The University of Richmond’s Student Center for Equity and Inclusion, along with SpiderBoard and Health Promotions, hosted its annual Drag Night on Oct. 19 in the Current, drawing a crowd of over 200 attendees.
Students gathered to enjoy pizza and watch numerous drag performances and lip-sync battles.
The event kicked off with drag queen co-hosts Grace Wetpants and Cik Batik, a student at UR, strutting onto the stage and introducing the evening to an audience eagerly awaiting the first act.
Four drag queens lit up the stages giving dramatic performances to songs such as “Gasolina” by Daddy Yankee and “Rush” by Troye Sivan, setting up an exciting night.
Performers boasted in sparkly bodysuits and brightly colored wigs, which the crowd followed with loud cheers as each act walked the stage.
“All of the drag queens were just phenomenal,” said first-year Seth O’Donnell. “The entire evening was just stunning.”
The audience steadily grew in size as students stopped to watch as they walked through the Tyler Haynes Commons and The Cellar. Even students working at the Center for Student Involvement desk paused their work to snap a few pictures of the event.
That was exactly what the event planners were aiming for.
“We hoped that students would stumble upon Drag Night while going about their weekend,” said Casey Butler, associate director of LGBTQ+ Life at UR.
Drag Night is one of SCEI’s biggest events as it requires in-depth planning, and every detail is put under a microscope.
“We start planning months ahead of time,” Butler said. “We have to get the performers, prepare the venue, and do promotion. There’s a lot that goes into it.”
Wetpants has assisted Butler in the tedious process of finding performers for the event for three years, emphasizing the importance of diversity.
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“We want to make sure we have diversity amongst our performers. Ethnicity, gender, body size, drag queens, drag kings, we want everything,” Butler said.
Wetpants said it was important to showcase variety in the performances.
“It’s all about who’s the dancing queen, who’s the stunt queen, who’s theatrical,” Wetpants said. “We want to make sure we don’t have a bunch of queens doing the same thing.”
Batik is also heavily involved in the planning. She first hosted her sophomore year and returned this year as not only a host, but also a performer.
Batik gave a strong and bold performance in front of her fellow students.
“Everyone has been so supportive and that has been really reassuring,” Batik said. “I think it feels safe for me because a lot of the people in the audience, well, I know them.”
Beyond bringing a fun, upbeat feel to campus on a Saturday night, the organizers want the event to help UR become more inclusive.
“I think it’s important for queer students to see that they are represented, especially at a place like UR that is not historically queer,” Wetpants said.
The event was not only organized for LQBTQ+ students.
“I think it’s really important for straight students to see the depth and breadth of excitement in our community,” Butler said. “It’s important that queer and straight students have opportunities to see things like this.”
Batik feels that the campus has become more inclusive in her time at UR and that the queer community having visibility is essential to that.
“I never saw students doing things like this when I was an underclassman, so I feel happy that I’m boosting representation,” Batik said.
Contact Lifestyle Editor Abigail Finney at abigail.finney@richmond.edu.
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