GSA president Kelsey Capoferri said her group planned “a lot in a little amount of time,” working hard to make it a big event. They wanted to use the drag show to help promote their club, and incorporated the Halloween theme to reach more people in the student community.
“GSA has been known for having a really bad reputation,” Capoferri said. “It was really unorganized. We wanted an opportunity to show that GSA is really organized and a really good club, and wanted to put our name back out there.”
All attendees were encouraged to dress up, either in drag or other Halloween costumes. The show wasn’t just a fundraiser for GSA, but also a charity fundraiser for the Diversity Center to help with domestic violence awareness. Students got $1 off their tickets for the drag show by either donating a can of food or a recycled cell phone.
The lineup was a mixture of GSA members alongside a group of professional drag queens who reached out to GSA to help them fill spots in the show, which consisted of songs being either sung or lip-synced. The song selections ranged from Nicki Minaj to the Pokemon theme song. The group’s closing number was “Lady Marmalade.”
Capoferri said she believes that GSA, which presently has about 40 members, has a lot of organized support this year to make more events happen. She also said they had a lot of support from other clubs and organizations this year, and are even trying to collaborate on events for the future.
WSU’s Performing Arts Associated AAT (Actors and Technicians) invited them to perform CaBOOret, the club’s open-microphone event, the night before the drag show in order to help promote it. The group chose to do their closing number, and four of the GSA members, including Capoferri, geared up in burlesque-themed outfits and danced to “Lady Marmalade” in front of the whole CaBOOret crowd.
“What they did, it was completely zany and fun and didn’t apologize for itself, and they were just who they are, and they showed that so well and fearlessly,” said Sean Bishop, a WSU student attending the show. “That’s what I find admirable about them. They made everyone laugh; they got up there and they did it, and that’s a big step ahead of the pack.”
Other clubs and organizations that have collaborated with GSA are the current Greek associations and the Environmental Club, which GSA is going to accompany to a protest in the next few weeks. They’ve also united with LGBT Initiatives, which is a federally funded program with an organization at WSU that is a support to the LGBT community.
Musical theater senior Stephanie Jameson said she enjoyed the performance, particularly the closing number.
“They all seemed to want to be there, and they were really good at playing the audience,” Jameson said. “They weren’t afraid to just go out there.”
Jameson said she believes it’s beneficial as a student to attend diverse events in order to meet a new spread of people with different beliefs and thoughts on different social issues.
“I think it’s really cool when you can do anything like that for fun and for unity like GSA, and any time you can unite different groups of students is kind of exciting,” Jameson said.
Capoferri’s plan for GSA in the future is to “build back the organization’s name, continue cooperating with different programs, and to create a support system for students that may need it.”
“It’s really important to know that there are people there that can help you out,” Capoferri said, “because apparently there’s over 1,000 students here that identify as part of the LGBT spectrum, and it’s just a shame that we haven’t heard of these people. I just really want GSA to be seen as an accomplished club. That’s my goal as president this year, to get it back up on its feet.”
