Drag queen story hour to celebrate diversity
Library hosting kids event in honor of Pulse anniversary
Drag queens, children’s storytime and the Pulse nightclub shooting have little in common at first blush.
But the three will come together next month when the Orange County Public Library hosts its first Drag Queen Storytime.
The event is one of several designed to remember the 49 people killed last year in the shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando. The city, Orange County and Pulse have designated the anniversary of the killings — June 12 — as “Orlando United Day — A Day of Love and Kindness.”
“It’s in keeping with the theme of the day: loving kindness and inclusion,” library spokeswoman Erin Sullivan said. “It just seemed like the timing was right.”
Miss Sammy — aka Sam Singhaus — is one of the readers. On Tuesday nights, the character performs a bawdy show called Twisted Sisters Bingo at Hamburger Mary’s restaurant and bar in downtown Orlando.
The library performance, however, will be G-rated.
“I think that children are so open to new things and they don’t have the prejudice and bias people seem to have when they get to be adults,” said Singhaus, an Orlando native who performed in the original Broadway version of the musical “La Cage Aux Folles” and danced at Radio City Music Hall. “They’re still their imagination.”
Drag queen story hours began in 2015 in San Francisco when writer Michelle Tea came up with the idea. She was promoting LGBT art and culture in the Castro district — the heart of the gay community — when she took her baby son to a garden-variety storytime at a library and decided to meld the two worlds.
“Children love characters — princesses, unicorns, magicians, clowns,” she said from her new home in Los Angeles. “So what could be more fun than a giant walking princess reading stories?”
Soon, libraries in Brooklyn and other New York City neighborhoods were hosting their own rainbow-hued storytimes. in awe of