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Pride month is drawing to a close. And with Pittsburgh’s big celebrations falling early in the month, one drag performer and promoter is offering a new way for the city to wrap up the festivities in style.
“The End of Pride Spectacular'' will be the fifth drag show staged by Patrick Mayoral’s Be Gay [Do Crime] Productions, and the first on the main stage of Mr. Smalls. Mayoral says the Sat., June 24, event is a scripted, evening-length musical that seeks to answer the question “Is drag art?” The show features Mayoral’s drag alter-ego, Miss Demeanor, and a cast of local queens including Peter Pansy, Lydia Kollins, and Victoria L. Van Cartier, along with two special guests.
Mayoral, a Point Park University senior, launched the Be Gay [Do Crime] series last year to create safe, fun spaces for queer folks over age 18 and under 21 (though all are welcome).
The past three shows have each drawn more than 100 to Smalls’ Funhouse, and the series recently garnered a fiscal sponsor, New Sun Rising, which Mayoral said will allow it to apply for grants and hopefully to increase accessibility by lowering ticket prices.
In the meantime, Mayoral is well aware that, across the U.S., drag is under attack by right-wing groups and politicians. Legislation restricting or even outlawing drag has been proposed in more than a dozen states, and one bill in Tennessee became law (though a federal judge there recently ruled it unconstitutional).
For Mayoral, such laws harken to the earliest days of the modern LGBTQ-rights movement. “Remember that Pride is a protest,” they said, recalling the event’s roots in the uprising at New York City’s Stonewall Inn, in 1969.
Nor is Pennsylvania a stranger to such repression, whether official or informal. Mayoral said that after Miss Demeanor appeared at an event for high school students at the Millvale Community Library, organizers fielded objections from parents. And Miss Demeanor herself was accosted on the street by three boys at this year’s Millvale Music Festival — until passersby stepped in to defend her. (Mayoral, by the way, also gave a shout-out to Millvale Pride, and spoke of Millvale in general as supportive of Be Gay [Do Crime].)
And in April, State Rep. Aaron Bernstine, a Republican who represents parts of Lawrence and Butler counties, announced he planned to introduce — “[i]n recognition of Child Abuse Prevention Month” — a bill to classify drag shows as “adult-oriented business” in order to ban them “on public property or in areas that can be seen by minors.”
As of last week, that bill had not yet been introduced. But Mayoral said the announcement remained troubling.
“This art form is truly about taking our innermost selves and elevating them to an entertaining level,” they said. “To hear and see that somebody that we’ve elected within this state is actively trying to discriminate against my business, and discriminate against my art, hurts my pride a little and makes me only want to champion this cause even more.”
More information about “The End of Pride Spectacular” is here.
