Column: Drag brunch prevails at The Walnut Room, where history and radical acceptance collide

Every other weekend or so, if you head up seven floors to The Walnut Room, in the store once known as Marshall Field’s on State Street in Chicago, you’ll feel the music before you see the spotlights beaming from the show.

If you planned ahead, you’ll end up seated somewhere around the fountain, where the holiday tree usually hangs. The tree is literally hung from the ceiling, to keep some seasonal weight off the floor, with the priceless Tiffany domed ceiling below.

That floor has carried the weight of generations. Families come not just for the winter holidays, but new traditions too — notably drag brunches nearly every weekend throughout the year.

Macy’s, which bought Field’s in 2006, announced the first drag brunch at the restaurant to kick off LGBTQ+ Pride Month back in June 2021.

They seemed, for the most part, to have escaped the hate campaigns that escalated in 2022. UpRising Bakery and Cafe in Lake in the Hills, a suburb about an hour’s drive northwest of the city, canceled a sold-out family-friendly drag event after a vandal smashed windows last July.

[ Amid mounting pushback, Illinois drag queens push forward ]

Despite the pushback, the shows went on elsewhere and at The Walnut Room, except during the busy holiday season.

Just before Thanksgiving, a report by the world’s largest LGBTQ+ media advocacy organization found drag events in Illinois were among the most targeted in this country.

Yet they resumed on the seventh floor above State Street in January, with a Mariah Carey-themed “All I Want for Christmas Is You” event.

In April, a hate campaign targeted a “Mario Party” video game-themed brunch scheduled for May at The Walnut Room.

I happened to attend that event, unaware of the controversy.

At the finale, through the booming music and beaming lights, the host made a moving statement.

“I never could have imagined, being a Black nonbinary bearded drag queen, that I would ever have a show in this kind of space,” Lucy Stoole said.

When we spoke later to discuss what I believe is perhaps the most important space to do drag in the city, Lucy Stoole — who uses she/her pronouns in drag, and they/them pronouns out of drag as Ty Huey — revealed the show had nearly been canceled.

“We started to see some flak online about the Mario-themed brunch,” Huey said about their fellow performers. A hate campaign followed, leading Macy’s to consider canceling the brunch that day.

“We were like, that’s the absolute worst thing we could do, especially right now,” Huey said.

Huey speaks from extensive experience, doing drag full time as Lucy Stoole, while also working as a program manager at the legendary Berlin nightclub in Lakeview, and producing shows at other venues.

“When drag queens are being accused of being predators, by people online who’ve never seen a drag show, the worst thing to do is give in,” Huey said. “We just said, ‘We want to do this.’”

It was an easy choice, yet still difficult.

“That was a dark moment for me,” Huey said. “Because I had been so celebrated, and had been taken care of so well there. To be told the show was going to be canceled was tough for me at first. But we ended up being able to have conversations.”

The performers talked with a number of Macy’s executives.

“They told us it was the first time that they had ever encountered anything like this,” Huey said. “So they really didn’t know the best way to react. Their only thought was, ‘We want to protect the performers.’ After talking to us, and going over how we felt, and what we thought about the future of the brunch if we canceled, they came to agree.”

Macy’s took safety measures, and performers Trisha Can, Eva Styles, Trashly and Lucy Stoole transformed the event into a “Totally ’80s” theme.

“I was very thankful that people a lot higher up, who didn’t really have to step in, did take the time to meet with us and talk,” Huey said. “It’s really easy for a lot of companies these days to say that they support LGBTQ rights issues, maybe for a little money, or (putting) a Pride flag on something.

“But to actually see them put us in positions of power, and standing in spaces, and giving us a platform — that doesn’t happen that often,” they said. “And it especially rarely happens, let’s just be honest, to a lot of Black gender-nonconforming people.”

That day in May, fueled by chicken pot pie, I sang along by heart and at the top of my lungs to Madonna, Whitney, Cyndi and more. As a child of the ’80s, and a connoisseur of the music of that decade, I was surprised by a Mario number, but it later made sense. (When the costumes are already made and the songs rehearsed, I think it’s fair to fudge the numbers.)

I hadn’t noticed any Mario costumes in the enthusiastic audience, nor had I seen the plainclothes security.

“Macy’s had done even more than I had known,” Huey said. “I didn’t find out until after that day.”

It was the first time The Walnut Room had a security presence at drag brunch.

“It’s never been a necessity in any way,” Huey said.

In retrospect, Huey’s moving statement at that finale as their “beautiful, glamorous, very well-paid alter ego” was even more poignant.

“It’s vital for me to say in those audiences,” Huey said. “Maybe they’ve never seen drag, but they found a cool place they’re connected to.”

Those welcoming spaces are increasingly under siege; UpRising, the vandalized yet valiant bakery and cafe in the suburbs, after enduring nearly a year of hate, closed permanently May 31.

For the most part, the online haters don’t show up at events in the city, Huey said.

“If they did, the Chicagoans there for it would not have it,” they added, laughing. “I definitely rely on the community more than anything in these situations.”

They remind us that we need to actually be in the room.

“When I posted that the stuff was happening with the Mario brunch, I had so many people who messaged me,” Huey said. “They were like, ‘We will be there with signs. We will have all of our family there. We have your back no matter what.’ Like, this is not going to fly in our city.”

A recent Taylor Swift drag brunch weekend, which indeed coincided with the concerts at Soldier Field, packed The Walnut Room with an estimated 1,200 fans over four performances.

So how did they go from a dark moment to a Swiftian new era?

“I really don’t allow that stuff to scare me too much,” Huey said.

The biggest thing you can do is find the people who support you in these situations and make sure they are aware of what’s happening, they said. And that they know how to help protect you and protect themselves.

“I really don’t want to get anyone hurt or in trouble or anything like that,” they added. “But I am also not going to let anyone bully us into not doing anything that we’re doing, because we’re not doing anything wrong.

“There isn’t any reason to try to keep us from elevating this art form and bringing it to different spaces.”

I had never been to a drag brunch at The Walnut Room. They are open to all ages, but I didn’t see any kids at the show I attended. I did see plenty of platters of walnut French toast, and countless carafes of bottomless mimosas served to adults.

“We’ve always told parents or anyone else bringing their children to check out the theme,” Huey said. “But at the end of the day, there still is never anything inappropriate for anyone to see there. And we’ve done that on purpose. We have edited songs, we have edited outfits and everything else for that very reason.

“So maybe ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ isn’t the one for the under-12 crowd, but maybe the ‘Hocus Pocus’ brunch is,” they said.

Some of the outfits covered the performers from neck to toe, like flowy gowns Field’s might have sold at the turn of the last century.

I had also never attended a drag show in the Venmo era. Along with the menu, my server handed me a handy flyer with the performers’ social media and mobile payment usernames.

But no worries, because host Lucy Stoole walks you through what to expect at the event.

“I do my big intro announcement, tell everybody the rules, what is allowed and what isn’t,” Huey said. “And remind everybody that the name of the game is having fun — and tipping.”

As a Gen Xer, I exchanged cash for a neatly rubber-banded bundle of crisp single dollar bills.

“And then we go ahead and get the show started,” Huey said.

The performers work their way around the room, sometimes with astounding cartwheels in heels, making the big space feel personal.

“After the first round, I do a big celebration thing, where I bring people up,” Huey said. Most of the diverse participants said they were celebrating birthdays, others a graduation, and another a divorce. “We either take shots together, or if they’re underage, there’s chocolates and toys.

“The birthday round is super special to me, because it’s how we have brought in fundraising to this event,” they said. Everyone who goes up gets to lip-sync their own number, then go around the room to collect money. “The last two years, we’ve raised over $40,000 for different organizations in Chicago.”

This year alone, they’ve raised more than $10,000 for Chicago Therapy Collective, Huey said. The nonprofit organization promotes LGBTQ+ mental health and well-being.

Back at the brunch, after a second set, Lucy Stoole did her number, then a big group finale closed the show.

“Even if you don’t know all the words, you get to say hi to everybody, take pictures, collect a little more money and maybe give hugs before people are on their way out,” Huey said. “Everybody has a good time during that last number.”

Not just the audience, but the staff too. As someone who actually loved working brunch, it was still so surprising to see servers (and cooks out of the kitchen!) spontaneously, singing and dancing along.

“They also take so much pride in being a part of that,” Huey said. “Because that’s a big money-making day for everyone involved.”

It’s important to take away reminders from the show, they added.

“I want you to not only take the fun that you had with you, but also some of what you heard and learned,” Huey said. “Take that back to the people you may hear saying something about drag, who have never even seen it. I think it’s super important right now for people to be showing up and supporting us in any way possible.”

The Walnut Room Drag Brunch

111 N. State St.

312-781-5219

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macysrestaurants.com/walnut-room

Open: Weekends, dates vary, 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. seatings

Prices: Tickets $20 per person; plus one entree required, $15-$30; bottomless mimosas, $25-$48; nonalcoholic drinks, $4-$7

Noise: Conversation-challenged, but singing-friendly

Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible with restrooms on same level

lchu@chicagotribune.com

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