Five Things: Be Kind

Saturday night, my wife and I attend­ed our first-ever drag show. Honestly, I was­n’t at all sure if I would enjoy it — I had no idea what to expect. But I eager­ly bought tick­ets for two rea­sons. First, it was for a great cause: all pro­ceeds went to sup­port the host, Leeds Center for the Arts. And sec­ond, I want­ed to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty, of which many of my friends are members. 

I wrote about the show a few weeks ago. Called That’s Entertainment!, the show fea­tured local per­former “Ms. Niagara Falls,” bet­ter known around these parts as Brett Cheuvront, who orga­nized the event and served as M.C. Three oth­er per­form­ers joined Ms. Niagara — the per­form­ers are known as drag queens. They were joined on stage by a tal­ent­ed group of dancers. 

Both my wife and I were blown away! The queens, arrayed in their fab­u­lous, over-the-top wardrobes, danced and lip-synced to music rang­ing from old stan­dards to coun­try and pop and every­thing in between. There were a cou­ple of big num­bers fea­tur­ing the dance troupe. And there was com­e­dy as Ms. Niagara and “Helena Handbasket” — who grew up in near­by Lee County — did very fun­ny com­e­dy routines. 

This was not your grand­fa­ther’s “guys-in-wigs-and-dress­es” fol­lies show. These per­form­ers are seri­ous about their craft, and they are very tal­ent­ed. The make­up and cos­tumes were amaz­ing, and the per­for­mances were spectacular. 

It was just plain fun!

There were also some very poignant moments, as some of the queens reflect­ed on being queer in Kentucky, on recent leg­is­la­tion attempt­ing to shut down shows such as this one, and oth­er seri­ous top­ics near and dear to them — and to all of us who are allies to the LGBTQ+ community. 

I hes­i­tate to men­tion it, but I feel I must: there was a sur­re­al over­tone to the event, due to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of dis­rup­tions from peo­ple who feel the need to demon­strate their hatred for things they don’t under­stand. Unlike pre­vi­ous shows we’ve attend­ed at Leeds, this one includ­ed met­al detec­tors at the doors and a very vis­i­ble police pres­ence. There was a smat­ter­ing of pro­tes­tors on the street out­side with signs bear­ing mes­sages too cru­el to print. 

But thank­ful­ly, there were no inci­dents that we were aware of. And all the patrons we saw enter­ing the the­ater took the high road and sim­ply ignored the hate­ful signs and those who held them. This, in my opin­ion, is gen­er­al­ly the best way to deal with such peo­ple. They want to raise a ruckus, to get a reac­tion, maybe even pro­voke a fight, or worse. The best thing is to ren­der them irrelevant.

One of the best things about the night was the feel­ing of com­mu­ni­ty we expe­ri­enced. It seemed near­ly all of my Winchester friends were there, and we got to vis­it with some of them. For oth­ers, it was just a friend­ly wave from across the aisle. But it felt real­ly good to feel that sense of cama­raderie and joy in shar­ing a fun night out on the town — and sup­port­ing great causes. 

I need to give a shout-out to my friend Tracey Miller and all the staff at Leeds. Despite the fact that 100% of the pro­ceeds from the event were to be donat­ed to their orga­ni­za­tion, they must have felt some trep­i­da­tion about host­ing a drag show, giv­en the cur­rent cli­mate in Kentucky. They knew there were risks. They knew some peo­ple would be angry. But they also knew that this is part of their core mis­sion to pro­mote diver­si­ty, inclu­sion, and equi­ty in all they do. I’m sure they did­n’t even con­sid­er declin­ing to host this show. Still, it’s a brave stance to take, and I applaud them for it. This is yet anoth­er reminder that this town des­per­ate­ly needs Leeds Center for the Arts. 

Whether one choos­es to attend or sup­port shows like this one is a per­son­al deci­sion, and there is no right or wrong answer. That’s the great thing about liv­ing in a free coun­try: we all get to do our thing. 

But one should­n’t force one’s own bias­es and prej­u­dices on oth­ers. Hate if you must, but please keep your hate to yourself. 

Ms. Niagara Falls summed up all of this nice­ly with her sign: “Be kind.” 

Is that so hard?