Charles Ludlam’s The Mystery of Irma Vep has historically been celebrated for its drag, wit, and theatrical bravado, but the play also emerged from a distinctly queer performance culture with its own audiences, codes, and expectations. What happens when a work shaped by that sensibility travels outward into broader culture, and how do its questions around gender, performance, and theatrical excess read differently now? Seen from the present, Irma Vep opens onto a larger conversation about queer theatrical lineage, the changing meanings of camp, and what it means to inherit a play whose terms were never entirely meant for everyone.