Suzie Toot’s World of Drag: A Playful Blend of Broadway, Glamour, and Camp
Photography by Clay B @notthatclay
Poster Art by A.E. Kieren @aekieren
Suzie Toot has quickly emerged as one of the most distinctive performers to come out of RuPaul's Drag Race in recent years. With her signature curly red hair, theatrical sensibilities, and love for old Hollywood glamour, Vaudeville, and Broadway, Suzie feels less like a conventional drag queen and more like a fully realized stage character pulled from another era. Yet behind all the camp and choreography is Benjamin, the person who slowly built Suzie from sketches, references, and imagination long before she ever stepped into a wig.
“I think because I was a COVID baby, like, in the time of quarantine, I really was like, ‘If I wanted to do drag, what would she look like?’” she explained. “So I spent a lot of time with Suzie on paper before she ever existed.”
Even in those earliest versions, the essence of Suzie was already there. “She always had curly red hair and had a kind of look to her,” she recalled. But the defining breakthrough came through theater. Specifically, Sutton Foster’s performance in The Drowsy Chaperone.
“She’s just this 1920s glamour puss that’s so full of herself but is trying to tell everyone that she’s not,” Suzie said. “I was like, ‘Oh, that’s her.’”
That blend of theatricality and character work has become central to Suzie’s drag identity, though she says the persona has evolved significantly since her time on Drag Race. “Suzie started, I think, more specific as a character,” she shared. “But I think over time has expanded to many different sides of me, which I love. She’s like a vessel.”
Since Drag Race, Suzie’s world has expanded rapidly. Between international touring, live shows, and developing new productions, she’s entered a demanding but creatively fulfilling chapter of her career. Alongside fellow queens Kori King and Lydia B Kollins, she recently wrapped the international ButtTootKing tour, which took the trio across Europe and Australia.
Despite the exhaustion of constant travel, Suzie admits the conceptual stage of creating shows remains her favorite part of the process. “Once it’s all still on paper and doesn’t have to become real yet, you can run wild and sketch and imagine things,” she said. “That’s my favorite part.”
Of course, life on tour also came with its fair share of fun chaos. Recalling one particularly memorable night, Suzie shared that Kori King accidentally took an edible during intermission, not realizing the “gummy was like 100 milligrams.” By the end of the show, the effects had fully kicked in. “My God,” Suzie laughed, “that was a very funny way to close out our show.”
Now, Suzie is preparing for her next creative evolution with her upcoming solo production, Suzie with a Z. Inspired by the spirit of The Carol Burnett Show, the project moves beyond the traditional expectations of drag performance and leans fully into live entertainment.
“It’s all live singing and dancing,” she explained. “It’s a different experience than a regular drag show.”
For Suzie, the show represents the realization of ambitions she’s held since childhood. Broadway, she says, remains the ultimate dream.
“My ultimate dream is to be doing theater at the highest level that I’m able to,” she shared.
If given complete freedom, her dream role would be Charity Valentine in Sweet Charity. “It’s Bob Fosse. It’s 1970s theater. That is the end for me.”
Another dream remains high on her list: collaborating with Jinkx Monsoon.
“I do have a dream of someday me and Jinkx Monsoon doing something sickening,” Suzie revealed. “Since I was a queer kid in high school, I thought she was the coolest thing anyone’s ever done.”
Naturally, we couldn’t chat with Suzie Toot without talking about Drag Race. Looking back on her season, one memory still stands out vividly. During the early “Rate-A-Queen” episodes, contestants watched each other’s runway presentations backstage on monitors. Seeing fellow contestant Jewels appear onscreen in her dramatic blue mask runway instantly made the experience feel real.
“All of us in the back were like, ‘We’re on Drag Race. That was Drag Race. We’re watching Drag Race.”
Though many queens describe the competition as emotionally exhausting, Suzie says she would “absolutely” return.
“The more time that passes and the more Drag Race I see, I’m like, ‘Oh, what would I have done for that runway?’”
Outside of television and touring, Suzie is also embracing a major personal transition: life in New York City. After relocating shortly before her season aired, she’s found herself fully immersed in the city’s theatrical energy.
“Every single day I walk outside, I am so excited,” she said. “I’m such a first-year New Yorker.”
That excitement extends directly into her artistic inspirations. Lately, Suzie has been listening to a mix of Sabrina Carpenter and The B-52's, artists she says embody the playful, eccentric energy she wants to channel creatively.
“The B-52’s are so weird and funky and cool for just the hell of it,” she explained. “That’s kind of where my mind is at.”
And while her current productions may already feel ambitious, Suzie insists she’s only scratching the surface of what she wants to create. Asked what an unlimited-budget Suzie Toot production would look like, she immediately imagined herself “tap dancing on top of a T-Rex.”
At the center of all the spectacle, though, is a surprisingly grounded philosophy. Beyond the wigs, choreography, and punchlines, Suzie hopes audiences leave her performances feeling lighter, freer, and inspired to embrace creativity.
“I hope more than anything to inspire people to be creative and to not take life too seriously,” she said. “Life can be fun through all of the bullshit that exists within the world.”
