CONFESSIONS OF A DRAG DEALER

Bubbly, Colourful, and Full-Bodied

It’s very rare that a debut performance is a drag performer’s best work. There’s a lot of anxiety and nervousness that comes with getting on stage in front of a large audience, let alone doing it in a wig, excessive amounts of makeup, and high heels. So when a drag queen comes along and blows you away with their very first show, you know there’s something special about them. For me, that queen is Amber Ail.

Amber Ail (a.k.a. Jake out of drag) grew up in British Columbia. He moved to Thunder Bay as a teenager and moved to Toronto after high school. After five years of experiencing queer life in the big city, he moved back to Thunder Bay and within a couple years he was headlining drag shows all over town. “I started as a bedroom queen years before I started here in TBay,” explains Ail. “It was something I had wanted to do from seeing queens in Toronto. So when I had my first show, I was ready! I felt so polished and perfected and beautiful. I had a tonne of friends and family out to support. It was one of the best nights of my life, and I knew from then on that I’m on the right track.”

What Amber Ail has that most queens don’t is, among other things, a full facial beard. It’s part of her drag and she wears it with great pride. “As a bearded queen, I feel incredibly lucky. Bearded drag is not necessarily received well in every drag scene, but I think the beauty of the TBay drag scene is that labels and stereotypes matter less, and your level of effort is what truly matters,” Ail says. “Bearded drag is often labelled as lazy or noncommittal, and that there’s an inherent lack of polish associated with it, like you’re not taking it seriously. I like to turn all of that on its head completely, as you can see by coming to one of my shows, I am none of those things.”

Describing herself as “bubbly, colourful, and fullbodied,” Amber Ail’s drag is one of protest against society’s obsession with gender norms and roles, as well as gender expression in the queer community. “By taking something iconically masculine like a beard and using it as a main focus of a feminine image, I want to show that our perceptions of gender are just that— perceptions—and that holding all of society to these rigid expectations is redundant and reductive.”

If you’ve seen an Amber Ail show you know why she’s a TBay drag fan favourite: striking graphic makeup, well-thought-out looks, and sometimes, depending on her mood, pretty shocking performances. “Maybe you’ll get a good vibes party, maybe you’ll get a sombre regret-filled power ballad, or maybe you’ll get a literal bloodbath on the stage,” Ail says. “The only real consistency in my numbers is 110% commitment to the concept and the performance. I put every ounce of energy I have into every performance, and that passion for the art form is the cornerstone of my drag.”

“It was something I had wanted to do from seeing queens in Toronto. So when I had my first show, I was ready!”