Suzanne Karioki
Photo by Kyle Daudelin

In a small classroom in the campus’s oldest building is a small group of dedicated volunteers, paper mâché-ing cardboard for what will be the university’s largest student-run event.

“It is very stressful,” says junior Shay Reynolds, who has been working on the show for three years. “When the [executive board] says that they cry during Drag Show season, they are not joking.”

The Fitchburg State GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance) has hosted their annual drag show since 2005. Although they faced great hostility at the time, it has grown into the biggest event on campus, boasting around 850 attendees last year alone.

Senior Adam Stone has been involved with the show since his first year. “You can never really put into words how much work it is,” he said. The show involves an incredible amount of work: booking performers, creating flyers and posters, fundraising, planning and creating decor, and eventually setting up the stage, lighting, music, and concessions. But working on the show, Stone explained, taught him to work efficiently under pressure and gave him the confidence to eventually run for president of GSA. As president in his junior year, Stone also learned the hard way how to balance school life and his responsibility to the club. He emphasized how important it is to take time for himself, otherwise, he said, “It’ll get to you.”

“It’s hard to find a student on campus who doesn’t know about it and isn’t excited for it,” said Jason Henrikson, current GSA president. Like Stone and Reynolds, Henrikson described the sheer amount of work involved as “all encompassing.” Putting on an event at this scale involves a lot of moving parts, which Henrikson described as “a juggling game”; but he wouldn’t take back the experience for anything. Being part of the club, he said, changed who he is as a person and helped him to be part of something bigger than himself.

As well as being a way to raise money for an LGBT student scholarship, the Drag Show is a labor of love. “We pour or hearts and souls into this show,” Henrikson said and added that the event is really a testament to how strong and important the LGBT community is, both on and off campus.

The show, of course, is all about the queens. But the event is also known for the spectacular handmade decorations and centerpieces. Leading the charge this year was sophomore Eliana West, Theatre major and public relations chair of GSA. Although it was her first year working on the show, she didn’t feel as overwhelmed as other members I spoke to. Working on decorations, she said, was a stress reliever for her as a person who loves doing art. The club collaborates on a theme every year – past shows have seen Disney, Dungeons and Dragons, and Candy Shop themes – and West struggled at first to imagine how to create decor that matched this year’s theme (Cookies and Queens) and her vision. But once the group started bouncing ideas off each other, her inspirtion for the show took form. Between working on the show, keeping up with homework and working on plays as a Theater major, West is often busy from 8 a.m. to about 10 p.m. every day. West believes that the show is invaluable to the campus and definitely worth the work.

Stone explained that the show opens people’s eyes to a corner of the community that’s often very niche. Some of the queens, he said, identify as cisgender men and others as transgender women, which is a hot button issue in the LGBT community. Although the point of the show is not to be an educational experience – drag is a performance art intended to entertain, after all – Stone hopes that people leave the show a little more familiar with one of the most vibrant and resilient parts of the community. Both the queens and the audience enjoy themselves, but the performers also put a lot of heart into a show that brings all kinds of people together, he said.

Putting the show together is very rewarding, but members agreed that their favorite part of the show was actually watching it. Once it’s in the queen’s hands, “then you actually sit back,” said Reynolds.

The GSA is still in the process of raising enough funds – through ticket sales and concessions – to begin disbursing funds to prospective students. Stone, especially, feels very passionately about providing a scholarship, as someone who spent a lot of his life feeling part of the LGBT community but without a place to actually meet people like him. He, like his fellow GSA members, found a place at Fitchburg State and want to give that back.