This week on Transpositive PDX, airing Tuesday at 6pm on KBOO Community Radio, we are excited to bring you a conversation rooted in the power, vulnerability, and artistry of queer performance. Transpositive is KBOO’s biweekly program exploring the lives, culture, politics, and creative work of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people in Portland and beyond. As always, we invite listeners to join us in building community through dialogue, storytelling, and shared imagination.
On this week’s show, we’ll be highlighting Death of a Drag Queen, a bold new play written and directed by Portland playwright Sean Brown. Described as a “lipstick-stained elegy for those of us who died trying,” the play delves into themes of aging, irrelevance, betrayal, and the emotional cost of surviving one’s own legend. Blending glamour, grit, and raw honesty, Death of a Drag Queen asks a question many queer artists know intimately: what does it take to hold onto yourself in a world that wants your shine but not your struggle?
Sean Brown’s work has long explored identity, resilience, and the spectacle of survival. With a style that merges lyricism with unfiltered truth, Brown crafts theatrical worlds that shimmer with humor, heartbreak, and unapologetic humanity. Death of a Drag Queen continues that artistic lineage, presenting a story that confronts beauty and brutality in equal measure. Directed and performed by Brown and Sean Marlow, the production features a striking graphic-novel-inspired aesthetic and a deeply intentional approach to sound, costume, and stagecraft.
The play premieres December 5th at The Echo Theater in Portland, with additional performances on December 6, 12, 13, 19, and 20, followed by an extended January run at The Board Room at The Triangle Theater. As queer stories face both celebration and suppression in our current climate, Death of a Drag Queen arrives at exactly the right moment—reclaiming drag not as entertainment alone, but as a living archive of identity, memory, and defiant survival.
As always, Transpositive PDX is an open collective, welcoming new and experienced transgender, nonbinary, gender-fluid, and gender-nonconforming community members who want to get involved. If you have a story to tell, a project to uplift, or a voice to share, we want to hear from you. Reach out to Emma at transpositivepdx@gmail.com to learn more about participating or completing KBOO’s free radio training.
Join us this Tuesday at 6pm on KBOO 90.7 FM—or stream live and explore our archives at kboo.fm/transpositivepdx. You can also find us on Facebook at facebook.com/transpositivepdx. We look forward to having you with us for another evening of conversation, creativity, and community.