After only four months in existence, TheatreSquared’s “Sunday Night Social”—a monthly event held, free of charge, in The Commons Bar/Cafe—is realizing its original mission: the event is filling the expansive Commons with audiences eager to hear from talented performers from the Northwest Arkansas community.

“We wanted to find other ways to center new voices and the talents of our community,” says T2’s Arts Engagement Director Morgan Hicks of the origination of the event. “Our goal is very simple: To make everyone feel welcome in our home, to encourage people to share their artistry with us in a supportive environment, and to have some fun.”

This Sunday, May 1, the Sunday Night Social Theme is “The Art of Drag” and will feature performances from three of the region’s most prominent Queens: Taylor Madison Monroe, Lady Kakes Monroe, and PollyEsther Foxx.

“I think having a drag show will give people an opportunity to see an art form that makes the crowd feel involved,” says Marketing Apprentice Kayleigh Hughes. “The Art of Drag” is being coordinated by Hughes and her fellow T2 apprentices Israel Rios, Amber Holley and Eddie Fountain, the latter serving as the event’s emcee. “The traditional theatre setting is created for an audience to watch, but this type of event will help create a sense of community for the audiences that attend T2.”

Along with celebrating the artists performing at Sunday’s show, the event will celebrate the art of drag itself, which has a long and storied history in Arkansas, says Joseph Porter, Northwest Arkansas Equality board president.

“Arkansas has a rich drag history that dates back at least to the 1930s,” says Porter. “Celebrity drag queen Harvey Lee toured the nation performing in clubs from the 1930s until the ’80s but called Arkansas home. Drag was part of mainstream charitable fundraisers in rural towns, a source of comedy on military bases, and entertainment in the Japanese internment camps in the 1940s. While these drag shows weren’t LGBTQ events, they opened doors for rural Arkansans to explore gender fluidity and social norms.”

In the 1970s, says Porter, Arkansas was the epicenter of the gay pageant circuit.

“The 1970s brought Miss Gay America to Arkansas through the pageant’s first winner, Norman Jones/ Norma Kristie,” he says. “The pageant’s operations were based out of Arkansas for 35 years and often held in Little Rock’s Robinson Theater. Partially because of Jones’ efforts and the national pageant’s location, Arkansas’ drag scene flourished as contestants competed in city preliminaries to Miss Gay Arkansas and, ultimately, vied with more than 50 entertainers from across the country to become Miss Gay America. For over 50 years, these very visible displays of pageants, drag shows, and nightlife helped create queer spaces, acceptance, and a supportive community for Arkansas’ LGBTQ people.”

“The people that came before me, and [also] before them, cultivated a feeling of fun in the drag community,” says Jeremy Stuthard-Fears, also known as Taylor Madison Monroe. “Drag is fun in Arkansas. We have plenty of places to perform. When people aren’t out cow tipping, they’re watching drag shows. Arkansans just enjoy entertainment, no matter what form of entertainment it is.”

Taylor Madison Monroe
Photo/Carrie Strong

Stuthard-Fears was eager to perform, but was dealing with disappointment his freshman year at college at not being cast in a UA Department of Theatre show. When a friend urged him to dress in drag for a party, he jumped in feet first—and was instantly hooked. He’s been performing for over two decades now, winning multiple pageant titles, including the first alternate to Miss Gay Arkansas America (2018), 2012 Miss Gay United States (2012) and 2011 Miss Gay Arkansas United States (2011). When he first got into the culture, says Stuthard-Fears, there were no YouTube or TikTok “how to” videos that he could study. Instead, he learned the ropes from watching others, particularly the mentors he calls his “drag mothers”.

“It’s important, to have a drag family,” he says. “People that you get along with, people that you can go [decorate] a dress with, people that you can go to dinner with, people that you go out to the club without drag. You just get to have fun and blossom with each other.”

Patty Johnson, who is also known as Lady Kakes Monroe, counts Taylor Madison Monroe as her Drag Mother. For Johnson, it was especially important to have a mentor, as she was breaking into the business as an “AFAB Queen” — or “assigned female at birth”, also known as a “bio queen”. In the drag world, Queens were, historically, men dressing as women—but Queens like Johnson have been changing that over the past several decades.

“It was difficult,” she says. “But there are people breaking down barriers, still. Not just me. We’ve done work over the years, and things are better today than they used to be. Especially [in] the Northwest Arkansas scene.”

Johnson has a history of volunteer and nonprofit work—she’s worked for the Rape Crisis Center and the Center for Equality, and she is currently a staff member at an LGBTQ-friendly medical office. She was first introduced to drag while helping with HIV testing at the Center for Equality, where co-workers were planning a fundraiser organized around drag performers.

“They asked me to be a part of it because I was crazy, I was from New Orleans,” she says. “They were like, ‘Yeah, her, because she’s crazy, and she always has a wig.’ If you’re from New Orleans, you just have wigs. Everybody's got a wig. You never know when a parade is going to strike up down the street, and we have to get a wig out quick.”

She quickly discovered she was a natural, and it was no wonder, given her previous performance history.

“I was ‘Little Miss Chicken Clucking’ three years in a row in my hometown, for our Chicken and Egg Festival,” she quips. “I laid eggs on stage. I was on the news. I was the school mascot. I’m a theater nerd, a Broadway nerd through and through.”

Johnson loves performing, but may love the pageant circle even more.

“We love sparkly stuff, first of all,” she says. “But second, it gives us a sense of respect for one another for the amount of time and effort put into it. Competition is what keeps us striving to make our acts better. Competition is necessary to improve our acts, make them more appealing to audiences.”

Johnson says she thinks the appeal of drag to both the performer and the audience is similar—a yearning to escape reality, to pretend to be something else for a small amount of time.

“Last night, this guy kept asking me, ‘How do you have all of this confidence to do this, to get dressed up and do this every night?’” she says. “And I said, ‘Sweetie, this confidence is painted on. I am not like this. This is not who I am. I’m a different person. I think we offer something to the community, because they are entertained by us. But we’re also offering them escapism, and we get that in turn by doing what we’re doing.”

“Drag lets me be who I want to be,” says Stuthard-Fears of the appeal. “As Taylor, I can be loud and obnoxious and over the top, whereas Jeremy is a little bit more reserved, a little bit more observant, likes to people watch. Taylor just gets out there in the middle of everything and goes for it. You can make money doing drag, you can travel doing it, you can make friends doing it. You can even make a family doing it. But it's really about the audience and how they're enjoying it. I really love to see emotion, whether it's tears or laughter or a smirk. It’s really the joy that I bring to an audience that matters.”

Sunday Night Social features “Art of Drag”