Critically acclaimed writer Grace Carroll presents
Drag Baby – hilarious and heart-warming new
play on queer friendships and chosen family
Pleasance London, Downstairs, Carpenters Mews, North Road, London, N7 9EF
Tuesday 4th June – Saturday 22nd June 2024
Following the critically acclaimed Wet, Grace Carroll’s new play will be coming to Pleasance London this June. A compelling blend of drag performance and theatre, Drag Baby follows the lives of misanthropic drag queen Dan, and his estranged ex-girlfriend, Sally, who reappears in his life to make an all-important request. The pair rekindle their long-lost friendship as Dan decides whether or not to be Sally and her girlfriend’s sperm donor.
Directed by Joseph Winer, this heart-warming story is sprinkled with outrageously entertaining drag. Winer is known best for VAULT favourite I F*cked You in My Spaceship, which won the Origins Award for Outstanding New Work before transferring to Soho Theatre last year. Following a 5-star work-in-progress run at the King’s Head Theatre in 2022, Drag Baby is now set to impress at Pleasance London’s Downstairs Studio, for a 3-week run.
Drag Baby is a queer-led and hilarious narrative, telling a story of friendship, legacy and chosen family. Grappling between his old and new life, Dan must put his fame obsession to one side to make a life-changing decision. Now, he must think about more than getting on TV and decide whether to follow a nobler pursuit: sperm donation. Relationships are renewed and strained, and while drag mentee Nathan struggles to come to terms withDan’s arrangement, chosen families come together.
Grace Carroll’s second play follows debut Wet, which played to sold-out audiences at Theatre N16 and Perdu Theatre Amsterdam. Her play Swipe also appears in the first Little Pieces of Gold Collection “Short Plays with Great Roles for Women”, published by Routledge.
Carroll comments, Drag Baby has been a long labour of love for me and the characters now feel like family rather than people on a page. It feels more important than ever to share this story about a messy bisexual and a drag queen contemplating making a baby in an environment where LGBTQ+ people, gender fluidity and drag are becoming increasingly under attack.
As I entered my 30s the main thing on my mind was making babies, I kept on thinking if I ended up with a female partner, how would the process be? And who would I choose to be the father? The first thought that came to my mind was “I would want the father to be a drag queen” and thus Drag Baby was born. I am so thrilled that this play, which is a love letter to drag and queer community, has found a home at the Pleasance Islington, and I can’t wait for more people to meet these chaotic but hopefully loveable characters.
Previous praise for Drag Baby:
a contemporary piece of work that is conversational, realistic, witty and sometimes brutally
honest… a great piece of queer theatre – ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ London Pub Theatres
Drag Baby is a truly impressive play. – ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ LondonTheatre1
Drag Baby has received generous support from Arts Council England.