“My parents met at our local community theater, and so theater has been in my life always,” says Preston Seymour. The suburban Chicago native made his performance debut at the age of five, as Winthrop in a school production of The Music Man. Seymour characterizes his performance career, developed over the past 30 years, as one going “from a little lisping boy to a grown adult lisping man. But now I do it in a dress and heels and a lot of sass.”
Seymour launched his drag career after working with Charles Busch seven years ago on the famous gay playwright’s stage adaptation of the children’s book series, Bunnicula. “When we closed that show, I was just kind of whining about having to audition again,” he says. “Charles just turns to me and says, ‘Try drag. It works great for me.'”
A side hobby quickly became a full-time pursuit, as Seymour booked regular gigs on Atlantis Events cruises and in Puerto Vallarta, as well as hosting Broadway Mondays at Hardware Bar in New York. He also tours around the country, and this Friday, August 2, will appear at Freddie’s Beach Bar in Virginia.
“I do a lot of parodies of Broadway musicals and pop songs, styled very much like a Bette Midler show in the bathhouses,” he says about his show as Sutton Lee Seymour, a name referencing a reigning Broadway star (Sutton Foster) and the ingenue from Gypsy (Gypsy Rose Lee), to say nothing of a signature song from Little Shop of Horrors. Seymour always sings and only lip-syncs occasionally.
At a typical show, Seymour will perform either a condensed song parody of the plot to Titanic or The Lion King — and then end the evening with his namesake, “Suddenly Seymour,” festooned with original parody lyrics. “It’s such a beautiful love duet,” he says. “It’s just kind of a nice warm, sentimental way to spread a little love out into the audience and say goodnight.”
Sutton Lee Seymour performs Friday, Aug. 2, at 8 p.m., at Freddie’s Beach Bar, 555 South 23rd St., in Arlington. Tickets are $8 to $10 for reserved spots, or $24 to $90 for reserved tables. Call 703-685-0555 or visit www.freddiesbeachbar.com.
Harvard University has drawn criticism from conservatives after announcing that Tufts professor Kareem Khubchandani -- who performs and occasionally lectures in drag as "LaWhore Vagistan" -- will serve as a visiting associate professor in its Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality department.
The visiting professorship was established through an endowment from members of the Harvard Gender & Sexuality Caucus, the university's LGBTQ alumni group. It was created to bring in scholars focused on issues related to sexual minorities and sexuality.
Khubchandani is scheduled to teach two courses during the 2025-2026 academic year: "Queer Ethnography," in the fall semester, and "RuPaulitics: Drag, Race, and Desire" in the spring semester, focusing on the cultural influence of the show RuPaul's Drag Race.
The founders of the legendary Miss Adams Morgan Pageant talk about how D.C.'s largest drag event has evolved over 37 years.
By John Riley Photographs from the 1998 to 2024 pageants courtesy of the Dupont Social Club
October 1, 2025
"The whole Miss Adams Morgan Pageant really started by accident," says Steven Brandt, a board member of the Dupont Social Club, which organizes the annual drag pageant, now a fixture on many D.C. residents' calendars.
Brandt recalls that he and his now-husband, Rick Boylan, were celebrating Halloween in drag with friends when, on their way to a piano bar, walking through Dupont Circle, they were accosted by a group of teenagers.
"It was raining," recalls Brandt. "They ripped my wig off and threw it in a puddle, spewing all kinds of hatefulness. After that, we decided we needed a place to be able to go in drag if we wanted. It was maybe only the first or second time we'd been in drag, but I was so enraged by the experience that I kept saying over and over, 'We've got to...This isn't right.'"
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