This class is a drag — and students love it
The final exam for the first-year seminar‘Of Kings and Queens’ at Muhlenberg College puts theory into practice — and into a dress.Thursday, December 2, 2010 11:45 AM
Ian Curtis never used to be comfortable with drag.
A first-year student in Muhlenberg College’s Department of Theatre and Dance, Curtis says he didn’t know what to make of drag queens — men who adopt female alter-egos to perform, usually singing or lip-synching, often in bars and often as amateurs.
“I was definitely someone who judged drag queens,” he says. “It makes me feel bad thinking about it now, but it’s honest.”
Curtis has had a change of heart, though — and on Dec. 9, he will make his drag debut, performing as “Valeria” in the Stonewall nightclub’s first-ever Muhlenberg Drag Night.
What’s more, it’s part of the curriculum.
Curtis is a student in “Of Kings and Queens: Drag Theory and Performance,” a seminar for first-year students, taught by Troy Dwyer, an assistant professor in the Theatre and Dance Department. The class wasn’t initially Curtis’ first choice, but he’s glad he ended up there.
“The seminar has opened up a whole new way of seeing the world, and how people see each other and interact with each other,” he says.
The course is one of several seminars designed to introduce new students at Muhlenberg to college-level academic work in a rigorous but engaging environment. The students in “Of Kings and Queens” have spent the first three-quarters of the semester reading, writing and analyzing, discussing the politics of gender and sexuality, and coming to understand drag as a cultural phenomenon.
But the highlight of the semester will be the final exam. Dwyer and all 15 of his students are planning a drag show, which they will perform for the public, Dec. 9 at the Stonewall. Dwyer says he believes the course is unique.
“I’ve looked around for something like it,” he says. “There are graduate classes that look at drag in terms of critical theory, but I have never seen an undergrad class dedicated to studying drag, let alone one that teaches you how to perform it.”
To help the students translate their understanding of drag to the stage, Dwyer invited veteran drag performer Jerry Schmidt to visit the class.
“When you drag for the first time, and you’re not so great, they call it ‘tragic,’” Dwyer says. “So Jerry’s there to try to make sure we’re not tragic.”
Schmidt is better known to fans of his weekly performances in the Lehigh Valley and Philadelphia as Carol-Ann, cabaret singer, busybody and bingo queen. He says the key to drag is to make a connection.
“Don’t look at the floor. Look at the crowd. A lot of these guys have a theater performance background, so they don’t necessarily think to acknowledge the audience,” he says. “Even if you’re failing, they want to cheer for you — but you’ve got to let them in. And of course know your lyrics.”
Schmidt cut his drag teeth in the Lehigh Valley’s underground theater scene of the 1990s. His comedy troupe, The Enigma Players, would perform campy, semi-improvised sketches at the Stonewall, the Theatre Outlet, and other area venues — sometimes featuring “ultra-campy” drag characters. One of those characters was a nasal-voiced Midwestern housewife named Carol-Ann, with aspirations of Broadway stardom.
Then in the fall of 2000, Schmidt got a weekly gig hosting bingo night in an area bar. He brought back his housewife character, and “Carol-Ann’s Bingo-Rama” was born.
“It was an opportunity to do an improv standup routine and practice my comedy skills,” Schmidt says, “while at the same time calling ten games of bingo.”
Schmidt applauds the students for the risks they’re taking, both as performers and as people. He says he’s definitely a fan — and he thinks the Stonewall regulars will be, too.
“I’m so impressed with how this class is open to exploring diversity of all kinds, by how wide-open their eyes are to that,” he says. “It took my breath away that this could be happening on a college campus.”
Dwyer says that “Of Kings and Queens” is the sort of course that could only happen at a college like Muhlenberg, with a commitment to giving its students a well-rounded liberal arts education.
“It’s kind of the perfect liberal arts course,” Dwyer says. “We’re talking about social power — always. We’re talking about why transgression and rule-breaking exist. We’re incorporating science, psychology, sociology, anthropology, history. We’re employing analytical strategies and bringing together written expression and practical application.”
Drag’s deeper lessons — the ones Dwyer says his students have really taken to heart — are about self-perception, and the way people are defined by societal expectations, often against their will. The recent rash of suicide among gay teens has brought these lessons into sharp focus, he says.
“Drag is about holding up gender values that are okay, even though they may not be mainstream,” he says. “It’s okay if you're a girl who walks like a boy. It’s okay if you're a boy who doesn't want to play football. Drag celebrates the fact that some of us don't, or can't, be mainstream with our genders — and that holds true for straight kids as well as gay kids.”
For many students, the turning point in the semester was a screening of “Paris Is Burning,” Jennie Livingston’s 1990 documentary film about drag in New York’s underclass. The film documents the raucous “drag balls” of the 1980s, which for the participants, became a powerful expression of personal and community pride. Dwyer says the film helped bring home the significance of drag with the class.
“For some people, drag is a survival strategy. It’s drag or die,” he says. “After the film, I think the class started seeing that it’s not just fun. It’s not just glitter and being silly.”
For Ian Curtis — whose long-ago visit to the Stonewall quickly led to a part-time job as a dancer and assistant bartender — fear of drag has given way to greater acceptance, not just of drag queens but of himself.
“I look at Valeria as the part of me that’s misjudged,” he says. “Yes, I work at the Stonewall, and I’m flirtatious. But I also have morals and I have a mind. Deep down, both of us are just hopeless romantics who won’t take people’s BS.”
He’s still deciding between “Respect,” by Pink, and “If You Can Afford Me,” by Katy Perry, for his performance — songs he says are about standing up for yourself and being who you are. Either way, though, he’s confident.
“The class itself is very, very tight. We just have fun with it and don’t judge anyone. It’s been nice to be in such a judgment-free environment.” And that experience, in turn, has given him the confidence Schmidt says is so important to performing for an audience.
“And anyway,” Curtis says. “It’s not the performance that’s really the important part. It’s what the performance means — breaking the rules and showing what it means to be different. It’s not about being gay, straight, ‘emo,’ or whatever. It’s about being yourself.”
And for these students, it’s about finding out more about who you are by pretending to be someone else.
The “Of Kings and Queens” Final Exam Drag Show will be performed Thursday, Dec. 9, at 11:30 p.m., at the Stonewall, 28 N. 10th St., Allentown. Cover charge is $7. Patrons must be at least 18 years old, with valid I.D.
