“That was really the first time that I was really dressing up, doing a face of makeup, changing my features with makeup,” Verrone says. “So then I created my own character Nadya Plaything and I performed in the Drag Night last year. I’ve been experimenting, honing the craft.”

After workshopping different names with friends and family, Verrone settled on Nadya Plaything. “She’s got a little bit of ’60s glamor showgirl, and some early 2000s pop-punk, and some social justice warrior activist,” Verrone says.

Rather than using drag to express his feelings about his own gender, Verrone uses drag to project aspects of gender and sexuality that he believes do not get enough recognition and acceptance.

“I use [drag] as a way to create this imagined space, this alternate universe, in which Nadya Plaything’s way of performing and expressing and being and looking is the norm, even though it might not be in our society right now,” Verrone says.

Preparing for his last Drag Night, Verrone feels optimistic about the future of drag on Harvard’s campus.

“I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of pre-frosh there. I remember last year I was surprised [by] how many people were in the audience, and it was a lot of pre-frosh. And that really made me happy that there’s this energy coming into campus that’s affirming and excited about something like drag,” Verrone says. “I’m hoping that that happens again, I’m excited to introduce Nadya to some incoming freshman.”

—Staff writer Raj Karan S. Gambhir can be reached at raj.gambhir@thecrimson.com.

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Baby Satin

“I knew about drag way before coming to college. My home doesn’t have a big drag scene, but I watched RuPaul’s Drag Race, and there is one drag collective where I’m from. I saw them perform a few times, and it was really good,” Baby Satin said. “I remember, when I was getting into college, I looked to see if there was a drag scene at Harvard. There was this one really old video of a drag king on YouTube, but I don’t think that really exists anymore.”

Baby Satin is a new identity for this performer, having emerged for the first time last semester when a recurring drag-themed party on campus needed more students willing to perform. One of their friends volunteered to try out drag, and they knew that they wanted to try it out, already knowing that they loved prominent queens such as Violet Chachki.

“It was super fun. I always feel like it’s fun to play with gender, and having that performance element is kind of cool. I used to dance—more contemporary dancing, so it was totally different, and I haven’t been on a stage in super long. But this seemed like a cool kind of performance art,” they said.

For them, drag is a unique kind of self-expression, and at Harvard, their masculine-presenting form of drag is uncommon, they said. They are one of the few drag kings on campus, and they have found that there is a unique challenge in the different limits of the masculine presentation. However, they said this challenge allows them to experiment and innovate in ways that might not be necessary as a queen.

“Women’s clothing is just more fun, and you can do much more with it. Typically, you create a story with your makeup, and I think it’s a little more difficult. It’s a cool way to express yourself,” they said.

Though they feel that Harvard’s drag scene is limited in that there aren’t many students willing to try the art out for the first time, they also believe that the willingness of the student body to welcome and enjoy drag will allow the drag community on campus to grow going forward.