The Montreal indie drag scene beyond Drag Race norms

It’s a drizzly night on lower Saint-Laurent Boulevard as a crowd cues outside of Café Cléopatra. Upstairs, on the city’s oldest burlesque stage, the flurry of last-minute activity thrums. Showtime was supposed to start roughly 20 minutes ago, but if Little Star (the stage name of Patrick Dale) is concerned, it doesn’t show: The only glisten on the performer’s brow is highlighter, not sweat.

Little Star, who took their name from a deep-cut Madonna lyric, shifts a pair of sunnies that look on loan from Charli XCX as they negotiate with the door person armed with a clipboard, sharpie, and enough leather and spikes to make Iggy Pop jealous. No matter: Star is here to deliver their mix of drag, theatre and performance art with a slew of local talent as part of the show ONE NIGHT ONLY. But first, the crowd needs to wait just a touch longer.

The last time I was in a lineup as animated as this one, I was seeing a stacked bill of drag queens from the reality series Canada’s Drag Race at the nearby Cabaret Mado. But Star and their co-producer Frankie Filth’s show is a far cry from the RuPaul’s Drag Race import—even if the TV show’s most-recent season featured a trio of the city’s beloved drag royalty.

“I wish people knew that all of these artists are connecting with each other,” says Little Star on the scene being built in the city. | Photograph: Supplied

The drag equivalent of a DIY punk performance

“I think sometimes people believe that drag has to be highly femme, in a wig, dressed as a woman, you know, female illusion. And I think we're at a place now—and I think it's always been this way—that drag is way more than that,” Little Star explained to me over their makeup case earlier that same evening, augmenting their mustache for the stage lights with a liquid liner.

Each show they create is “about blending the drag scene with the theatre scene and the burlesque scene and the circus scene and the dance scene. I wish people knew that all of these artists are connecting with each other and creating a new type of show that I think we all crave.”

In a moment where mainstream drag has never been more popular—when the Drag Race universe continues to expand with a polished brand that makes celebrities of its contestants even beyond the 2SLGBTQ+ community—the performance before me feels like something else entirely: More the drag equivalent of a DIY punk performance, all scrappy and alive, when current convention had me expecting a drag show closer to the sleek detachment of FM rock radio.

From a ONE NIGHT ONLY performance in October 2025. | Photograph: Supplied

Breaking the framework that is drag

Performers for the pre-show begin their numbers as the cresting tide of the crowd finally washes upstairs. The show is sold out, though that doesn’t stop a few hopefuls from trying their luck. If I could, I’d assuage their fears, telling them there are other gigs pushing the same indie envelope—mapping a space between drag and performance art—happening with more and more frequency across the city.

One of the performers doing just that is the drag, burlesque and clown artist Yikes Macaroni, who says their John Waters-inspired art is “for the misfits of the misfits.”

When I call them to ask them what makes the indie drag scene in the city unique, it’s hours before they’ll be onstage alongside the drag artist Mary Fagdalene, both sending up and celebrating the campy 2008 flick The House Bunny.

You're halfway in

Finish “Montreal’s Indie Drag Scene Is Breaking the Rules and Reclaiming the Stage”

The Main is Montreal's city magazine. We write the stories about this city nobody else is telling.

We're independent and reader-supported. Your support keeps us going.

Your email costs you nothing and opens the rest of this story now. It also means the next one reaches you on a Thursday, instead of disappearing into a feed.

No password. No payment. Opens instantly.

Already a member? Sign in