'Ms. Blakk for President' Revisits a Drag Bid for the White House

The 1992 presidential campaign of drag performer Joan Jett Blakk returns to the stage in "Ms. Blakk for President," a new play with music by Tarell Alvin McCraney and Tina Landau.

McCraney, whose credits include "Choir Boy" and the Oscar-winning "Moonlight," wrote the piece with Landau. The New York Times review describes the result as "the frustratingly erratic play with music," a verdict that tempers any expectation of a polished pageant. The production revisits the moment Blakk's bid peaked at the Democratic National Convention in New York City — the same convention set to crown Bill Clinton as the presidential nominee.

The story behind the play begins with Terence Alan Smith, the Chicago performer who ran for office as his drag alter ego. Not for a local seat. For the highest office in the nation.

What drove the campaign?

Smith's candidacy answered a specific outrage: the indifference of most elected officials to the AIDS crisis. In the play, Smith — played by Ato Blankson-Wood, a Tony Award nominee for "Slave Play" — and his friend Mark, played by Gideon Glick, a Tony nominee for "To Kill a Mockingbird," decide to be bold and make a splash.

The review situates that tactic in its era. It was, the critic notes, "a not uncommon tactic in the days of Queer Nation," the activist group famous for headline-grabbing protests in the 1990s.

The pair warmed up in 1991, when Smith donned a skirt suit, heels and pearls to run for mayor of Chicago as Blakk. "Maybe it's not about winning," Mark says in the play. "Maybe it's about losing loudly."

The following year, Blakk raised the stakes and ran for president.

What does the performance offer?

Blankson-Wood carries the dual role of Smith and Blakk, and the source gives one clue to how the character functions for the man behind her. Smith describes Blakk as "the best protection against stage fright I've ever had."

The review opens by placing the story in a longer tradition of political costume. Politicians play dress-up to amplify a message, the critic observes, citing Theodore Roosevelt posing in a buckskin suit to bolster his frontiersman image before the presidency, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia fishing and hunting in camouflage, and Kristi Noem in oversize cowboy hats during her time as homeland security secretary.

Smith, the review notes, "had a different angle."

What the review does not say

The Times verdict — "a heightened fever dream," per the headline, and an "infuriatingly erratic" execution per the body — signals a production that honors its subject more than it satisfies its critic. Readers weighing a ticket should note the full review sits behind the Times subscription paywall, so judgments beyond these phrases remain there.

What the play does secure is the record: a drag artist's campaign for the presidency, staged more than three decades after it startled a convention floor.