It’s light and funny and it involves a straight guy (on the right) learning to do drag.
It’s light and funny and it involves a straight guy (on the right, played by Adam Standley) learning to do drag from a queen who's seen it all (Timothy McCuen Piggee, on the left). Chris Bennion

The Legend of Georgia McBride opens on Casey (Adam Standley) trying and failing to make it big as an Elvis impersonator, and struggling to provide for his wife Jo (Nastacia Guimont). We’re treated to a glimpse of their private lives, but as is often the case, things don’t really start getting interesting until the drag queens show up. Tracy Mills, played by Timothy McCuen Piggee in full face and drag, and Anorexia Nervosa, or Rexy for short (Charles Smith), come in to shake up the show at the club where Casey has been performing as Elvis, and end up costing Casey his gig.

After a series of unfortunate, vodka-fueled mishaps, Casey, who has never dressed as a woman before, is stuck covering for Rexy. We are treated to a Rocky-style montage where the newly christened Georgia McBride gradually learns to dance in heels, lip-synch to Edith Piaf, and even throw shade. Just like a real drag queen.

There’s some drama along the way in this play written by Matthew Lopez—Casey lies to his pregnant wife about where his substantial paychecks are suddenly coming from, and it predictably comes back to get him later—but it mostly takes a backseat to a string of musical performances and an increasingly fabulous series of dresses, designed by Pete Rush. That one on the right in the image above began as an Elvis outfit.

I kept waiting for The Legend of Georgia McBride to ask its big, central question. As a play about a straight man abandoning his career as an Elvis impersonator in a small backwater bar on the Florida coast and finding success as a drag queen, it would surely have something big to say about identity politics—right? But it never really dwells on any of that.

Instead, it's a show about entertainment, and even though it stays light, the cast all turn in wonderful performances, expertly paced and staged by director David Bennett. Standley strikes quite the figure in drag as Georgia McBride, and Piggee turns even everyday dialogue into genuinely funny lines.

Late in the show it does hit on a poignant truth: Drag can be a powerful escapist experience that allows you to reinvent yourself on stage. To put on your rhinestone armor, and become someone braver and bolder and capable of doing things you never thought you could do.

The Legend of Georgia McBride flirts with a few underlying questions—who gets to be a part of the drag community? Is drag something you do, or something you are?—but ultimately, it’s less interested in exploring those questions than it is joking about shoe size, tucking, and nailing that Lady Gaga dance number.

And that’s just fine.