Drag queen, Sapphire Shade, has also been a show director before, which helped her understand both sides of creating a drag event was like. Photo courtesy of Sapphire Shade/Mackenzie Derhammer.
In June of 2017, Mackenzie Derhammer, 18 at the time, attended his first pride event. Old enough to go without his parents saying no, he watched drag queens perform and observed the pageant.
From there, the idea of creating his drag queen alter-ego, Sapphire Shade, was born.
Derhammer grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and has lived in Michigan for almost his entire life. For the last six years, he’s been a drag performer.
Derhammer became a drag queen performer for many reasons, most notably because he “always loved the stage” and thought of performing in drag as “extravagant art in its own form.”
Before Derhammer started performing, he watched RuPaul’s Drag Race — one of the most popular drag TV shows — and the pageant scenes of drag, including Miss Continental, Miss Gay America and more.
During this time, his biggest drag queen mentor and inspiration became obvious: Erica Andrews. Andrews was a beauty pageant contestant and drag performer who passed away in 2013 and was known for being a drag mother to many drag queens.
So, who is Sapphire Shade?
“Sapphire was what I couldn’t be because Sapphire gave me the confidence that I didn’t have at the time, coming out of the closet, and meeting all of the community I’m a part of,” Derhammer said.
Since starting six years ago, Sapphire Shade is often called the “fringe diva of Michigan” because of Derhammer’s love for the material.
“Almost all of my outfits have either regular or beaded fringe,” Derhammer said. “I like the way it moves.”
For outfits, Derhammer usually gets material that has been previously worn, or she goes to a designer to get something made, especially for pageants. The designer is her drag mother, Laura Loveless, who has her own jewelry company, Lewks Jewelry.
Another Sapphire Shade signature is her dancing: in many of her performances, she’s doing high kicks, splits, cartwheels and reverse jump splits. Recently, when she performed at the Lansing Pride Festival, she performed all of those moves.
Derhammer did not come into the drag scene early, but in just the six years he’s had a drag persona, he’s seen a new resurgence of drag performers and entertainers enter the playing field, especially in Michigan.
“There’s definitely been a massive influx, even just in my time frame, of drag becoming — what a lot of us are saying — oversaturated because there are so many people coming out to perform,” Derhammer said. “We have everyone taking it in different ways of drag: there’s people who do more gory side, monster looks or people just making the art form different than what you regularly see.”
When first becoming a drag queen, Derhammer leaned into the drama aspect of drag — what the audience sees sometimes in shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race — which resulted in negative consequences for Derhammer. However, he used that as a learning experience for the future.
Drama, as Derhammer said, “doesn’t cause anything good” and never really “gets you anywhere.”
Since bouncing back, Derhammer reached out to different venues and drag queens to create a “drag family.”
With more and more drag queens on the scene, Derhammer has become very close to them, and they all often try to “be there for one another” and “build friendships.”
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“Sometimes it’s like, ‘Hey, do you want to come to try out this venue with me?’” Derhammer said. “I’ve gotten to meet a lot of amazing people.”
While Derhammer is a performer, he’s also been a show director; he’s been on both sides of the drag performer industry. Derhammer said that since drag has become so popular in recent years, it’s difficult booking gigs, even in mid-Michigan.
“You get all of these messages from people wanting to do your show,” Derhammer said. "There are so many amazing entertainers doing drag in different forms, everyone’s trying to get a spot.”
Luckily for Derhammer, he’s had a certain formula he uses when booking an event that usually takes four queens: he books a veteran who has been in the game for a while, someone who’s above amateur but not quite a veteran, and then two newbies.
Seven years ago, Derhammer attended his first pride event, which sparked his drag character. Seven years later, he performed at Lansing Pride and may have completed the cycle, possibly as an inspiration — or drag mother — for a future drag queen.
When performing, a crowd of hundreds erupted when Derhammer’s alter ego came out. Some cried and many danced, which was, in a bittersweet sense, Derhammer’s highlight of being a performer.
“The highlight of my history with Sapphire is seeing how much Sapphire has affected people in good ways,” Derhammer said. “At Lansing Pride, when I did my set, people were crying and feeling the joyousness of watching somebody perform and seeing their heart being poured into something. It’s amazing to have a feeling that I can make somebody’s life feel a little better, whether it be for only 10 seconds or a whole month.”
