'The love that's in the atmosphere is just palpable': Drag Story Hour dazzles its audience

On an unseasonably warm winter Sunday in Manhattan’s West Village, a bashful 8-year-old mixed with a crowd of brightly adorned adults. 

“It’s fun … and you get to see people who are beautifully dressed,” Fox McGinnis said, describing why he likes Drag Story Hour so much.

Fox formed part of a gaggle of other children, parents and a smattering of New York dignitaries for the event. 

Drag Story Hour NYC’s program gives drag performers a venue to read to audiences of all ages, though many of the events are geared toward younger children.

A cohort of toddlers on a rainbow mat shrieked and rolled around. One of the storytellers who joined them wore a neon pink leather jacket with studs and a spray-dyed mohawk –  a sort of watermelon candy take on the biker-gang aesthetic. Another performer sported high heels and long tassel earrings, part of a green and purple get-up that felt Mardi Gras inspired. 

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The kids seemed sufficiently distracted as a wall of New York’s Democratic political players and community organizers spoke to the room.

A tone of resistance ran through short speeches given by New York Attorney General Leticia James and City Council speaker Adrienne Adams, no doubt a nod to the protestors outside who represented the increasingly tense politics around drag story hours across the country.

Adams ended her speech with: “story hour … drag on,” a line that was met with loud applause.

The kids are alright

Professor Lionel Longlegs, a storyteller with a swirl of pastel face paint and rainbow ears, kicked off the read-a-thon with a book entitled “From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea” by Kai Cheng Thom. It dealt heavily with identity, though that may have only been apparent to the adults in the audience. 

Worried that they won’t fit in and torn about who to be, the main character (who was written to use they/them pronouns) turned to their mother who repeated throughout the book:

“Whatever you dream of I believe you can be from the stars in the sky to the fish in the sea, you can crawl like a crab or with feathers fly high, and I’ll always be here, I’ll be near, standing by and you know that I’ll love you till the day that I die.”

As the refrain became more familiar, some of the children and parents joined along in repeating it.

“Something that I think is so special and expansive about drag is that I can be anything,” Longlegs, who uses fae/faer pronouns, an alternative to the gender neutral to they/their, said. Though fae has been performing in drag for over seven years, Longlegs only started with Drag Story Hour NYC in March of 2021.