Chase Ingrande (He/Him) lives the best of both worlds. By day, he is a 28-year-old software
developer for Bravo. Whenever off work hours, he’s focused and working on his drag queen
persona, Chase Runaway (She/Her).
“Drag is a combination of all the things I love put together,” Ingrande said.
Ingrande grew up in Last Vegas Nevada, and was always a very artistic person. As a kid, his
interests included musical theater and painting, and he studied comedy writing in College.
Chase was introduced into the drag world by his first boyfriend as they performed as a duo
together. Once their relationship ended, Chase had to find his own identity and independence in
drag, and Chase Runaway was born.
“I was like okay, what does this look like to do on my own,” Chase says as he uncrosses his legs
and unclenches his coffee cup on the stoop of a random brownstone in his neighborhood.
Chase says that he is thankful that drag is not his full time job because he can rely on it as a
creative outlet rather than burning out and turning an enjoyable hobby into a job he has to do to
make a living.
“I have always thought of my drag as my art,” he said. “And if you are forced to do art it is barely art
because you are pulling it out of you rather than letting it flow out of you.”
Chase says that he feels the most vulnerable in drag because he is the art.
“I feel very much that I am using myself as the canvas,” he said. “And it is the art and the artist coming
together.”
