Drag shows take root in central Wisconsin, Midwest
Once stigmatized, acts now part of mainstream
WISCONSIN RAPIDS – Sissy LaLa loomed tall as she walked purposefully across the stage at Hollyrocks in downtown Wisconsin Rapids, each step in sync with the beat of dance music.
She wore a gold wig, crimson lipstick, a black long-sleeved crop top, a highwaisted bikini bottom and shiny thighhigh boots with killer 4-inch stiletto heels. Gold chains jumped around her neck and waist. Bags decorated with dollar signs clung to her belt.
The crowd — already primed, raucous and energetic — erupted with cheers.
With a fierce expression that stopped just short of being a glare, Sissy LaLa strode into the audience, grabbed dollar bills from fans, and then tossed them across the stage with disdain.
Sissy LaLa is the drag persona of Ryan Goszkowicz, 23, of Stevens Point. Goszkowicz was one of eight drag queens who performed at Hollyrocks on June 29, when the downtown bar played
host to the second annual Wisconsin Rapids Pride Fundraiser Show. The event attracted a crowd of more than 400 partiers representing a range of sexual orientations, gender identities, races and sizes.
Ten years ago, no one could have predicted this would happen here. Wisconsin Rapids is a conservative, hardscrabble mill town of just fewer than 17,000 people located in the middle of Wisconsin farm country. And Hollyrocks is not a gay bar, although it is a venue that strives to be welcoming for all.
Drag performance is nothing new. The storyline of the 1998 movie “Shakespeare In Love” centered around the fact that women were not allowed to perform in public in the Elizabethan era, so men in drag played the part of female characters.
In the later half of the 20th century, drag was mostly performed in gay bars for predominantly gay audiences or in urban areas with substantial LGBTQ populations.
But over the last 15 years or so, drag has evolved from a niche specialty to mainstream entertainment. It attracts a wide variety of audiences on television (Hello, RuPaul!) and in welcoming-toall venues in small towns across America. In Wisconsin, drag shows have been staged in the past few months in Green Bay, Eau Claire, Wausau, Stevens Point and Rhinelander. Club owners and performers say that typically half the audience members are straight.
Drag is a lot more than men dressing as women and lip-syncing and dancing to pop songs. It can be an outlet for creative types who want to explore and share their LGBTQ identities. It can be a haven for gay people who yearn to connect to community. It can be a provocative means of expressing pride. It can be a vehicle for spreading a message of tolerance and love in a time when hate pops up like weeds.
Goszkowicz loves seeing straight people having fun at drag shows but also hopes they take the time to think about some of the deeper messages drag can send: that all people deserve respect, love and pride.
‘A whole different person.’
Wisconsin Rapids Pride was organized by Robert McGregor, a 37-year-old Rapids native who works part time at Hollyrocks. McGregor, who lives in New Lisbon, performs in drag as Kindu Abby, although he’s fairly new to the scene.
Neither McGregor nor Goszkowicz is a cross-dresser or yearns to be a woman, a common misconception about drag performers. Both love the theater, and drag has become a way for them to express themselves on stage as characters who are strong women with exaggerated makeup and wigs.
“I’m having a blast (being Kindu Abby),” McGregor said. “It’s opened up a whole new character, a whole new side of me. You get to be a whole different person.”
It took time for McGregor to decide to perform in drag. But it also took time for him to even face the fact that he was gay.
He thought he had “weird kinks or tendencies,” but the thought of being gay was scary and intimidating.
“It wasn’t socially acceptable yet,” McGregor said. “Anything that was different, when we were growing up, you got picked on.”
It was only after he graduated from Lincoln High School in 2000 and went off to college at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh that McGregor faced head-on the fact that he was gay and came out. He went to his first drag show at age 21 at the Oz Nightclub, a gay/nontraditional bar in Wausau, and it intrigued him. But the pull of drag wasn’t strong enough for him to get on stage in a wig, makeup and a dress.
It wasn’t until McGregor was a bartender a few years ago at Oz that he finally decided to give drag a try.
It resonated with McGregor, all of it: The dressing up, the makeup, the stage performance, taking on an alter-ego.
Oz has been hosting drag shows since the 1980s, and McGregor found plenty of people there to help him learn the nuances. One of those people showing McGregor the way was Rob Jensen, 47, of Wausau. Jensen is an Oz drag show regular, performing as a sassy pop singer called Mercedes.
Jensen, who is gay, first started doing drag at Oz in the mid-1990s. He’s a shy, quiet person, and he got his start by getting onstage as himself to participate in an informal lip-syncing show. After that, one of the then-owners of Oz told him he needed to do drag. Shortly after that, Mercedes was born.
For Jensen, being Mercedes is about performing, music and having fun.
“When I’m being Mercedes, I’m a completely different person,” Jensen said.
It’s hard for Jensen to talk to strangers and meet new people. Mercedes has helped Jensen break out of his shell and make friends.
‘This is an everybody event.’
Stevens Point’s first drag show in about 10 years happened in January at Main Street Taps, a downtown bar and restaurantowned by Cory Lesperance.
Main Street Taps, like Hollyrocks, is not a gay bar.
“We didn’t know how it would go over,” Lesperance said.
For space reasons and to make sure Main Street Taps workers could accommodate the crowd, tickets to the event were limited to 300.
The show sold out in less than a halfhour, catching Lesperance by surprise.
“It truly was amazing how fast the tickets sold,” he said. “And the only negative comments we had were from people who wanted to attend but couldn’t.”
The event itself also surprised Lesperance. The performances were high-caliber; the audience was enthusiastic. Everybody had a great time, and the event was good for Lesperance’s bottom line.
“This isn’t a gay event,” he said. “This is an everybody event . ... It was extremely fun and extremely high energy.”
Main Street Taps hosted another drag show, holding two performances in one evening at the end of April.
A third will be held Saturday with performances at 7 and 10:30 p.m. Sissy LaLa will be one of seven performers.
No one can say whether the popularity of drag leads to a greater overall acceptance of LGBTQ people. But there’s no denying that it has helped lead to a greater awareness of the issues.
It also means that drag itself has changed. When Jensen first started performing in the mid-1990s, the audiences at Oz Nightclub were primarily gay.
Jensen took a hiatus for about four years starting in 2008 when he left Wausau for a job. When he returned in 2012, the vibe had changed.
“I was like, where are all the gay people?” Jensen said.
The shows have become a little less raunchy, a little less crazy. But maybe, he said, it all could lead to a better understanding between people.