MASS DRAG
A thousand years of queer Catholic history
the Church keeps trying to erase.
One High Drag Mass.
Join the Congregation
We preach to the choir. Proudly.
Updates, news, and blessings from the world premiere.
No spam. No selling of souls. Unsubscribe at any time.
You are now part of the choir.
Watch your inbox for word from the sisters.
The Show
It’s October 9, the anniversary of the canonization of Saint John Henry Newman, a Victorian cardinal who loved another man for thirty-two years, asked to share his grave for eternity, and was made a saint anyway.
Five Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are performing a High Drag Mass in a gay bar. They follow the full structure of the Catholic liturgy — processional, readings, homily, offering, communion, recessional. But the sacred texts are Newman’s love letters, Vatican dossiers, and a saint who turned up missing from his grave.
The Sisters argue all night about whether to pursue beatification for their fallen Sister Donna Wanna Noh. Underneath that argument is the show’s real question: why do we keep asking for the blessing of an institution that has tried to bury us?
Centuries Documented same-sex union ceremonies in the Catholic Church
Centuries Men tried by Church inquisitions for sodomy, then burned at the stake
James Lopata wrote the book, music, and lyrics for Mass Drag. He holds a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and is a Harvard Institute of Coaching Fellow. He studied playwriting with Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott and spent years as cantor at St. Francis Xavier Church in Manhattan — one of New York’s most celebrated progressive Catholic communities. He has more than thirty years of Zen practice and founded the Massachusetts LGBT Chamber of Commerce.
He knows the history in this play from the inside. The Catholic liturgy, the queer grief, the spiritual hunger, the dark comedy of an institution that keeps blessing and erasing the same love. Mass Drag is the show he was always going to write.