Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
Attention staff! Amanda Tori Meating, a drag queen with Dayton roots, is among the 14 contestants on Season 16 of the Emmy Award-winning hit reality television show “RuPaul’s Drag Race” premiering at 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 5 on MTV.
“When I perform in drag, there’s no other choice than to be everything I’ve always loved about myself and thought was hilarious, smart, sexy or fierce,” says Philip Stock, a 2018 Wright State University musical theatre graduate who has performed drag as Amanda since 2020. “Drag unleashes the menace I’ve been keeping inside for a long time.”
Unlike others who auditioned multiple times hoping to be a part of RuPaul’s illustrious troupe, Stock’s first audition video sealed the deal. The call came last spring for the 2014 Stivers School for the Arts graduate to join what continues to be a huge showcase for queer representation globally. The competition comes with a $200,000 grand prize and the title of “America’s Drag Queen Superstar.”
‘”RuPaul’s Drag Race’ is unquestionably the largest platform for queer people on television,” says Stock, 28. “There is no other television show where you can see that many queer people in the same room. I was weeping on the phone and was so excited when I got the ‘Drag Race’ call but I also felt this was always supposed to happen. I sort of have had this narrative in my head of being the underdog, but I knew if I kept hustling and grinding someone would see it eventually.”
Stock’s drag trajectory can be traced back to being cast in the national tour of the Tony Award-winning musical “Kinky Boots” while a senior at Wright State. But before that opportunity arose, there was an underlying feeling drag would only be a secondary outlet, especially since auditions for “The Book of Mormon,” “A Chorus Line” and similar shows revealed a more traditional, post-collegiate path.
“All throughout college I considered myself a fan of drag, a spectator of drag,” Stock explains. “I thought drag would be something I would do on the side to fulfill myself. But there was something about the ‘Kinky Boots’ experience that made me feel alive. Some friends of mine also said when they saw me in a normal dance audition I was good, but when they saw me audition in heels for shows like ‘Kinky Boots’ or ‘La Cage aux Folles’ I was like an unstoppable diva. So, I began to wonder if I was experiencing some sort of gender euphoria in (drag-related) work and started performing in drag in (New York’s) West Village in 2020.”
