‘Death of a Drag Queen’ returns for second run in Portland

“Death of a Drag Queen” opens on the 60th birthday of fictional queen Cram Brulee. Her water is shut off, an eviction notice is on the door and the friends who are supposed to take her out to celebrate keep pushing back their arrival. Inspired by “Death of a Salesman,” the play follows Cram as she grapples with her own fading relevance and mortality.

The show originally opened in Portland in December 2025, but it’s back for a two-weekend run at The Board Room at Triangle Theater starting July 11.

Playwright Sean Brown joins us to talk more about the show and its renewed run.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. The one-person play, “Death of a Drag Queen,” takes place on the 60th birthday of Cram P. Brulee. Her water has been shut off, an eviction notice is on her door, and the friends she thinks or hopes will take her out to celebrate keep pushing back their arrival. Inspired by Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” the play follows Cram as she grapples with her own fading relevance and mortality. It premiered at Portland’s Echo Theater last December. It’s coming to Triangle Productions for a two-weekend run starting July 11.

The playwright, Sean Brown, joins us now. It’s great to have you on the show.

Sean Brown: Hi, thanks for having me.

Miller: So I mentioned this play’s kind of spiritual precursor is “Death of a Salesman.” What spoke to you about that play?

Brown: It’s the story of the everyman and consumerism. I write stories about stories, about people who tell themselves stories, as we all do. We all tell ourselves stories. We all create ourselves. It’s how we get up in the morning, go to work, pay the bills. Sometimes those constructions fail. Sometimes reality cracks, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes we just continue on and we never even get an opportunity to spend time with ourselves because the stories that we’ve told and the constructions that we’ve created to create ourselves are so very successful. And that’s a tragedy in itself.

In this particular case, this person, Miss Cram P. Brulee has created herself through a lifetime of performance. The story is the same for everyone as we all create ourselves. What happens though, in Cram’s case, when the show is over?

Miller: You’re talking in universals here, talking about the stories that we all create about ourselves and if they crumble or not. But in Cram’s case, the specifics are important.

Brown: They are.

Miller: She’s a drag queen. What attracted you to a story about a drag queen?

Brown: Well, the obvious visibility of this particular kind of construction was an offer I couldn’t refuse. Drag is just a fascinating and beautiful form of self-expression. I felt that it really folded into the story that I was extracting in a way from Arthur Miller, in the sense of the everyman. Of course, this is a drag queen, not the everyman. But in a way it is. She is the everyman.

Miller: One big difference is that a salesman, whether in the 1950s or now, they’re not regularly vilified. They’re not the objects of fear, hate, fascination or celebrations; all kinds of ways that in American society we treat drag queens, that we don’t treat salesmen. How much did the political valence of drag interest you?

Brown: I tried to avoid that as much as possible in the actual play itself. It is, of course, something that can’t be avoided when performing publicly because drag is very polarizing. In the process of writing the character of Cram, it surprised me very much how this character that represents, to so many people these days, something that is in stark contrast to the humanity, the courage, the dignity and the honesty that this character demanded; that Cram lives her life, and millions of people like Cram live their lives in this way.

Miller: I wanna turn to some of the dramatic pieces of this, the performance pieces of this, for your actual production. It’s a nonstop, 90-or-so-minute, 13,000-word dramatic monologue. And when I say nonstop, I really mean that – a truly dynamic production. I saw a video of it, I wasn’t in person in the audience, but it’s a truly impressive performance. Can you describe just the technical acting chops that are required for something like this?

Brown: Sean Marlow stars as Cram P. Brulee. Sean is somebody who I’ve known for many, many years. Although, as the stories we tell ourselves tend to, life has taken us both in very different directions. But I reconnected with Sean about 10 years ago for a film that I was doing called “Strictly Professional.” In this film, I hired Sean to play the character, without comment, of Gloria. We don’t know what Gloria is, but Gloria has a hairy chest. And like the other characters, Gloria is off on a particular mission.

I enjoyed working with Sean so much that I brought Sean back for my last film, which is called “Christmas Freak,” and it’s all about Sean. He was just such an incredible talent to work with. He was living in Atlanta and he was working for Marvel Studios, but they left. So he called me and didn’t have much to do. [He] said, “hey, let’s do some theater together.” So that’s how that came about. Now he lives here.

Miller: What was it like for you to go back to theater after spending a lot of time making movies?

Brown: Terrifying. I went through two packs of cigarettes [laughs]. I’m a non-smoker, but I did smoke some cigarettes. It was a lot of fun though. It’s so immediate and so ephemeral. What is brilliant or horrible, right at that particular moment, immediately disappears and doesn’t ever come back.

Miller: How often do you think that, as a director and playwright, the things that you are saying are terrible? How often do you think the audience notices those?

Brown: Could you repeat that?

Miller: You’re describing the nervousness and terror of watching stuff on stage, and then seeing stuff that I guess you’re not quite happy with. But I’m wondering how much of the stuff that you may not be thrilled with at any given moment do you think the audience is aware of?

Brown: Every audience is different, but they all kind of herd-like as well, you know? It’s weird how the audiences tend to have one particular energy. So they will always surprise you and laugh at something that is unexpected. I could have written something that I thought, “oh, that’s very personal and it’s gonna bring a tear,” and then they’re all cracking up about it. I’m like, “well, really, was that funny?” Or on the other hand, after the show, so many people have come again and again to see the show, and they will come out, they’ll be crying and they’ll want to share their own stories with me.

But to answer your question specifically, every audience brings with them their own expectations, or lack thereof. One night, Sean had an extremely long pause that was unexpected. I thought certainly everybody would know. But what actually happened was it helped inform us that the audience needs time to breathe. The show is very rapid fire, as you mentioned earlier, so now we have drawn it out and we’ve increased the running time by about two minutes because of pauses.

Miller: That pause of his was intentional because he was reading the audience and he realized that they needed a break?

Brown: I would love to say that, but no. Like you said, there were 13,000+ words. I am a Virgo. So poor Sean. “Every word is gold, Sean. You cannot miss a comma!” So he really, really, really worked to get everything down exactly right. But human beings, being what they are, we sometimes have a little blockage, and that’s what happened one night.

Miller: You’re describing being a perfectionist, I guess, but you have no control over what happens once the lights go on. Unlike a film director, where you can keep doing takes, and then you can go to the editing suite, and you can get it just the way you want, and you can redo the dialogue with overdubs – none of that is possible in theater. What’s it like to just be powerless?

Brown: It’s the cigarettes [laughs].

Miller: So that’s where the cigarettes come in? You’re powerless in the back, just steaming?

Brown: One time cursing, and apparently it was audible [laughter].

Miller: Speaking of the audience, you do something interesting in this show where, at the very beginning, your character addresses the audience and it seems like it’s gonna maybe be interactive. It turns out that she sees ghosts. The whole time she’s addressing the audience, and the audience becomes a part of the experience but as dead people. Where did that come from?

Brown: That came from crowd work. That’s a very popular manifestation of stand-up comedy these days. I really think that it is a very clever way to keep the audience engaged. So I borrowed a lot in writing, in terms of technique. I borrowed a lot from stand-up comedy and from crowd work in order to keep an audience engaged. Nobody wants to have somebody just spouting off, preaching at them. So I make the audience a character.

Miller: The play literally starts with a scream. Cram screams herself awake, and as an audience member, we never really find out why, what’s happening. How do you decide, as a playwright in this case, what to divulge and what to remain a kind of mystery?

Brown: That’s a very good question because there is a very specific, yet unwritten, reason for the scream. She tells herself a story about paying, with her last $5, she hires a homeless person to put a brick through a particular dress designer’s boutique window so that she could steal this gown. Because this is the gown she wants. She wants that gown, so she steals it. But the reality is, which is not something that the audience has any way of knowing, the reality is that she has been stalked by someone from her distant past, from her hometown of Sorrowful, Louisiana. This person attacks her. She pushes this person through the plate glass window, and perhaps that person dies. So she may have committed manslaughter the night before and she wakes up with that memory.

Miller: None of what you just described, is something that I knew when I watched the play. But this is something that you told your actor?

Brown: Yes.

Miller: Why? What do you think you get as a playwright by having the actor know, in this case, more than the audience?

Brown: It’s more interesting for there to be a lot of information available for the audience to chew rather than just spoon feed the audience. The performance that you saw was an earlier one. We have, since that time, updated so that the entire first act is in response to that very foggy memory of that unfortunate person who got pushed through the window.

Miller: One of the big themes of the play is just the merciless march of time. At one point, Cram says, “There’s no middle ground for gays and drag queens. You’re hot, then you’re not.” Do you believe that?

Brown: At 60-something, yeah, I guess I do [laughs].

Miller: About the age of your character?

Brown: I’m about the age of Cram, a little older.

Miller: How are you navigating getting older?

Brown: Actually, I love it. Life, as we know, is in various stages and phases. This phase of my life has just, so far, been spectacular. I’m really enjoying getting older.

I just came back yesterday from Southern California, where I grew up. I was there, in my hometown, attending the opening of a time capsule that my class put in the ground 50 years ago for the Bicentennial. So I ran into a lot of my old friends … In particular one, who I stayed with for a couple of days. We have now known each other for half a century. The people we were then are still the people we are, but we’re better, in many cases. We’re content. We don’t have the anxiety of youth, but we still got a couple of miles on us.

Miller: Sean Brown, it was a pleasure talking with you. Thank you very much.

Brown: Thank you. And we’re actually at The Board Room, rather than the Triangle Theater. It’s inside the Triangle Theater, but they make a distinction between the two places.

Miller: I appreciate the distinction. That is Sean Brown. His play, “Death of a Drag Queen,” is up for two weekends, starting July 11.

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