In between rehearsals, they discuss their lives, from facing the draft board, to their small hometowns, with a fascinating frankness.

Katie Walsh

Los Angeles Times

Whether pushing the camera close to the performers or zooming in from afar to survey them intimately, Simon captures the lavish life of theatrical imagination that inspires them and makes gender itself seem like an urgent performance.

A quaint portrait it’s not, and aside from the conditions of the rat-trap midtown hotel where the competing queens are put up in, it’s hardly fly-on-the-wall either. While it presents its subjects at arm’s length, The Queen consistently recognizes the constraints they face.

Eric Henderson

Slant Magazine