Tuesday, April 25 marked the First Annual Drag Show here at Plymouth State University. Amanda Drapcho, Matt Blocker, and Delilah Smith were at the head of this year’s successful show, “Dragfabulous.” It has been done at other colleges and we thought it was time to bring it to PSU,” Smith says of the decision to bring drag to PSU.
There were two portions of the show: the first was a professional show put on by drag queens from Club 313 in Manchester, NH. They can be seen every Saturday night in Manchester at their show “Life’s a Drag.” The second portion was a contest for PSU individuals and organizations.
Those who have never been to a drag show before may be wondering what it is besides a group of men dressing up as women. The professional portion began with a group montage of Madonna songs performed through lip syncing and dancing. After the group performance, each queen came out for solo performances and occasional duets.
Monique was the host of the professional portion of the show and knew how to keep a performance on track. After being in drag for four years, she has perfected the arts of lip syncing and dancing. She started doing dragbecause she loves women’s shoes. With this sarcastic and witty tone, she carried herself through the performance.
Some of the other professionals were less experienced than Monique, but were entertaining nonetheless. Portia, a sales associate at Filene’s by day, has been doing drag for only one year. Although she did not remember the words to her opening song, and her performance was not as polished as some of the other girls, she never forgot how to get the crowd involved.
Mercadies, another queen who has been doing drag for three years, works by day as a marketing coordinator. She was encouraged to begin performing drag by friends and finds inspiration in everything around her. Although she also knew how to keep her audience entertained, she forgot lyrics during the Madonna montage which was a distraction and made it difficult to become fully enveloped in her performance.
Besides a few technical difficulties, the professional drag queens put on an amazing performance. Almost everyone in the Courtroom hysterically laughing screamed in encouragement.
After a short intermission full of raffles, Master of Ceremonies Karen Muntz kicked off the amateur portion of the show where both men and women took the opportunity to trade sexes. There were group choreographed performances, Sonny and Cher style duets, and solos.
In the end the judges announced the winners of the amateur competition. Angel, performing Marilyn Manson’s version of “Tainted Love,” swept the individual category while BAG Drag and their rendition of The Black Eyed Peas’ “My Humps” took home first place in the student organization category.