Pipers braved the rain on Saturday, March 29, for the highly anticipated Drag Bingo night hosted by the Hamline University Programming Board (HUPB) in partnership with the newly founded Everything Drag Club.
Despite the dreary weather outside, the inside of Bush Ballroom was alive with delightful purple decorations, an array of tables covered with snacks, charms and stickers, while the stage lit up ready for the drag queens to start the night off. To the left of the stage stood the prize table, with bundles to be awarded to the bingo winners. Prize bundles included a self care bundle, a board game bundle, a reader’s bundle and more, as well as the secret tech mystery bundle set to be the last prize of the night.
Once drag queens Lala Luzious and Jamie Monroe took the stage, the night was full of hilarious bingo calls, raunchy humor and even three performances by the queens. Luzious had the first performance with spectacular choreography set to a medley of Lizzo songs, dressed in a beautiful yellow coat that was thrown to reveal a dazzling yellow leotard. Monroe turned the room into a jazz club with a sultry performance of “Habits" by Postmodern Jukebox, wearing a sparkling blue dress and luxurious gray scarf. For the final number, the queens performed together, channeling Beyonce and Miley Cyrus to their duet song “II Most Wanted.”
“I love the lighting so much,” first-year Max Oliver-Machuca said. “Me and Macy were talking about … like especially during the performance, the spotlight, eating it up. I love all the purple and the snacks.”
Oliver-Machuca and sophomore Macy Ramsden enjoyed both the setup of the event as well as the spectacular performances.
“I am loving it. I love a drag event, it always brings the energy up,” Ramsden said. “The queens are great. I mean they were here last year, and I really liked them, and now they’re back. The performances are awesome, I like that they have two very different styles, so they work well together.”
Co-founder of Everything Drag Club, first-year Liam Schrom, assisted HUPB in setting up the event. Schrom hopes that this event will raise visibility for the new club.
“I brought in a bunch of brochures for [the Everything] Drag Club, that described what drag is, how to get started and history and stuff. It's really fun,” Schrom said. “The message behind [the Everything] Drag Club is we want to support student artists, push drag into the mainstream, destigmatize it and educate people on what it is, and that anyone can do it, and how to do it is so broad and not limited to one way and it’s so fun, so come join us.”
This is the second year that queens Luzious and Monroe have hosted Drag Bingo at Hamline, and they are happy to be back.
“Honestly, it’s so lovely to be invited back. And working with a lot of the same people that we did last year, it’s been so wonderful. It’s been wonderful both years. I love this place,” Monroe said.
Luzious was excited to see that students organized the event.
“I love that students are putting together events. That’s the way I got into drag, a student-led and organized event. I think it’s great that young people are doing that. Because event planning and show planning it takes so many different skills. And it’s an opportunity to work together,” Luzious said.
Both Luzious and Monroe shared what they hope college students get out of seeing drag live.
“I hope drag, watching drag, or being around drag, makes people more comfortable with being themselves,” Luzious said. “I know that when you are at this age, you are figuring yourself out, and that requires a lot of space, and at times being vulnerable and uncomfortable, and I think showing up in spaces and being … not being an outlandish character but an overemphasized character and when people are in that space with you, it sort of gives them permission to be more of themselves and I hope that they take advantage of that.”
Monroe hopes students not only have fun while watching drag performances, but also understand the greater cultural and societal aspects behind the art.
“[I hope] that they get more of an understanding of actually what it is. That’s it's not just playing dress up, and it’s not just dirty jokes,” Monroe said, “But what it comes down to is the art of drag, but also the community and the politics of drag. That's what I want them to get, the politics of what we’re doing. It’s brave.”
