photo via Andre Easton
By Analy Ortiz
Students threw dollar bills across The Underground as a group of 10 drag queens performed with colorful wardrobe, wigs and makeup for the second time at Dominican University.
Festive music played as each performer was introduced, then danced and followed by a lip sync of popular songs such as “On a Roll” by Ashley O, and “Hi Bich” by Bhad Bhabie, and memorable dancing.
The crowd of more than 50 people vigorously cheered on the performers. The second drag show of the year was yet another success on the Dominican campus.
The drag show was an event unique to Dominican University where students can enjoy themselves and learn about different communities.
Common Ground sponsored the Oct. 16 show – “A Drag Night Out” – Dominican’s second drag show of the year with student Andre Easton, a senior theater major taking the lead. Easton was joined by performers from Oak Park’s Hamburger Mary’s.
For two hours before the event the drag queens glammed up and chit-chatted in front of vanity mirrors in the Fine Arts Building preparing for “A Drag Night Out.” As Easton worked on his green eyeshadow he reminisced on his beginnings as a drag queen and who his inspiration was to start performing in drag. Easton’s main inspiration to begin performing in drag was watching his friends, Nena Dee and Lemon Lacroix, perform in drag.
As for his drag persona, Mz. Rachel Slurrz, he came up with her name through Google and inspiration from Rupaul’s Drag Race’s Rachel Tension. Finally, after enough research on google, Mz. Rachel Slurrz was the final choice.
Easton said the biggest challenge he has faced since he started to perform in drag is getting the approval from other drag queens. “There’s a lot of pressure, especially in Chicago,” he said. “There’s so many drag queens.”
“1000 Ways to Drag” and “A Drag Night Out” are some of Dominican’s most unique events which sets them apart from other events at Dominican. Easton is quite aware of that and expressed his main motivations for events like these.
“I figured that Dominican needed some very gay stuff in its presence. I just felt like Dominican needed something different, because we’ve had the same events going on every year. I went to my first drag show February of last year in Omaha, Nebraska, and I was like Dominican needs to have this.”
For more on the February show, see https://dominicanstar.com/students-attend-the-midwest-bisexual-lesbian-gay-transgender-ally-college-conference.
A little over a year after his discovery of his love for drag, he hosted last year’s Dominican drag show — “1000 Ways To Drag.” He said the experience at Dominican has been positive.
“It feels good! Especially at a Catholic university, that you’re having something like this, and to have so many people that are open to it and are willing to experience something different than Mass,” he said.
This experience brings greater diversity to Dominican, Easton emphasized.
“I just hope they get a new experience, and they’ll want more diversity within the community because we have the foundation for it, with a lot of the communities we have on campus,” Easton said. “We have a lot of different communities on campus, and I just feel like bridging those gaps between all of them is something that this event can do now and in the future.”
Easton plans to graduate in May 2020, which leaves the fate of Dominican’s new tradition of drag shows uncertain.
“I would honestly love if someone else were to pick up the torch of doing the show, but I would be more than happy to come back every year and plan the show, especially it being my legacy after leaving Dominican,” he said.
It’s safe to say with the support and dedication of the Dominican community, the drag show events at Dominican are here to stay.
