drag King’s shows aren’t typical: Silly Billy is a stand-up comic.
Billy describes himself as irreverent and jestful, but the time spent discovering himself before moving to Pittsburgh painted a clearer picture of who he was.
“In thinking about what I wanted to present, the type of drag performer I wanted to be was a clownish, hyper-masculine dramatization of your weird uncle from the ’70s,” he says
Billy’s shows jab at gender roles and, of course, masculinity, fueled by his belief that performance art is inherently political. Billy, as a character, leans into the stereotypes leveled at drag performers and the queer community as a whole, highlighting how absurd political attacks against marginalized people are.
“I like to bring that into my performance, and I think people appreciate that present viewpoint and that we can laugh through the pain together a little bit,” he says.
“I feel like the world needs a little bit more of that.”
Originally published by our partners at NextPittsburgh with background by QBurgh.
