Ithaca, N.Y. –Last Thursday, also known as ThursGay, was a big night for Ithaca’s drag scene. Local drag queens, Brooklyn Bridges (Hunter Simmons) and Femme de Violette (Jules Dreitzer), hosted “Two Pretty Best Friends,” a drag show that took two months to plan and prepare. The evening featured seven drag performers, most with two performances each.
“Tilia Cordata [another local drag queen], who produces ThursGays came to me and she initially pitched a St. Patrick’s Day show, but that was during IC’s spring break,” Dreitzer said. “Brooklyn and I are a unit and had wanted to do a show called ‘Two Pretty Best Friends’ for around eight months and so we were excited when we got the show.”
Dreitzer has been involved with drag since March of 2020. Because of the pandemic, their first performance was at a virtual drag event called “Flame Night.”
For Simmons, drag has been part of his life since 2018 when he first started performing at Prism’s, an LGBT club on campus, fall drag show.
“I would practice my makeup at, like, three A.M. when my mom was asleep, so I don’t know if what I was doing at first was drag but in my head I really I thought it was,” Simmons said. “It resulted in some really scary pictures from four or five years ago.”
Simmons said that The Range has been an important part of Ithaca’s LGBT scene because it frequently creates a space for LGBT people to come together even though it is not a dedicated LGBT bar. Ithaca currently does not have a specific LGBT club or bar, but many local places host LGBT events.
“I’ve always wanted to perform on that Range stage. It’s beautifully covered in carpet so when I do my death drops, jumping from wherever, I’m landing on a wonderful carpet,” Simmons said. “There’s something magical about The Range.”
Drag has been a long standing and integral part of LGBT culture even though it has changed and developed. Dreitzer said that drag has given them an opportunity to explore gender and that it is an open community for everyone to be a part of. This is something that has changed in recent years because drag is most commonly known as something that only LGBT men participate in.
Both Simmons and Dreitzer said that performing drag has given them both confidence in their daily lives and has given them the opportunity to meet new people.
“I remember watching from the outside like ‘They’re so tall and so beautiful,’ and then you get there and you’re like, ‘Oh, these are my friends, and we are tall, and we are beautiful, but we are also a community that loves each other,” Dreitzer said.
While backstage at The Range, it is clear that the Ithaca drag scene is a community built on friendships between young LGBT people.
“One of my drag philosophies is giving new performers the opportunity to take the stage,” Simmons said. “Another part of my drag philosophy is to be kind. I like to add a little sweetness to everything that I’m doing.”