GW Pride’s second-annual Drag Show brought food, prizes and fake breasts to the Hippodrome Friday night, as a crowd of about 300 students and area residents watched drag queens and kings from Puss N’ Boots Productions perform on stage.
“It was good fun and very entertaining,” said sophomore Katerina Tassiopoulos.
Senior Andrea Cerbin, who performed as Drag King Abe Froman “The Sausage King of Chicago,” was the only GW student to perform at the show. She danced to “It’s Not Unusual” by Tom Jones.
Miss Baby Michaels, the event’s host, entertained the crowd with dancing and comedy.
“You got a girlfriend?” she asked an audience member named Becky.
“No,” Becky said with a laugh. “I’m straight.”
“Ohh,” Baby said in a long drawn-out voice. “Well, you’ll find people out there like you. Don’t worry.”
Members of GW Pride said the event was good for the group as whole.
“This is a great event for us,” Erik Bottcher, a member of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered awareness student group. “Not only is it a lot of fun, but it’s a way for us to celebrate and demonstrate our diversity. We really look forward to sharing this event each year with the GW and local community.”
Many people outside the GW community showed up for the up-beat celebration of sexuality, including one student from Columbia University who said the show was part of his motivation to visit D.C.
Performers from Puss N’ Boots productions, a professional D.C. drag production company, filled out the rest of the night’s performances. Miss Baby Michaels, Simone Blue, Peter Dicksen, Jimmie Jaymes and Kenya Dabarow donned elaborate costumes ranging from flashy gowns to leather chaps and thigh-high five-inch-heel boots.
“This was unlike anything I had seen before,” American University student Jenna Udren said. “People say things are `off the hook.’ Well, this was off five hooks.”
Simone Blue became the crowd favorite with her seven-and-a-half
minute singing and dancing performance to Natalie Cole’s rendition of The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” which the crowd responded to with roaring applause and laughter.
“Simone Blue really worked it,” Udren said. “She was awesome.”
Many GW students and audience members ran up on stage and gave tips to the kings and queens.
During Peter Dicksen’s performance of the Bloodhound Gang’s hit “The Bad Touch,” a few audience members acted out the lyrics, “doing it like they do on the Discovery Channel.”
“This was definitely my first drag show,” freshman Ody Uy said. “I’d come next year, but I still don’t think I’d go to (a drag show) off campus.”