“Fagtasia is really Bushwick meets Broadway. There are many millions of people interested in mainstream Broadway stage productions. Fagtasia is doing what those groups are doing, but injecting this wildly creative, artistic, free, queer energy into it, and that’s where it meets Bushwick,” says drag performer Baby Love, who has been running a local production company called “Fagtasia” since around 2021, which puts on shows at the Meserole Street nightclub 3 Dollar Bill.
More recently, the group put on Love’s take on ’70s cult hit Rocky Horror Picture Show, complete with detailed costumes and live singing and dance numbers. Love says her company had rehearsed for weeks to put together a version of the 1975 cult movie that incorporated newer pop material like Chappell Roan (“Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl” gets a notable needle drop.)
“The girls in Brooklyn just really resonated with me with the way that they approached drag from an art perspective. I was always part of my plan to do drag in Brooklyn, but Bushwick is where the scene is. Bushwick is where people are the most daring and creative,” says Love.
Love says she first encountered the Jim Sharman movie when she was eighteen. She soon was getting cast regularly as “Frankenfreuter” in live Rocky Horror productions, but found the experience uncomfortable at the time.
“I went to this very strange audition where we’re fake orgasming, and taking our clothes off and singing and doing all of this random stuff,” she says now.
But the role of Frankenfreuter had opened up Love’s mind to gender fluidity and pushing past her discomfort to truly understand the character.
“That pushed me so far out of my normal comfort zone, and I really started to question why the character was so celebrated by some people and I felt so uncomfortable. Then the conversations I had with my female friends at the time really opened my eyes up to the world and the boxes we’re expected to be in and how some people can be brave enough to break the mold,” she says.
Over the years, Love has found herself on the stage with Charli XCX — during a Terminal 5 show in 2019, when she was recruited to dance to “Vroom Vroom” on stage — but still wondered how she could make her mark in New York without ever landing a spot on RuPaul’s Drag Race.
She says she started embracing her nerdy side, doing things like singing Christina Aguilera songs while dressed like Albus Dumbledore. Half the room would get it, but the other half wouldn’t. That’s where Love says she got the idea to brand that into “Fagtasia.” “Femme-First, Nerdy Drag Fantasy,” reads an early headline in Paper.
The star in her take on Rocky Horror is Ty Evans’ sultry, southern Mississippi-born take on Janet. Evans says she’s been singing since she started with a vocal coach when she was thirteen.
“Being trans in theater it’s a whole other ballgame. Especially musical theater. For me it’s weird because I sing as if I was born female,” says Evans. “Even before I thought of transitioning, my voice teacher was like ‘girl something is up.’ She never trained my voice low, so I always learned how to do higher registers.”
Evans had just moved to New York to attend the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, but found herself gravitating more towards the friendships she made in Bushwick, which eventually led her to Fagtasia.
“Especially if you’re queer and living in New York. Bushwick is just where it is. It’s safe for me,” says Evans. “When I come out here I feel like Beyonce, but when I go back to the Upper East Side, it’s a whole other thing..It’s New York it shouldn’t feel like Mississippi.”
Love says that’s a major part of what drew her to bring Fagtasia to Bushwick’s 3 Dollar Bill, a club popular in Bushwick lore.
“To me, being in this space and encouraging people to leave their brough and come to Bushwick is about embracing the brand identity of Bushwick. Come experience the more creative artsy, and liberated vibes of Bushwick. That’s what Fagtasia all about.”
“It’s weird, I’ve never had a place where they just accept me with open arms,” says Evans, who talked about getting cast in the off-off-Broadway drag performance of Rocky Horror with a sense of remarkable pride. “I mentioned to Baby auditioning for the next show and she said ‘no you’re a part of this now you can’t just leave’… it’s just been the greatest thing I ever did…Normally I was like I’m not sure if they want me. I’m not the skinniest, and I was very hard on myself, but, this, I was like if I can come here with no one knowing me literally just my talent alone getting me this.”
For Love, who has a day job in the 9-5 world, creating that sense of community is a big motivation to making it on stage in Bushwick.
“I really like working with young queer people. I work in a corporate environment during the day and I’ve seen really horrible things there, so I try to be the manager I never had,” says Love. “It’s so rare to feel that sort of familial vibe in a project.”
Fagtasia’s next shows are “Fagtasia: UNTUCKED” on Nov. 16th, and “THE FAGTASIA BEFORE XXXMAS” on Dec. 7th. Find tickets here.
Photos taken by Brianna Nunley for Bushwick Daily.
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