I now have participated in my first ever drag show.

The Academy of Washington’s Miss Gaye Zodiac 2009 finals were held Sunday at the newly re-opened Zeigfeld’s in Southwest. I was not a contestant but Miss Veronica Blake, a friend of mine, was and asked for friend recruits to assist her in the Talent portion of the competition. I said I would do it if everybody else did, and the next thing we knew we were all on board.

There were two portions to the Zodiac show: Self-expression and Talent. For Self-expression contestants has to choose an animated character from a film; Ms. Blake chose Queen Grimhilde, the evil queen from Snow White. This was the solo part of the show and Ms. Blake really killed while on stage, getting lots of cheering from the audience. She was more composed and professional then the other competitors and the concept was flawlessly executed.

For the Talent portion of the show, contestants were allowed up to four supporting people to join them on stage, where they had to recreate a human non-animated character from a film (Veronica, is this correct?). Ms. Blake chose the Bride of Frankenstein. I was cast as Dr. Frankenstein, Goldy and Funbags as zombie back up singers and Don-a-thon cast as The Monster. Becker provided stage manager support.

Little did I know that the rehearsal blocking would entail me to be on stage the entire six minutes. Actually, I was the one that opened the set, because Ms. Blake was still behind gauze on the operating table. The music for the set starts a little early, before we have the strobe going so I have to jump out on stage and start my machinations. There is no time to be nervous now.

After The Bride’s unveiling and me lip-syncing the classic line “She’s Alive, ALIVE!!!!”, she and I go through our first number, Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me”, a tongue-in-cheek number as The Bride pronounces her independence from me, The Dr. An audio lighting/chain-dragging interlude and then The Bride launches into “My Boyfriend’s Back” where The Monster comes crashing through and slowly (stomp. stomp. stomp.) chases me around the stage. At this time the backup zombies reveal themselves and start shoop-shoop-shooping the “Hey-La” backup lyrics. Eventually I’m told to take a “permanent vacation” where I head down the stage’s runway, cowering, followed by The Bride & Monster, and end scene.

It was a hit from the get-go. The audience cheering, launching, screaming in support and apparently we got three standing ovations during the set. Those stage lights, they’re so bright, I couldn’t see what was going on in the audience. Probably a good thing though, to keep focused on my role.

At the end of the evening the buzz around the audience was that Ms. Blake was a shoo-in as crown winner, but it’s never final until it’s final. But when it came down the announcements, Ms. Blake was indeed crowned with the Zodiac 2009 title! It was fun to be on stage, being silly, and able to help out a friend.

The photos are taken from our pre-show, as once we needed to get into gear no one really had time to take any pictures. I’m waiting for a video of the set to be posted somewhere or on YouTube and I’ll update this once it’s live. If you have it, please post it!