Chicago Tribune
- Recommended
"...Guest is very potent and entertaining, don?t get me wrong, although I think if he stepped out of the show for a while in favor of one of Chicago?s many professional drag queens with top-shelf lip synching skills, he?d be better able to see what it now needs. That?s mostly specificity: Of performance, of theme, of time and of location. Ideally, we?d have a better sense of how the performance space separates from the backstage areas and of what a small-town Southern drag club really looked, felt and sounded like in 2004. The set here, from Alyssa Mohn, is rich in symbolism but I found myself wondering about who and what went where and why."
Chicago Sun Times
- Highly Recommended
"...The Story Theatre production remount (which enjoyed its world premiere here in 2019), co-starring Paul Michael Thomson as Hunter Grimes and his drag queen alter-ego Vickie Versailles, is at once raucous, contemplative and irreverent as well as a full-on, lip-synch extravaganza."
Chicago Reader
- Recommended
"...The format of the one-act show (directed by Mikael Burke) feels part traditional two-hander theater and part drag show. Like any good drag show, Guest as Courtney does a fair amount of crowd work. During the performance I attended, Guest asked the audience if any straight men were watching. The room was absolutely silent for a few seconds, followed by raucous applause and laughter from the audience of queer people and women. "That's the kind of room I prefer to be in," Guest joked."
Windy City Times
- Highly Recommended
"...At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen has something for "every man, every woman and everything in between." Central character Courtney Berringers shares those words in a different context in the play, but she may as well be speaking of the diverse audience this production speaks to."
Around The Town Chicago
- Highly Recommended
"...Terry Guest dazzles us as the flashy and ebullient Courtney Berringers in the play "At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen." This is a fun yet very moving show about an African-American drag queen who happens to die of AIDS at age 35 in the year 2004. But first, during her wake, the mourners (namely, members of today's audience) are treated to one last hurrah! Loosely based on the life and death of Guest's Uncle Anthony, Guest's smartly written script has been marvelously produced in the hands of director Mikael Burke. Not only is the story told well, but Guest's glitzy, gutsy, and gaudy performance as Courtney is exceptional."
Third Coast Review
- Highly Recommended
"...The audience is given a fan as the entry pass to Story Theatre's At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen, written by Terry Guest. There is no doubt that we are entering a Southern Black wake. Mahalia Jackson is singing "How I Got Over," and the Donnie McClurkin barnburner "Total Praise" is cued up as the lights go down. She enters! Miss Courtney Berringers (Guest) as Whitney Houston singing "I'm Every Woman" brings the house down. Guest inhabits and owns drag fabulousness as does his costar. Paul Michael Thomson as Vicky Versailles. Mikael Burke does a masterful job directing At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen. The action never lags, and humor is seamlessly woven into the narrative, complemented by pathos."
MaraTapp.org
- Highly Recommended
"...From the moment you are handed a fan instead of a program, you know you are in for an evening that will be hot and heavy - and I mean that in every sense of those words. Fortunately, it also turns out to be a lot of fun. The best funerals, wakes and memorials are ones that embody the deceased while giving the living a place to mourn and celebrate them. Terry Guest's At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen does just that with sass and style."
Allie and the After Party
- Recommended
"...Starting at the end in front of an urn and altar, At The Wake Of A Dead Drag Queen feels like a celebratory eulogy come to life as we're treated to the last performance of the drag queen Courtney Berringers. She tells us what happens in the last few months of her life complete with a complicated love story and drag performances."
