Michael Rishawn and Jaysen Wright in Wig Out! (Photo by Teresa Wood)

By DCist contributor Allie Goldstein

Welcome to the Ball. Set up like an intimate speakeasy, Studio X’s Wig Out! offers a front-row seat to the best strutting D.C. has seen since the annual High Heel Race.

The play is a glimpse into Ball Culture, an underground LGBTQ performance scene with roots in 1930s Harlem, a space of fluid gender identities, acceptance, celebration, and fierce competition between rival “houses.” Ever used the terms “throwing shade” or “werk,” or struck a pose to Madonna’s Vogue? Those are all appropriated from Ball.

Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney developed Wig Out! at the Sundance Theatre Lab in 2007 where he worked with director Kent Gash, and the two came together again for Studio X’s production. Since its premiere in London in 2008, each production has been updated, this time with references to “alternative facts” and songs such as Drake’s “Hotline Bling” that place it in the present day.

McCraney recently won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Moonlight, and those who have seen 2016’s Best Picture will recognize that Wig Out! similarly depicts black gay culture through the lives of complex individuals, not caricatures. The play also echoes some of the film’s cinematic poetry with gorgeous lighting design by Dawn Chiang and moments so intimate they feel like camera close-ups.

The cast is so jam-packed with talent that it’s difficult to choose even a few stand-outs. The three “Fates” (Ysabel Jasa, Melissa Victor, and Dane Figueroa Edidi) serve as the hollering, booty-shaking guides to the world of Ball, narrating the action, belting out harmonies, and bringing some serious heat to their performance of Destiny Child’s “Lose My Breath.” Presiding over the House of Light are Rey-Rey (Jamyl Dobson), the outgoing house “mother” who was the lone survivor of a previous generation of queens taken down by AIDS, and Lucian (Michael Kevin Darnall), the seedy but also paternal House “father.”

Edwin Brown III plays Venus, the up-and-coming queen whose relationship with Deity (Desmond Bing) packs incredible depth into a few short scenes; their chemistry in a rendition of Beyoncé’s “Welcome to Hollywood” is off-the-charts. (Yes, Wig Out! pays considerable homage to Queen Bey.) House mother Serena (Frank Britton) and Loki (Alex Mills) represent the rival House of Di’Abolique, and both actors give tantalizing performances that are accentuated by Frank Labovitz’s outlandish costume design (think octopus skirts, face spikes, corsets, and so much more).

Even as the Ball swirls around them, the play’s emotional center belongs to Eric (Jaysen Wright) and Ms. Nina/Wilson (Michael Rishawn) whose love story begins on a subway car. Their narrative draws inspiration from McCraney’s own relationship with a person who later identified as transgender, and it’s as beautiful as it is complicated.

In the bedroom, Eric and Wilson are limbs and souls intertwined, but outside of this soft-lit cocoon, things get tricky. For Wilson, donning a wig and becoming Ms. Nina is not a disguise; it’s a homecoming. But will Eric be able to let go of the story he tells himself about himself—the narrative that dictates who he lets himself love?

This is the central question of Wig Out!, as well as its revelation: What if it’s not the queens of the Ball who are “confused,” but rather everyone else?

Through August 6 at the Studio Theatre. $20-54. Buy tickets here.