Roll For Initiative: Presenting My D&D-Inspired Drag Performer Character Sheet!
- chrismstoner
- 5 days ago
- 13 min read
Sometimes doing drag does feel a little bit like combat!
As I was putting together my Drag 101 Boot Camp workshops, I was trying to come up with an easy way to talk about creating your persona. One reason why starting drag can feel intimidating for new people, I think, is that they see so many different types of drag, and they're not sure where to get started. I think some new performers flounder because they haven't fully thought through the concept of who their drag persona is going to be, and what makes their performance unique and special.
So how do we solve this?!
Well, I ain't the Trash Queen of Glam, GEEK, & Gore for nuthin'!
The last couple of years, I've gotten into playing Dungeons & Dragons with some fellow nerdy people. A lot of the people I play with are also involved in local theater. The experience of the game obviously varies from group to group, and what they value from the experience, but at its heart, D&D is a "role-playing" game - and playing that game inspired this tool that I created to help people find and develop their drag persona!
When you're making a character in D&D (and in other games too, but this is the one I know, and it's the most well known to the mainstream - let me live, nerds! lol), you create your character sheet and you assign the character different attributes: how strong are they, how nimble, how charismatic, etc.? I decided to take that, and apply it to drag!
Drag is a gender-based performance art. Whether you are a drag queen, a drag king, an androgynous icon, or a creature feature cutie, you are interacting with and creating a persona in relation to the gendered expectations that people and bodies have in our society.
To start the sheet, I started thinking of adjectives that I felt were related to aspects of traditional masculinity or femininity, things that were more gender-neutral but might inform a specific presentation, and things that are often used to describe drag generally.
For example, let's look at the word "Funny." This is an adjective that could be ascribed to anyone of any gender presentation. But cultural expectations of what makes a man funny vs what makes a woman funny can be very different. Don't believe me? Ask the cast of the female Ghostbusters movie! Michelle Wolf is a great example of a comedian who pushes against the boundaries of what a woman is allowed to say. She's using her platform to interrogate that - and it's fucking hilarious!
So often, when we're talking about gender, it's a very personal conversation. "This is my identity, my experience!" And that's great, it's a journey of self-discovery, love that for you. But drag performance is a communal experience. Drag isn't just about your personal experience of gender (or your chosen portrayal of gender in your performance) but also about the expectations of gender that exist in the world. And those expectations are entirely fucking made up! That's why drag often subverts those expectations or challenges them outright! It's a reminder that what we think about gender is constructed, it's always changing, and always expanding to include new ways of being and presenting and experiencing the world.
So the top section of the character sheet includes a variety of adjectives: Sexy, Messy, Trashy, Fashionable, Poised, Butch, Rough, Punk, Nerdy, etc. I also left two blank spots for you to fill in your own. This is applicable to all types of drag performers, but my experience is that of a drag queen, so it's easier for me think of adjectives that speak to that experience. There are probably a ton of adjectives that a king would come up with that I didn't even think of! Same for non-binary, non-conforming, and monsterous drag performers. Take this as a starting point, and alter it to suit your chosen creation!
In that section, I give two options. First, you can go through the list and rank yourself from 1-10 on all of the adjectives. Our drag personas can be as complex as we are, so working through all of those words and the ones you add yourself can help you know and understand your persona more deeply.
For the second option, you can read through the words and choose the 2, 3, 4, 5 words that are the most related to who you want your character to be. This can help you understand your character and your style of drag very well! For example, if you are interested in pageantry, you might rank Poised, Glam, Elegant, Pageant, and Femme very high. The cluster of words naturally go together. For another performer, you might put together words that don't naturally seem to go together: Fashionable but Messy, Poised but Ditzy, Smart but Trashy. Having key characteristics that seem to clash can lead to some very interesting performance choices!
For me, I love old school glam! I love big hair and big jewels, and I love a gown moment. But when I host a show, I'm mouthy and sometimes even raunchy! That was a character choice I made. I wanted to create a look that took the expectations of femininity to an extreme! Cover it in sequins and jewels! So visually, I created a character that seemed to be trying to embrace what society expected from women: to be beautiful and visually pleasing to the (male) eye.
But then I took the rest of my performance in a different direction. I love a sexy number, and I love a vulgar joke! Women aren't "supposed" to like sex or talk about sex, they aren't supposed to use "naughty" language. Fat people aren't supposed to be sexual or act like our bodies are fabulous just the way they are. Queer people aren't supposed to bring up politics when straight people are in the audience "just trying to have fun." I reject all of those expectations, and I've built that into all of the aspects of my performance, whether doing a lip-sync or hosting.
Underneath that is a pair of binaries: one going from Butch to Femme, and one going from Masculine to Feminine. "But aren't those just the same thing?!" Not exactly. For the purposes of this worksheet, the first binary, from Butch to Femme, is about the visual presentation. Is the look more butch (based on the gender presentation expectations of men) or more femme (based on the gender presentation expectations of women)? It's about the look, the costuming, the visual realness (or unrealness!) of it all.
The second binary, from Masculine to Feminine, is about the behavior, the presentation, the actions, the walk, etc. Just like in real life, there will be times where a performer's ratings on these two spectrums align, but sometimes they won't. Like I described above, I would place myself very close to Femme on the first graph, but I would rank myself more in the middle when it comes to performance and behavior.
For another example, imagine a drag king who does a very butch look - leather jackets, biker paraphernalia, etc. but then their behavior is similar to South Park's Big Gay Al! I think that is a very interesting character to explore!
Next on the sheet is your elevator pitch for your persona. Just like in D&D, a lot of us performers love to think about this complex backstory with twists and turns - and I love that for us. But you should be able to describe your persona to someone in one or two sentences, three at the most. At the heart of it all, who is this persona? What should someone expect when they encounter you in the wild? How do you feel that your character fits in the drag community where you live, and in the world as a whole? Being able to come up with this sort description can help you refine your choices.
Next is, "What are 3 words that describe your drag persona?" This could be words that you pull from the top section, especially if you ranked every word. If you already picked out the ones that are most or least like you, do you have any additional words you want to add, maybe something those words made you think about or feel?
And since a lot of drag is music-based performance, "What are 3 songs that inspire you to do drag?" Are you a dancing performer who wants to flip and tumble and death drop? Are you a poised pageant girl who wants to float ethereally across the stage? Are you into loud, wild punk music, or the strong beats and lyricism of rap and hip-hop? Picking out initial inspirations can help create the character and guide your persona.
Having said that, it doesn't mean that you have to stick to one style of music. See my previous post where I talk about some of my signature and favorite numbers over the years. If you love something, then it's probably for you, and it becomes a matter of figuring out how to make performance choices that show your version of doing that song. There are some obvious NOs, like doing blackface, but in most cases you can find a respectful way of doing a song that speaks to your experience and personalizes it to you.
Not that I would ever do this (I think it would get boring for the audience real quick!), but as a thought experiment, you could put on a show where every performer does the exact same song. Even though the music is the same, each performer's interpretation of it would be different. Despite my very femme presentation, I've done many songs that feature male singers. I love "Cake by the Ocean" by DNCE, "Soccer Practice" by Johnny McGovern, and "Stay With Me" by Sam Smith (who is non-binary, but you get it). One of my more recent favorites, especially for Pride events, is "Boys in the Street" by Callum Scott mixed into Kesha's version of "This Is Me."
Do what you love, do it respectfully, and you can create an amazing connection with your audience.
Next up, I ask you to name some celebrities, icons, performers, or influences whose style inspire you to do drag. Sometimes people have a hard time describing how they want their drag character to be, but they can't point at a picture of someone and say, "That! I love that! I want to emulate that!"
One such inspiration for me is Betsey Johnson. I love her style, and I have collected quite a few pieces of her jewelry as well as a few handbags. I love that she has a clear sense of fashion and style, but it's not boring like so many of the big houses. I also appreciate that her line is priced much more affordably than some others. Hermes whomst?! Why pay $10,000 for a bag when you can get a Betsey for $100 or less?!
Thinking about what people or characters inspire you can really help you refine the character you are trying to create. I've had a lot of iconic influences as I've created and evolved my drag character: Elvira, Dolly Parton, Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, Betsey Johnson, Bette Midler from her Bathhouse Betty days, Kesha, Pink, various eras of Madonna, and probably most important, Divine! All of these influences contributed some bit of perspective or influence on my overall persona!
The last question on the sheet is "What is your drag persona's name? Why?"
You might be asking, why is this question last?! Shouldn't it be first? Look, some people come into this with their name ready to go, and they build out from there. But I've also seen a ton of new performers who just take the first thing that resonates with them, and then they change their name at every show they do!
I think this happens because they don't have a full idea of their character and who they want to be, and so they have a hard time choosing a name that encapsulates that.
I'm lucky that I figured out my name before I started performing, but before I was doing shows, I was a bit of a party girl. I was Paris Hilton, before Paris Hilton was Paris Hilton! I knew most of the downtown queers and artsy folks, and I would go to house parties and drink and have a good time. Ahhh, the 90s! But I had some pretty tragic names. I started off just going by Crystal or Chrissy, because it was an easy riff on my legal name. Then I was thinking about being Marilyn Russel, because my favorite movie is Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russel. Then I played around with being Andromeda Collins. Andromeda like the princess in Greek mythology, Collins like the Collins family in Dark Shadows as well as the Vodka Collins.
I'll share the story of my drag name in a moment, but I wanted to have this as the last question so that if someone comes in and they don't have a name thought up yet, they can go through all of the questions, refine the character, and pick a name that does with that character. If you've got a name picked out and you know you love it, then you can go through the sheet and pick out all of the other attributes and then plop it right in at the end. But it's important to remember that a name is an important part of the overall persona!
When I was first getting into drag in the late 90s, I saw a lot of pageant girls who had Dynasty-inspired names like Alexis Krystal Devereaux Kennedy Dupree the Third! Ok, maybe that's a little exaggerated, but you know what I mean. If that eleganza lifestyle is what you are looking to portray, then that's fabulous, I love that for you! But if your top adjectives were Trashy, Messy, Punk, and Butch, is that name going to serve your character? It doesn't mean you have to ditch that name if you love it - drag is often filled with contradictions! It just means that figuring out how to work the name and the persona into a coherent package is going to a little more challenging.
Some people love names that are puns: Anita Weiner, Iona Trailer, Crystal Decanter. Some love names that are a little odd but represent a sort of twisted take on traditional drag: Milk, Karen from Finance, Pam Ann (who does flight attendant schtick - think Pan Am Airlines!). Some people want a name that communicates something, or opens the audience up to interpretation. For an example of this, let's look at Drag Race alum, Maddie Morphosis.
I don't watch a lot of Drag Race, and I didn't see the season that Maddy was part of. I don't know if she has ever explained where her name came from, but I do know there was a lot of discourse around the fact that Maddy identified (and as far as I know still does?) as straight when she entered the competition. The name Maddy Morphosis works on the level that drag is a transformation, a metamorphosis into a new character and persona. But to me it also recognizes that, for better or worse, Maddy's drag is an evolution of what drag is. Not that there have never been men in drag in media before, but Milton Berle in drag or Flip Wilson's Geraldine were done outside of queer spaces and contexts. This is one of the first times that I am aware of, of a straight drag performer performing in a queer-centered space, and talking about their identity in relation to the queer and trans performers who have been part of the franchise.
I'm not endorsing her; I don't know enough about this character to have a really strong opinion or to care to enter into a debate. But that name is carefully thought out, and it works for Maddy is bringing to her drag performances.
So, before we wrap this up, here is a little more about the origin of my drag name.
When I was a broke college student working at Waldenbooks, I saw how popular romance novels were, and I thought that maybe I should try my hand at being an undercover romance author to make some quick cash!
A lot of romance authors at the time had names that felt very 80s to me: Danielle, Nora, Hannah, etc. My favorite 80s name was Vanessa - but that felt like a villain's name! Also, I wanted to write more modern romance where the main character has a sassy gay best friend! So I started to think about ways to alter Vanessa with different first letters, and I really liked Janessa. At that point, I had never met anyone or heard of anyone with that name, but know I know of a few - plus a character in Jason X who dies after giving one of the worst one-liners in a horror movie ever!
For the last name, I wanted a one syllable name, and I wanted something that was a little bit clever, again nodding at my more modern take. I thought it might be fun to have a name that is spelled out, but it sounds like an initial! I came up with Jaye (we love some alliteration!) and it had two references for me: Lady Jaye from GI Joe and Jaye Richardson who played Dil in The Crying Game.
Lady Jaye was one of a few female characters in GI Joe. Where Covergirl and Baroness had long flowing hair and skintight outfits, Lady Jaye had a butch short haircut and a baggy jumpsuit. I loved that figure! I was drawn to lesbian energy before I even knew what lesbians were!
Jaye Richardson's portrayal of Dil is part of the problematic history of representing trans and gender non-conforming people on screen. Whether you love this film or hate it (or, like me, fall somewhere in between), you have to acknowledge that the film is historically important, and I loved that the actor's name was spelled Jaye, just like Lady Jaye - and now me!
When I decided to use this as my drag name, I thought that Jaye sounded more like a middle name, so I decided to add a last name, and I loved cheap champagne! And not just a boozy reference for no reason, I also like who our culture thinks about champagne. Have you ever been at a funeral where they popped open the bubbly? I haven't! We associate Champagne with parties and celebrations and good times - and Janessa was definitely a good time girl!
Hence, a drag name was born!
Thanks for coming to this longer than I anticipated Ted Talk...or if you just skipped down here to get the PDF, then I hope you enjoy it! Feel free to share it around - I want it to be useful and to inspire a new generation of young, queer performers! If you ever have questions about how to use it, or want to talk through what you're thinking about, please reach out to me via social media! I'm currently most reachable on Facebook and InstaGram, though if I can find a way to dump Facebook I'm absolutely going to.
I may still do Drag 101 workshops in the future, so if you'd like me to come to your town, reach out and let's see what we can do. But for now, you've got this new tool to help get you jumpstarted on your journey!
XOXO -
Miss Jaye