IndyStar.com – Kelly Kendall
As I brushed a piece of hair behind my ear on Friday night, it crossed my mind that I was probably the only one in the place wearing little pearl studs. Dripping faux diamonds are the standard at the Talbott Street drag shows, kind of like how Vogue editor Diana Vreeland pronounced hot pink the “navy blue of India.”
Everything’s bigger and brighter here, from the impossibly arched eyebrows painted above camouflaged masculine ones to the lip gloss so shiny you can see your face in it.
Alana Steele is one of the city’s best-known queens, lip-synching her way through three nights a week at the Talbott Street bar. But nine years ago, she vowed never to step onstage again after competing in a drag pageant on a dare.
“I was really into being a boy, and I thought you couldn’t do this and be a boy,” said Steele, getting ready for last Sunday night’s show while still in male mode: White do-rag and T-shirt and knee-length faded denim shorts.
By day, Steele lives as a man — a “mostly gay” man — and runs a commercial cleaning business. She keeps her real name secret because not everyone knows what she does, and she especially wants to protect her two younger siblings, who have no idea of their big brother’s stardom.
“People say, ‘If you dress as a girl, you must want to be a girl,’ ” said Steele from her gown-crammed dressing room at Talbott Street, picking stray threads from a zebra-print dress. That’s a misconception among straight and gay people alike, she said.