by Kevin Ferrisi –
Frankie Cyanide is the first drag king in the state of Connecticut to host a regularly occurring show. Historically, drag kings have been female performance artists who wear masculine drag and personify male gender stereotypes, but as understandings of gender have become more fluid in recent years, so too has this definition; now, there are trans men kings, nonbinary kings, and even cisgender men who perform as drag kings, just as there are cisgender women who perform as drag queens.
Self-proclaimed drag daddy of CT, Frankie Cyanide paves the way and opens doors for future drag kings and alternative drag artists alike as he celebrates his 100th Wacky Wednesday. Wacky Wednesday is an open stage open to all kinds of LGBTQ+ performers. Every week, drag kings, queens, monsters, and things from across New England make their way to Trevi Lounge in Fairfield, CT, along with burlesque performers, dancers, singers, stand-up comics, and more. This reoccurring show has been Fairfield county’s only regularly scheduled LGBTQ+ open stage for 100 weeks straight, having started in February 2022.
Frankie has also recently celebrated his fifth anniversary since he officially started doing drag. Although he did experiment with gender expression and drag makeup before officially starting drag, he considers the start to his drag career to be November 1, 2018, after he performed at a former open stage in southern Connecticut as Frankie Cyanide for the first time.
Like many other things in society, men have had a more prominent role within drag culture over women; drag kings and queens have been battling for the spotlight for many years. Although kings do just as much as their colleagues, they receive less recognition, acceptance and even money. Frankie wanted to create a space where all forms of drag are welcome. As a result, Frankie decided to approach Trevi Lounge with the idea of an open stage and called it Wacky Wednesday. He described how, too often, many venues would cater toward drag queens, often referring to the cast as she/her or ‘the girls’ and Frankie wanted everyone to feel welcomed. He explained how on Wednesdays, “I think a major draw for some performers is the fact that they won’t be the only king, which is an experience every king has had countless times. Or showing up and the host is going to introduce you as ‘she’ and ‘her’ and say ‘don’t forget to tip the girls’, which still happens all the time and it gets old. There have been a lot of Wednesdays where there are more kings than queens and it’s definitely nice to have a space where there’s a lot of drag things, a lot of drag monsters, not just kings, not just queens.”
During his life, Frankie grew up on Long Island, went to school in upstate New York, and then moved to Connecticut in 2015. Frankie always enjoyed playing with makeup and found himself really taking a liking to RuPaul’s Drag Race during the airing of season 1, thinking the art was something he wanted to try. At the beginning of Frankie’s drag career, he dabbled in the art of drag queen and drag king. It never occurred to him as an AFAB, or assigned female at birth, performer that drag was even an option for him. At the start of Frankie’s drag journey, there were only a few well-known drag kings performing in Connecticut. Frankie recalls making the decision to perform as a drag queen half of the time and a drag king the rest of the time. The representation of drag performers who are assigned female at birth (AFAB) has always been notoriously lacking. He found that the community did not take him seriously as a performer regardless, and decided he was going to do what was most fun to him, which was doing drag as a male impersonator.
‘Frankie Cyanide’ was a name Frankie had in his back pocket since chemistry class in high school. One day during class in 2008, Frankie was staring at the periodic table and noticed the element Francium alongside the element Cyanide and thought how theoretically the two elements could be combined into a molecule. He started to brainstorm and thought about how the name was really great and wanted to use it to create a character and write a book with the main character named Francine Cyanide who essentially wanted to become a rock star. In college, the name stuck in his mind and he sort of revamped the character into a non-binary space mystical fantasy as another book idea. When Frankie set out to do drag, he admitted to himself that he was never going to write the books and channeled the name and character into a living version known as Frankie Cyanide, drag performer.
Frankie Cyanide is head of a large drag family and says, “I’ve got a million children and grandchildren and great grandchildren who have been terrorizing southern Connecticut.” Frankie talked about his drag children, to name a few: Mystikuntt Angels Cyanide, Perry Winkle, Paxx Headroom, Chet Mix, his drag grandchildren Dexx Delirium and Mayor TV Head, and great-grandchildren Gaybo The Drag Clown and Graveyard Brat. The Cyanide family tree goes on.
Frankie tells newcomers who are interested in hitting the stage for the first time to, “just do it.” He says simply, “Go for it. What’s the worst that’s going to happen? You might feel stupid. Okay. And then you’ll move on with your life. Do you think I haven’t blown a million performances? I have done so many numbers that I am not proud of on this stage. Who cares?” Frankie explained how no matter how much you prepare for your first time, you are going to get off the stage and be very critical of what you have just done, no matter how you did. “No matter what, there is going to be something you forgot to do, no matter how well choreographed it was, something is going to go wrong, so you might as well just pull the band-aid off and go for it.”
Frankie also feels the most important thing for any performer to know is that talented performers come and go every day and to keep in mind that nice performers tend to get welcomed back. He said, “Talented performers are a dime a dozen. Nice performers get booked. If you are a kind and professional person on and off stage, people will notice.”
Drag kings have been performing for decades, yet while drag queens flourish in the public eye, kings still struggle to be recognized, booked and taken seriously. They are a subculture of queer identity, marginalized for existing in the male-dominated world of drag. Taking a look back on Frankie’s drag career, he is most proud of facilitating and creating an environment that is inclusive of AFAB performers and drag kings, as well as drag things, gender bending performers and anyone who isn’t even sure if what they do is drag. Frankie wanted to provide the space where anyone has the platform to be able to express themselves, especially for people who don’t fall under the typical notion of a drag queen. Even as the world of drag kings expands, it remains more or less absent in pop culture.
Overall, RuPaul’s Drag Race has provided a solid platform for the drag community to grow and become known; although, unfortunately, it has provided a platform predominately for cis-gendered men. With this notion in mind, Frankie feels he has accomplished what he set out to do with Wacky Wednesday. He explains how each week the sign up list is always booked to the max and many performers drive as much as two or three hours to perform. Frankie talks about how there is a sea of beautiful and talented drag performers and explains how not all drag is going to be mainstream. He said, “Oh, do the freaks love having a show where they fit in. The audience at Wacky Wednesday has a lot of people that don’t necessarily feel comfortable at other drag shows or don’t necessarily love the Drag Race style of drag.” Drag kings have historically been more marginalized by pop culture than drag queens, who began playing a larger role in mainstream media.
During Frankie’s performing journey, he has continued to fight an uphill battle against social norms within the LGBTQ+ community. Unfortunately, our society treats men taking on femininity very differently than it treats women taking on masculinity. Drag kings and AFAB performers are insanely underrated, and the queer artists who dress themselves as men have to face the toxic masculinity judgments while pulling off their male performances amidst judgmental audiences. These judgments didn’t stop Frankie. He took the negative societal conditioning that he was constantly confronted with and used it as fuel and found ways to take those same stereotypes and incorporate them into his acts as a way to make fun of them.
You can continue to catch Frankie every Wednesday at Trevi Lounge in Fairfield for Wacky Wednesday. Coming up, you can expect to see Frankie Cyanide co-host a new monthly show with local drag artist Ivanna at 168 York Street Cafe in New Haven beginning on January 27, having a similar open stage setting. You can also check out Frankie Cyanide at his brunch at Towne Parlor in Stamford, CT on February 4th, in partnership with Stamford Pride.
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